(April 17, 2025) This April, Welcome Home Westchester is recognizing Fair Housing Month, a time to commemorate the 1968 Fair Housing Act. This law, passed as part of the Civil Rights Act, made it illegal to discriminate during housing transactions.
Welcome Home Westchester is a multi-stakeholder advocacy effort consisting of business and nonprofit leaders, academics, think tanks, faith leaders and community advocates working together to drive a new public conversation around building the housing we need in Westchester County.
Equitable housing is crucial, especially as the county’s municipalities struggle to address the massive housing shortage. Regional Plan Association (RPA) estimates that Westchester requires 11,7000 new units of affordable housing just to meet present-day demand and tens of thousands more to meet future demand over the next decade.
Welcome Home Westchester partners weighed in on the importance of Fair Housing Month as we continue to address the housing scarcity:
Jan Fisher, Nonprofit Westchester Executive Director: “Nonprofit Westchester is proud to be part of the Welcome Home Westchester campaign, amplifying the efforts of nonprofits that work to ensure that the voices of those most affected by the housing crisis—families and individuals in urgent need of affordable housing—are heard. As the advocate for Westchester’s nonprofit sector, we are committed to advancing collaborative efforts that develop solutions to provide safe, accessible, and affordable homes for everyone in our community.”
Kate Slevin, Regional Plan Association Executive Vice President: “Westchester’s housing challenges aren’t isolated—they’re a vital part of the region’s broader need for equitable, inclusive growth. At Regional Plan Association, we’ve long recognized that expanding access to affordable homes in Westchester strengthens the entire metropolitan area by reducing displacement, improving access to jobs and supporting a more sustainable future for all.”
Timothy Foley, The Building & Realty Institute (BRI) of Westchester and the Mid-Hudson Region CEO and Executive Vice President: “For too much of our history, your race, color, religion, sex, family status, national origin, or disability would have a major impact on where you could find safe, dignified, and affordable housing for your family. As we know from books like “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” so much of the mid-century preference for excluding all but single-family homes on so much of our land was as much about keeping out types of people as it was about keeping out certain types of housing. It is inconceivable that today’s homeowners and local officials would agree with the discriminatory viewpoints, but too much of our zoning is still achieving the results it was designed to achieve while creating a housing shortage that hurts everyone. We believe through education and awareness, today’s decision makers can make different, better choices leading to fairer housing options for all our residents.”
Michael N. Romita, Westchester County Association President and CEO: You can’t maintain a healthy economy if teachers, first responders, nurses, accountants, engineers, and other working-class folks can’t afford to live in your community. And you can’t cultivate a real community if young professionals, the elderly, and those with special needs go underserved. We need a sustainable housing policy to keep the economy strong.”
John T. Cooney, Jr., Construction Industry Council of Westchester and Hudson Valley Inc., Executive Director: “Westchester is in the middle of an extreme housing shortage; with no supply of fair and equitable housing our work force will continue to shrink. We need an increase of workforce housing to retain and attract our present and future workforce. If we cannot create the sorely needed workforce housing, corporations will be moving out of the area and our level of private investment and corporate tax base will shrink. The remaining residents of Westchester will be left to make up the shrinking tax base.”
Richard Nightingale, Westhab, Inc., President & CEO: “Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue the housing option that suits them best, and everyone deserves a place to call home. During Fair Housing Month, we should all double down on our goal of a housing sector free from discrimination and bias.”
At the state level, residents are protected under the New York State Human Rights Law. Over the past year, the NYS Division of Human Rights reported awarding $321,000 in financial compensation to victims who have filed housing discrimination complaints. To date in 2025, an additional $137,000 has been awarded to victims.