Housing Research & Advocacy Center

Housing Research & Advocacy Center, doing business as Fair Housing Center For Rights & Research, is a Cleveland-based tax-exempt nonprofit that operates as a federal grant recipient focused on fair housing education, discrimination investigation, and community outreach. The organization receives project grants as a prime recipient from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity under the Fair Housing Organization Initiatives and Private Enforcement Initiatives programs (CFDA 14.417), and also participates in the federal grant ecosystem as a sub-recipient on fair housing-related sub-awards.

The Center's capability portfolio centers on fair housing discrimination detection, victim referral, and public education. Prime grant work includes a $125,000 Fair Housing Organization Initiatives award obligated March 20, 2026, with a performance period through March 19, 2027, funding education and public awareness activities designed to inform the public about rights under the Fair Housing Act and equivalent state and local laws. An August 1, 2024 award supported a multimodal campaign including 12 housing discrimination complaints referred to HUD/FHAP agencies, a radio advertising campaign reaching 100,000 listeners, a billboard campaign generating 350,000 views, and eight print and digital fair housing advertisements addressing source-of-income discrimination, environmental justice, and discriminatory credit and criminal background denial practices. A June 15, 2024 award funded 20 fair housing trainings and outreach events (400 people trained), 10 print advertisements (250,000 views), 12 digital social-media ads (12,000 views), one PSA campaign (1,000,000 views), and distribution of translated fair housing guides for seniors and "Know Your Rights" materials in English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese to faith community and immigrant-serving organizations.

Customer concentration is extreme: all 17 prime awards and all identifiable activity derive from HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Combined dollars obligated across all 25 awards (prime plus eight sub-awards) total $7.8 million since 2007. Activity is irregular year to year — six awards in 2022, two in 2023, five in 2024, then one each in 2025 and 2026 — with only one award facing ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and therefore presenting minimal recompete exposure in that window. Sub-award work includes fair housing complaint investigation, systemic discrimination analysis, fair housing services delivery, and analysis-of-impediments reporting (as evidenced by a sub-award funding an update to the City of Akron Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing report, last updated in 2013). The organization has no federal contract (prime or subcontract) footprint and operates exclusively within the HUD grant environment.