Project Sentinel
A HUD approved housing counseling agency. Providing housing solutions and community mediation since 1976.
Our Services
Housing Discrimination
Dispute Resolution
Housing Counseling
Project Sentinel provides a full range of dispute resolution services for these disputes and many others in the community. Dispute resolution services avoid the cost and stress of other options such as litigation. These services offer the participants the opportunity to make their own decisions about whether to settle, with the freedom to design their own terms of settlement, instead of having an outsider impose terms.
What Is Fair Housing?
In April of 1968, just a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), which made it illegal to discriminate against people in the sale or rental of housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. In 1988, the Fair Housing Amendments Act became law, adding protections based on disability and familial status.
Since 1963, California has also prohibited certain types of discrimination in housing. Today, these laws are known as the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and the Unruh Civil Rights Act. In addition to those characteristics listed under federal law, California bans housing discrimination based on marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, age, source of income and arbitrary characteristics.
The important thing to note about federal and state Fair Housing laws is that they only prohibit discrimination based on a protected characteristic. A bank can deny you a mortgage because you have poor credit, or a housing provider can refuse to rent to you because you are low-income, or have an eviction on your record. These things may not be fair, but they aren’t illegal. To violate the law, a housing provider must treat you differently because of a protected characteristic. For example, it would be a violation of the law if you were denied a mortgage because of race, or denied a rental unit because you have children. There must be a connection between the negative treatment and one of the listed characteristics.
Project Sentinel is a non-profit organization. Our primary function is to assist individuals with housing problems such as discrimination, mortgage foreclosure & delinquency, rental issues including repairs, deposits, privacy, dispute resolution, home buyer education, post purchase education and reverse mortgages.
Project Sentinel was founded in 1971 by a group of leaders from the corporate, educational and labor communities, as well as community fair housing advocates. The agency has grown steadily since it was founded. It is now the largest such agency in Northern California serving an overall population of 3.5 million. Project Sentinel has been a HUD-Approved Housing Counseling Agency since 1998.
Project Sentinel processes more than 10,000 initial contacts annually. We handle over 400 housing discrimination complaints, open over 1,700 landlord tenant and community dispute resolution cases, counsel more than 750 homeowners each year and provide monthly workshops on a variety of topics including Home-ownership, Tenant/Landlord and Fair Housing.
The agency also provides support to cities and counties in developing their “Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing,” and a wide array of technical assistance to property management professionals/owners and local municipalities. We publish the semi-weekly newspaper column, Rent Watch, in major California newspapers and operate a Housing Hotline, (888)FAIRHOUsing.
Project Sentinel has offices located in Fremont, Gilroy, Modesto, Redwood City, Milpitas, Sacramento and Santa Clara.
Project Sentinel has three independent departments. Please call first before visiting our offices to ensure that the appropriate staff member is available to meet with you.
Fremont Office
39155 Liberty Street, Ste. D440
Fremont, CA 94538
Gilroy Office
8339 Church Street, Suite 104
Gilroy, CA 95020
Milpitas Office
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits
554 Valley Way, Bldg. 4, Suite 554
Milpitas, CA 95035
Redwood City Office
1615 Hudson St, Suite A
Redwood City, CA 94061
Some materials and training available in Spanish