Recent investigations at Design Place near Miami’s Little Haiti and Design District neighborhoods, Creek Club near Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, Nile Gardens near North Miami, and Aventura Harbor near North Miami Beach have shown just how prevalent housing discrimination still is…

Day in and day out, based out of offices near Miami Shores in Miami-Dade and Sunrise in Broward, HOPE’s staff is fighting discrimination by letting people know their rights, doing complaint intake, and giving referrals to services and resources. Sometimes, this work leads to investigations and lawsuits, and from the tail end of 2014 through the fall of 2015, HOPE filed four separate lawsuits against apartment owners for racial discrimination. But please note: housing discrimination is also illegal in home sales (in addition to rentals) and illegal for a host of reasons in addition to race (listed on the back of this newsletter).

In December of 2014, a HOPE filed a lawsuit against Design Place Apartments for practices aimed to keep Black people from living there, after already suing them in 2012 for the same offense. Multiple investigations at this complex – located at 5175 NE 2nd Court in Miami, where the neighborhoods of Little Haiti and the Design District meet – have revealed that potential tenants frequently get different treatment, depending on their race.

Then, over the following ten months, HOPE brought similar lawsuits against Creek Club (at 1441 NW 19 St., near Jackson Hospital), Nile Gardens (at 12750 NW 27 Ave., near Miami Dade College’s North Campus), and Aventura Harbor (at 19455 NE 10th Ave, near Aventura Mall). During its 28-year history, HOPE has been instrumental in recovering more than $12 million in settling such lawsuits.

We’ll keep fighting discrimination, and we welcome YOUR help in finding where it’s happening!