UC graduate LaTonya Springs fights for housing equality in Cincinnati

This passion led them to HOME, or Housing Opportunities Made Equal. HOME's mission is to fight discrimination in the Cincinnati area's housing market. HOME has been around since 1959 and nine years later saw the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which gave them the foundation to implement their plan.

“We are a fair housing agency. Our main mission is that we believe that people should be able to live where they want. I oversee this whole department and in this department we have two investigators who take complaints from people in the community who feel they have been discriminated against in their search for housing.”

Springs learned early on that housing is one of the most important issues in Cincinnati, but since starting at HOME, she's seen so many cases of housing inequality that she and her team have found ways to find these discrimination issues without people reporting them.

“I am the community liaison for HOME and have a large community presence in the area, so I get a lot of calls about housing issues because I have been in this industry for 17 years. Since joining HOME, I have filed over 400 cases and recovered nearly $2.2 million for HOME and its clients.

“I oversee a team, we call them super-secret shoppers. They go out and test the market. So sometimes we don't have complaints, but we may hear about certain areas where we need to make sure everyone is treated equally,” she says.

“We offer a mediation service where we resolve disputes between landlords and residents. We offer training to take complaints about problems from landlords, whether to the health department or the building control authority, particularly when landlords feel that their properties do not comply with regulations.”