Working under public policy attorney and Fredman Foundation Practitioner-in-Residence Alexander Rundlet, law students at the Center for Ethics and Public Service facilitated the opening of a systemic housing discrimination investigation under the federal Fair Housing Act, a by the Region IV Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD opened the investigation and is the product of years of research and investigation by CEPS law student fellows, interns, and staff.
The investigation probes the City of Miami's longstanding pattern of discriminatory zoning actions that disproportionately impact residents of the Coconut Grove Village West Community or "Little Bahamas," a historically Black Miami community.
CEPS is collaborating with Community Justice Project, Inc., a Miami-based movement lawyering and grassroots organization, representing the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance, the Coconut Grove Village West Homeowners and Tenants Association, and Grove Rights and Community Equity in connection with the HUD investigation. The HUD investigation is based on a complaint submitted by CEPS and CJP on behalf of CMGA, HOATA, and GRACE, alleging that the City's land use, zoning, eviction, and demolition practices have caused the mass displacement of Coconut Grove Village West residents and the destruction of this vital Miami community. The complaint further alleges that these actions are further contributing to the "resegregation" of Miami in violation of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
"Black Coconut Grove Village West residents were subject to displacement by disparate degrees and measures that were not similarly experienced by white residents," Rundlet said. "These Black residents were, moreover, displaced into communities that ended up being as much or even more segregated than before."
According to the information supplied by CEPS and CJP to facilitate the opening of the systemic housing discrimination investigation, 162 Black residents of Village West were evicted from 18 multifamily properties throughout the neighborhood after developers bought them up in response to zoning and land use actions taken by the City of Miami. The tracts of land were rezoned in 2010, and investors purchased the covered lots over the next decade and a half, causing the mass eviction of Coconut Village West residents.
The information supplied by CEPS and CJP on behalf of Coconut Village West residents caused the July 2024 opening of a formal investigation by HUD to determine if the City has violated the federal Fair Housing Act. Violating the act would put the City of Miami at risk of losing federal funding for housing projects under HUD's Community Development Block Grant Program. The program, of which Miami is a recipient, requires grantees not to participate in discriminatory housing practices.
Since the opening of the investigation in July 2024, the Office of Fair Housing Equal Opportunity has assigned an investigator who has been gathering information from Coconut Grove Village West residents, City of Miami officials, and other sources to determine whether violations of the Fair Housing Act have occurred or are occurring. CEPS and CJP have furnished extensive information—gathered over the past several years by CEPS fellows, interns, and staff to support HUD's determination that Fair Housing Act violations have occurred and continue to occur. If HUD determines that Fair Housing Act violations have occurred, HUD will initiate a conciliation process that seeks to formulate remedies to address the violations.
"Working on the fair housing complaint as a law student at CEPS was some of the most challenging, but rewarding, legal work I have done to date," said Benjamin Brooks, J.D. '23, who is now an anti-poverty advocate in North Carolina. "As part of our work, we had to reconstruct the entire historical factual narrative and create new legal arguments for the complaint, invaluable skills for young people entering the legal profession. But more importantly, our work taught us that legal issues are only 'real' because they involve real places, real people, and their real stories; we don't just get to represent them, we get to stand with them."
As HUD seeks to determine whether violations of the Fair Housing Act have occurred and are occurring, CEPS fellows and CJP lawyers continue to work with Coconut Grove Village West community members in connection with the conciliation process to formulate and propose remedies to HUD that will address the displacement of Village West residents and the destruction of this vital, historic community.
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