Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) Works to Fight Housing Discrimination

By: Joseph Guzman

Cronkite Special to AZLatinos.com

Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) is working alongside the City of Phoenix to fight housing discrimination with a program called the Fair Housing and Education Outreach Program, the group organizer said.

“We seek to create an Arizona in which every person enjoys equal rights, opportunities and protections,” Housing organizer for the grass roots organization, Jesus Gonzalez said.

LUCHA was awarded a grant from the City of Phoenix in May 2015 to provide outreach and education around fair housing issues that traditionally target underserved populations such as Latinos, refugees, and those in the LGBTQ communities. “These groups are statistically less likely to report potential discrimination to a government agency,” Gonzalez stated.

Because of the large Latino population in Phoenix, the Latino community has been a priority since LUCHA has found more discriminatory cases in those communities.

“We have prioritized our Latino community when it comes to outreaching and hosting community events. A great majority of all housing discrimination cases happening in Phoenix are to Latinos,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez added that with some cases of housing discrimination, landlords abuse a tenant’s legal status to threaten and provide lamentable living conditions to individuals. The goal of the fair housing program is to reduce this type of housing discrimination in Phoenix; but more importantly, the goal is to encourage the Latino community to report these cases.

Gonzalez said that the City of Phoenix investigates all housing discrimination reports that LUCHA directs to them and has worked directly with LUCHA in many housing projects where tenants have been victims of housing discrimination by providing resources to organize community forums, informative fairs, neighborhood cleanups, and to create block watches.

The mission of the project is to increase overall awareness of fair housing rights and common discriminatory practices, and to increase reporting of illegal housing practices.

“The City of Phoenix has been very involved in all of our housing discrimination events, giving answers to our community’s questions and concerns,” Gonzalez said.

According to Gonzalez, Latinos and refugees have benefited the most from this program since its start in 2015.

“A lot of these government programs are intended to help minorities, yet most of the time these services are not in their language. This program has been able to assist Latinos and refugees in their respective languages,” Gonzalez said.

LUCHA has a 14-month contract that ends in May 2016; and depending on how the program is going, the city will decide if it wants to keep working with the organization.

The organization has future plans to eliminate housing discrimination, promote economic opportunity, and achieve diverse, inclusive communities. LUCHA ultimately wants to break the trust barriers between minorities and our government agencies.

“Minorities, especially Latinos, are afraid of reporting discrimination cases in Phoenix because of retaliation or because of their status. It’s worth mentioning that all information provided to the city is confidential and legal status is never questioned,” Gonzalez said.

For more information on Living United for Change in Arizona, visit luchaaz.org