Sara Pratt

HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs

Sara Pratt has been Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs at HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity since September 2010.  She oversees HUD’s enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws, the Fair Housing Assistance Program, the Fair Housing Initiatives Program and HUD’s enforcement of Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act.   As Director of Enforcement at the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 1993 and 1999, Pratt participated in a number of initiatives relating to discrimination in housing and lending including leading FHEO’s enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws. She has worked as an attorney, trainer and fair housing and civil rights expert for thirty-six years.

Before her return to HUD, Pratt staffed the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, co-chaired by former HUD Secretaries Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros, and helped prepare a report issued in December 2009 on the future of fair housing.  She assisted with the development of the report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination “Residential Segregation and Housing Discrimination in the United States,” issued in January 2008.  She was a member of the faculty of the National Fair Housing Training Academy and the National Fair Housing Alliance’s Fair Housing School and served on the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Fair Housing Task Force.   Her recent publications also include “Disparate Impact under the Fair Housing Act: A Proposed Approach, co-authored with Robert Schwemm and available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1577291 (December 2009).

Pratt has been an expert witness in a number of fair housing cases, including United States ex rel Anti Discrimination Center v. Westchester County, NY, and United States v. Village of Island Park, as well in National Fair Housing Alliance v. Prudential Insurance Company.

Pratt served as Director of Enforcement and Compliance for the National Fair Housing Alliance from May 1999 to December 2000.  She was Director of the Office of Enforcement in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C. from 1993-1999 and Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Fair Housing in HUD’s office of General Counsel from 1991-1993.  She also practiced civil rights law in Louisville, Kentucky, held a variety of positions with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, and has served as a national and international consultant on fair housing matters.  She is editor and primary author of “Damages for Embarrassment and Humiliation in Housing Discrimination Cases.”