The sign says “For rent.” But if you know the drill, you know they won’t rent to you. And then you’re humiliated again— another rejection due to unfair treatment.
Every day, Americans are discriminated against based on race, age, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation and family status. Renting or buying real estate becomes nearly impossible due to discriminatory profiling. In response to this underreported issue, the Toledo Fair Housing Center has collaborated with WGTE on the documentary Fair Housing: A Place to Call Home to showcase available protection from housing discrimination.
Spreading a Message
The documentary will be screened as part of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library’s Film Focus Film Festival in celebration of the 49th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Fair Housing: A Place to Call Home seeks to enhance awareness of human rights and equal housing opportunity in Toledo.
Produced in 2015 as part of the 40th year celebration of the Toledo Fair Housing Center, A Place to Call Home recognizes the history and legacy of the local agency in the national housing movement.
Toledo Fair Housing Center’s Director of Communications and Outreach, Sarah Jenkins, is hoping the film’s message helps people understand the impact of TFHC as a small agency.
“Toledo paved the way for equal housing for the entire country,” Jenkins said. “The place you came from [Toledo] played a huge role in the civil rights movement.”
Advocating Justice
The Toledo Fair Housing Center, founded in 1975 by the Women of the Old West End, a group dedicated to helping Northwest Ohio’s low income neighborhoods thrive, was focused on creating opportunity and stability for people living in Toledo and surrounding areas.
Four decades later, this agency has remained rooted in their mission to help end housing discrimination and provide guidance to those in need of assistance. Forty years have shown us that, while the housing scene is constantly changing, ending segregated living patterns will only make for a more accepting and open community.
“We have come so far and we have accomplished so many great things,” Jenkins explains. “There are still a lot of barriers for people and recognizing the role you can play, depending on the position you have in the community.”
To raise awareness, the twenty minute short will be screened in the McMaster Center at the downtown Library. A panel discussion will follow the film. Fair Housing: A Place To Call Home.
7-9pm. Monday, April, 24.
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library | 325 N. Michigan St.
419-259-5200. toledolibrary.org Free
