West Tennessee Legal Services Receives $1.2M Federal Grant

WASHINGTON – West Tennessee Legal Services received two of 108 fair-housing grants to educate the public and “combat housing and lending discrimination,” according to today’s announcement by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

West Tennessee Legal Services, with offices in Jackson, Dyersburg, Selmer and Huntingdon, serves Madison, Decatur, Gibson, Hardeman, Haywood, Henderson, Crockett, Dyer, Lake, Obion, Benton. Carroll, Henry, Weakley, Chester, McNairy and Hardin counties.

Grants totaling $40.8 million announced today went to 36 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to the $1.2 million going to West Tennessee Legal Services, the Nashville-based Tennessee Fair Housing Council will receive $275,000 and the Fair Housing Center of the Gulf Coast Region of Mississippi will receive $325,000.

Steven Xanthopoulos, executive director of West Tennessee Legal Services, said the grants will be used to employ a full range of advocacy for clients alleging discrimination in housing. The larger of the two grants -- for $957,166 -- will be used to partner with North Carolina Legal Services to provide its staff with training in fair-housing advocacy, he said.

Source: The Commercial Appeal, March 1, 2011