“Eyes on the Prize and Noses to the Grindstone”: Highlights from Fair Housing Month 2025
By: Nick Adjami
May 14, 2025
Every April, the ERC celebrates Fair Housing Month with resource fairs, community forums, educational webinars, and our Annual Members Meeting. This year, we hosted or participated in 20 fair housing events, reaching over 500 residents, stakeholders, and housing professionals. Our events touched every corner of our service area, from D.C. to Dundalk, MD, Fairfax County, VA, and Morgantown, WV.
On April 25, our community came together for the ERC Annual Meeting, Weathering the Storm: Protecting Civil Rights in 2025. At the event, we uplifted our shared commitment to civil rights in the face of unprecedented opposition. ERC Executive Director Kate Scott reminded us of valuable qualities the ERC brings to the current moment: creativity, resilience, and an unshakeable commitment to justice. These qualities are echoed and amplified by the support of our membership.
We were thrilled to present awards to four people who have played key roles in our fair housing achievements—in 2024 and over the years.
Advocate for Change awards went to Ms. C and Ms. M, two former ERC clients who reached meaningful settlements with a D.C. housing provider that they alleged facilitated persistent and pervasive racist and sexist harassment. Ultimately, the housing provider agreed to implement policy changes, re-train staff, and pay financial penalties. You can learn more about discriminatory harassment and our clients’ case in this video.
Sara Pratt received this year’s Impact for Equality award in recognition of her long career as a fierce civil rights advocate. As a lawyer at Relman Colfax, she worked to dismantle systemic barriers to housing and credit, and we had the pleasure of working with her on some recent fair housing cases. Sara has also generously mentored generations of fair housing leaders.
Finally, Brian Corman received our Partner in Progress award. We recognized Brian, a partner at Cohen Milstein, for his vigorous, creative representation of the ERC in a key case in which we challenged overly broad tenant screening requirements in 2024.
At the meeting, Sara reminded us to keep our eyes on the prize and our noses to the grindstone to overcome opposition to civil rights advocacy and enforcement. Awardees received personalized framed prints of artwork by local artist C.S. Corbin depicting the diverse and vibrant Bloomingdale neighborhood of D.C.
Finally, we hosted a listening session for local residents and community advocates to voice their concerns about the biggest fair housing challenges facing the region. We’re working to use the feedback we received to help guide our priorities over the coming year.
Thank you again to all who attended the Annual Meeting or participated in our other Fair Housing Month offerings. Throughout April, we reached over 500 residents, stakeholders, and housing professionals in all corners of our service area. Fair Housing Month is over, but the ERC’s work to advance and uphold fair housing principles is ongoing. We’ll continue to share fair housing resources and commentary, online and at in-person events. Sign up to receive email updates from us to stay informed, and see more photos from the event below.
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The ERC is a civil rights organization that identifies and seeks to eliminate unlawful and unfair discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations in its home community of Greater Washington DC and nationwide. The ERC’s core strategy for identifying unlawful and unfair discrimination is civil rights testing. When the ERC identifies discrimination, it seeks to eliminate it through the use of testing data to educate the public and business community, support policy advocacy, conduct compliance testing and training, and, if necessary, take enforcement action. For more information, please visit www.equalrightscenter.org.
The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Government.
