PHRC head Chad Lassiter: How to approach the affordable housing crisis and find ‘beauty in PA’

Chad Dion Lassiter, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, a statewide agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws and promotes equal opportunity across employment, housing, education and public spaces, recently sat down with City & State Senior Reporter Harrison Cann to discuss how the lack of affordable housing can impact a community. For Lassiter, there is no such thing as “business as usual” at PHRC: “On any given day, I'm working with my team to address antisemitism, Islamophobia, housing discrimination complaints that come in as it relates to sexual harassment challenges in school, [and] a lot of fair housing and employment challenges,” he said, “and so we continue to be in this space to enforce the law through our Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.”

Lassiter also spoke on how issues such as housing discrimination, poverty rates, crime rates, and overall lack of shelters for families can impact communities.

“The lack of affordable housing and all these things – they play into a larger ecosystem of challenges that families and individuals are faced with,” Lassiter said.

Discussing the best ways to approach gentrification. Lassiter commended policymakers and housing advocates who provide developers and property owners with training sessions to ensure equity. He added that while he may not have the solutions to communities being pushed out of their neighborhoods, he wants there to be a hub for these leaders to discuss ways to move forward.

“There's a lot of historical aspects of that community that's lost” to gentrification, Lassiter explained. “So I would like to see us [have] a central repository of those housing advocacy policymakers who are working to make sure that they bring about justice and housing equality.”

Student housing as a facet of gentrification’s potential to displace longtime residents has been in the news recently regarding neighborhoods ringing the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Drexel University. Lassiter emphasized the importance of engaging with, rather than displacing, local residents. He stressed the civics around “being a good neighbor,” noting that students can opt not to host late-night parties during days when their neighbors want to go to bed early, while also counseling that neighbors should realize that “young people are young people” and give them the space to enjoy college life.

“I think it's not an either/or; it's a both/and,” Lassiter said. “How do we bring community university and students and developers into a conversation so that we can make sure that everyone is neighboring in a way that's equitable, in a way that everyone is welcoming and everyone is experiencing forms of celebrating who they are.”

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has made clean and green initiatives a big part of her campaign. Lassiter spoke on how things such as clean streets and sidewalks can ultimately impact the quality of life for residents in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania. He said seeing graffiti and trash in the street can impact residents psychologically and, in contrast, seeing members work together to make the community green can have positive outcomes. On a personal note, Lassiter said that while growing up in his Philadelphia neighborhood, residents would clean their block on Saturday mornings and get a prize if they had the cleanest block. This feeling of community is something Lassiter wishes Pennsylvania returned to. 

“I'm excited to make sure that I'm doing my job, to make sure that I'm putting recycled items in the regular recycle bin, which is a blue bin here in the city of Philadelphia, and not in my regular trash can, and then just making sure that we all promote a healthier, greener city,” he said. “That, I believe, leads to a psychological increase in quality of life that really does bode well for everyone.”

In addition to the topic of affordable housing, Lassiter also spoke on PHRC’s Beloved Community tour, which featured PHRC team members touring the commonwealth to engage communities about their needs. These stops included presentations about the services and programs offered by PHRC, and the opportunity to answer questions from the community. As a result of these sessions, PHRC will put together a report about what they learn and use that information to better serve the state.

“We can't leave rural PA behind, and those politicians in those spaces are doing the best that they can,” Lassiter said. “We at the PHRC, we plan to work with them just to let them know, ‘This is some of the data that we've learned.’ There's beauty in PA. There's beauty within the Beloved Community.”