Debbie Piltch

Debbie Piltch, President of Piltch Associates, Inc., is a trained mediator and a nationally recognized expert in Fair Housing and Affordable Housing (1994-present). She is also presently employed as Vice President of Compliance for Maloney Properties, Inc., a private housing management company that operates over 9,000 affordable housing units in multiple states. In this capacity, she oversees compliance with federal, state, and local regulations, including fair housing laws, VAWA, and all federal and state housing program rules. Her responsibilities include developing and implementing rules, policies, and procedures, conducting numerous types of training, and on-site monitoring. Piltch worked for over five years at the Disability Law Center (DLC) in Boston, Massachusetts, representing low-income individuals in cases involving discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education. She also designed and conducted training for consumers, and public and private entities on disability discrimination law. While at the DLC, she served on the HUD taskforce responsible for making recommendations to the Secretary of HUD regarding complicated occupancy issues in public and assisted housing. She wrote the section of the report on reasonable accommodation in relation to persons with drug and alcohol addictions.

She left the DLC in 1994 to establish a consulting business that provides technical assistance and training to government and private entities on their rights and responsibilities in relation to civil rights and housing laws. She has developed a national reputation in housing and discrimination law and has been fortunate to work with several leading government and private organizations involved in housing issues.

Much of her work for these organizations has focused on designing, developing, and implementing compliance protocols and training programs on occupancy issues, tax credit compliance, Federal and State fair housing, reasonable accommodation, language access, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). For example, she has worked extensively with MassHousing as a consultant, developing and implementing numerous training programs for this agency on these and other housing-related topics. Piltch has also worked closely with the National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA).

She co-authored this organization’s training program on occupancy issues [Certified Professional of Occupancy™ (CPO™)], serves as a trainer for its members on this topic, Blended Compliance Designation (BCD) and Fair Housing Compliance ™ (FHC™), and is a member of NAHMA’s Specialist in Housing Credit Management® (SHCM®) Technical Advisory Committee and former Chairperson of its Education and Training Committee and Fair Housing Committee. She has also worked extensively with the New England Affordable Housing Management Association (NEAHMA), designing, and conducting numerous training programs on topics previously mentioned. She has also served as an independent monitor for the MA state Attorney General’s office in a discrimination case and is on the Mass Commission Against Discrimination’s list of approved trainers for preventing discrimination in the workplace.

HFAi24 Session: Ensuring VAWA Compliance