The primary geographic focus of HERA’s direct consumer education and client services work is the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, including Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and other surrounding areas. Statewide, HERA provides technical assistance, trainings and other capacity building services to a wide range of organizations. As part of its overall mission, HERA seeks out various sources of funding to meet its goals to provide many of its services at little or no cost. For example, limited, over the phone advice and counseling services to agencies and consumers are free. However, more in-depth services (i.e., for agency training, technical consultation and capacity building) are provided on a fee for service basis. Please contact us for information. Specifically, in the areas of both fair housing and predatory lending, HERA offers the services listed below.
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Consumer and public education

Legal services to individuals and fair housing agencies (including impact litigation)

Training for legal professionals, fair housing and mortgage counseling agencies and other service providers

 

Technical assistance and capacity building services to agencies and service providers

Research and documentation of fair housing and predatory lending abuses

Legislative and policy advocacy

Creating alternative consumer institutions for community economic development

Consumer and Public Education
Direct consumer education is an essential part of stopping abuses. Throughout California, HERA works with local housing counseling, fair housing and government agencies, and also community-based organizations ( e.g., cultural centers, churches, local businesses, etc.) to provide information to residents in a way that they will hear and remember. For sustainability, HERA believes it is important for community organizations to take ownership of the information and be active participants in the fight to stop fair housing and lending abuses. To arrange for HERA to provide trainings or workshops in your area, please contact us for more information.

Legal Services
Fair Housing HERA provides to the public initial over the phone counseling and legal advice on housing discrimination. If you believe you have been the victim of discrimination in trying to access or maintain housing or in connection with homeownership, please call us at (510) 271-8443. You may also email questions to: inquiries@heraca.org. Staff of fair housing organizations, other community based organizations, and governmental entities may also contact HERA with fair housing questions.

Predatory Lending HERA provides direct legal representation to low and moderate-income residents who have fallen prey to predatory lending and fair lending abuses, focusing particularly on Alameda and other surrounding Bay Area counties. HERA is available to provide limited over the phone advice and counseling directly to consumers.

HERA’s Case Referral and Acceptance Policy Presently, HERA is accepting cases only through referrals from other service providers (e.g., fair housing, housing counseling and legal service agencies) who have already screened and preliminarily evaluated the matter. HERA is available to assist agencies with screening and evaluation of individual consumer matters and to provide limited over the phone advice and limited key document review.

Training for Organizations and Legal Professionals
We believe that expanding the pool of trained resources available to victims is essential to combating fair housing and predatory lending abuses. We also believe that people are more likely to turn to trusted advisors in the community or social workers with whom they have contact than a lawyer. Part of HERA’s work, therefore, is to train those advisors, who include housing counselors, fair housing agencies, legal service providers, paid and volunteer staff of seniors’ centers, community-based organizations, churches, meals programs and others with whom likely victims have regular contact. Please contact us to arrange for these services.

Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

  We realize that fast access to legal advice can be critical to protecting individual and consumers’ rights. Because most housing counseling and fair housing agencies do not have attorneys on staff or have relationships with other attorneys to fulfill this need, HERA makes itself available for consultations to agencies. Please call us for assistance. Limited, over the phone advice and limited key document review is free.

Research and Documentation
Discovering who the bad actors or predators are in a local area and documenting their "family tree", as we call it—who their various partners are who facilitate the abuses—is essential to our targeted efforts to successfully combat predatory lending practices. For example, HERA is presently conducting research on these practices, particularly with an initial focus on Oakland and other cities in Alameda County and Contra Costa County. If you would like to consult or work with HERA on such an effort in your area, give us a call.

Legislative and Policy Advocacy
HERA employs policy and legislative advocacy on the local, state and national level when appropriate. All such work is in partnership with other agencies, attempting to create legal structures that protect consumers better. Our work with community members directly and with other community organizations will inform our policy advocacy. If you have a particular fair housing or predatory lending policy concern which you would like to work with HERA on, please give us a call.

Creating Alternative Consumer Institutions
At HERA, we believe that community economic development strategies could provide alternative structures that compete with and replace the network of abusive lenders and con artists who engage in predatory lending. After researching and documenting how the predators are doing business, HERA works with community groups to assess what types of alternative institutions or structures could compete with and/or give consumers clear choice and access to services they need so that they do not turn to the predators.