Commentary from Bernard Kleina

The color barrier to the White House has fallen, but the color barrier to so many homes and neighborhoods remains. Incredibly, Chicago is nearly as segregated today as it was when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged racial segregation in this city more than 40 years ago. And recently, when an African-American family went to view a home in the western suburbs, neighbors across the street from that house, allegedly shouted threatening and racist insults at the family. The neighbors then defiantly replaced the American flag on their porch with a Confederate flag. The color barrier remains intact.

HOPE's work is far from over. In some ways, after 41 years, it's just beginning. Perhaps the one sentence that best summarizes what we do is this: HOPE is here "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Help us in our work to protect the fragile and precious housing rights of the families and individuals whom we serve.

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