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0 <br />City of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 2 <br />88 n 88 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice <br />2.1 Why Fair Housing is Important to the Community <br />Communities need to consider fair housing issues at least as importantly as economic and <br />other issues. It is important to encourage residents to actively support and work toward an <br />equal housing market, Housing discrimination tears at the very fabric, of the community. <br />It encourages an environment where disputes escalate, sends out a message of apathy, <br />leads to segregated neighborhoods, perpetuates other housing problems and causes <br />financial loss to the community through lost business opportunities. In assuring equal <br />housing, a community makes its development and growth more successful. <br />The perceptions that fair housing laws are meant for "Blacks and Hispanics" or other <br />minorities are misguided. Fair housing regulations protect every citizen and non - citizens <br />of the United States, no matter their race, color, national origin, sex, religion, familial status <br />(presence of children) or disability. These categories are known as protected classes. <br />Because a community has a small minority population, it does not mean that they do not <br />have impediments to fair housing within their community. A good way to recognize <br />impediments is to ask some simple questions: <br />✓ How does the rental market treat families with children, especially single parents? <br />✓ What access do individuals with physical or mental disabilities have to housing? <br />✓ Are regulations designed in a way that limit access to housing for protected classes? <br />✓ What image does the community convey to the outside world? Are the models used <br />to market the community representative of all races? <br />✓ Do some areas within the community have a reputation that would discourage low - <br />moderate income persons or protected classes from attempting to live there? <br />✓ With the pressure of a growing urban area, are minorities or low to moderate - <br />income persons unable to consider significant areas in their housing search because <br />there is no affordable housing? <br />✓ Are any potential home owners eliminating some affordable areas of the community <br />because they would not be able to refinance or obtain adequate home owner's <br />insurance? <br />✓ Are some affordable areas of the community eliminated because there is inadequate <br />access by public transportation? <br />It is important for the City of Cuyahoga Falls to consider fair housing law as a guaranteed <br />protection for all people. Only then can the community help its residents share in an <br />important part of the American Dream - living where they choose, without regard to factors <br />that may negatively impact upon them because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, <br />familial status or disability. <br />2.2 The Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI) <br />