Familial Status Gains Familiar Status in May

Familial status discrimination under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) has dominated fair housing news in May, a month that is known for Mother's Day.

A relative latecomer to the FHA, "familial status" is one of the FHA's seven protected classes and refers to the presence of one or more children under 18 in a household. People who are expecting a child, whether through pregnancy or via the process of adoption, are also protected against familial status discrimination.

Here are important familial status developments that made the news in May:

• The Massachusetts Attorney General's office announced on May 12 that the owner and operator of 26 rental properties has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming the company illegally discriminated when it attempted to evict a tenant and her small children from their apartment. According to the complaint, a neighbor repeatedly made "unreasonable and unsubstantiated complaints" about noise made by the tenant's children. After an investigation, the Attorney General determined that the tenant had taken steps to address the neighbor's concerns, including enrolling her children in additional daycare and keeping her children out of the apartment for long periods of time on the weekends. But the neighbor allegedly complained about noise even when the children were not in the apartment, and the company simply responded with a notice of eviction. The company has agreed to pay $6,500 to the tenant and the Commonwealth, as well as implement improved training and adjust its best practices to ensure future compliance with the FHA and Massachusetts' fair housing law.
  
  
• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on May 20 that it has charged a Las Vegas, Nevada, homeowners association and its management company with discriminating against families with children by limited housing to persons who are 55 and older — without taking the steps the law requires to meet the "55 and older" senior housing exemption.
  
  
• HUD announced on May 26 that it has charged the owner of a five-unit apartment building in Lebanon, New Hampshire, with FHA violations for allegedly refusing to rent one of the building's three apartments to a mother with two children. The owner, who used one of the building's commercial units for his chiropractic office, reportedly dared the mother to "turn him in" after she accused him of familial status discrimination. HUD also claims the owner's receptionist violated the FHA by carrying out the owner's instructions to turn away prospective tenants with children.


• HUD announced today that Ocala, Florida-based USA4SALE Network, Inc., has agreed to pay $15,000 to settle claims that it violated the FHA when it posted ads on its Web sites that discriminated against families with children by stating "No children, No kids." The company has also reportedly agreed to change the way its Web sites filter potentially discriminatory language, plus donate $7,500 to a HUD-funded state fair housing organization and $7,500 to a HUD-approved local fair housing group to cover the cost of the group's future fair housing advertisements.
  

Rental Reneging Reveals Racial Rancor

Landlords who don't want to rent to people of a particular race normally turn away the prospects early on. But owners of a single-family three-bedroom house in Gibsonton, Florida agreed to rent their house to a black mother and her three children and let them move in without incident. Two days after the move, however, the landlords apparently had a change of heart and reacted in a way that, the tenants claim, violated the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on race-based discrimination.

According to the Charge of Discrimination issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and announced this month, the landlords refused to accept the family's rent payment, awoke the children and ordered them out of the house in their night clothes while their mother was at work, and changed the locks. Fortunately, a relative later found the children under a highway underpass, in shock, exhausted, and visibly upset, according to the HUD Charge.

When the mother learned about what happened, she contacted the police to report it and regain access to the house. The landlords allegedly hurled racial epithets at the mother, expressing their disbelief that she called the police.

Following the HUD Charge, an administrative law judge will hear the case to determine whether the family should be compensated for claimed damages, including economic losses, out-of-pocket expenses, emotional and physical distress, loss of a housing opportunity, embarassment, humiliation, substantial inconvenience, and more.

Common But Illegal: Bedroom-Sharing Restrictions Limit Families' Housing Choices

On Monday, I wrote an article for About.com on bedroom-sharing restrictions that violate the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on familial status discrimination. The point of the article is that while landlords may need to enforce state or local occupany requirements, they must leave the details of children's sleeping arrangements to their parents.

Yesterday, a CBS report on housing discrimination in southern Florida reveals that this form of familial-status discrimination is alive and well.

According to the report, a mother with a two-bedroom housing voucher wanted to rent such an apartment at a complex in North Lauderdale. But the landlord allegedly insisted that she rent a three-bedroom apartment instead. Letting the mother and her two children occupy a two-bedroom apartment would mean either the children would have to share a bedroom with each other or the mother would have to share a bedroom with one of her children, arrangements which the landlord presumably wanted to prevent.

A local fair housing agency investigating the case noted that several apartment complexes in the area have attempted to impose such bedroom-sharing restrictions on new tenants. While not as direct as an outright refusal to rent to families with children, these restrictions are discriminatory because they limit families' choices, leading them either to pay more for an apartment or delay their search.

Fair Housing Month: Third Announced HUD Charge Highlights Accessibility Battle

Many tenants who have physical disabilities need accommodations, modifications, or both to get full use and enjoyment of their housing. When tenants make accommodation or modification requests, landlords must take them seriously and grant them if they're reasonable. Landlords who deny tenants' reasonable requests may face charges for violating the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on disability-based discrimination.

That's what just happened to housing providers in Miami, Florida. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) third announced charge of Fair Housing Month, when a double-amputee veteran requested modifications to his apartment or a transfer to an accessible apartment, he allegedly was refused.

The tenant then contacted the county commissioner's office, which got the landlord to allow a transfer. However, the new apartment wasn't accessible either, and when the tenant moved back to his original apartment, he now found it was missing a stove.

The landlord, unhappy with the fact the tenant got the local government involved, allegedly threatened eviction, leading the tenant to pursue a fair housing complaint with HUD.

The landlord and management company will now need to defend themselves against the charge before a HUD administrative law judge.

Return tomorrow for the twenty-second part of this special "Fair Housing Month" feature at Fairhousingblog.com.

LANDMARK: $7.4 Million Retrofitting Is Part of Largest Fair Housing Disability Settlement

Fair housing cases involving retrofitting come with great frustration. It's not just that the needed changes are often costly, but it's the notion that the expenses — not to mention the underlying inaccessibility problem — could have been avoided had the building's owner and architect been aware of (and taken seriously) all applicable accessibility laws.

Here's how retrofitting cases usually play out:

1. A building constructed for first occupancy after March 13, 1991 that was supposed to have been built in compliance with the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) design and construction requirements wasn't.


2. Tenants with mobility impairments who live in the building struggle to enjoy their apartment living, having difficulty with basic activities such as navigating through their apartments and accessing outlets and switches.


3. The tenants bring a fair housing complaint against the owners for violating the FHA's ban on disability-based discrimination.


4. The court finds in favor of the tenants and, in addition to assessing damages and other penalties, orders the owners to retrofit the building to get it in compliance.

On Wednesday, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and its member fair housing organizations announced a record settlement with California-based A.G. Spanos Companies ("Spanos"), the nation's fifth-largest housing developer.

Within three years, Spanos has agreed to retrofit 12,300 units in 82 buildings in 14 states — at an estimated cost of $7.4 million. The number of buildings would have been 123, but 41 Spanos-owned buildings have too many complications to undergo retrofitting. Instead, Spanos has agreed to commit $4.2 million over five years to a national accessibility fund, aimed at offering retrofitting grants for apartments across the United States.

On top of the retrofitting, Spanos has agreed to pay $1.325 million in attorneys' fees, $950,000 in compensatory damages, $750,000 for the establishment of local retrofit funds, $100,000 toward a national media campaign, and $40,000 for the creation of an accessibility coalition.

The settlement is considered a record for fair housing accessibility. Click here for a full summary of the settlement, courtesy of the NFHA.

Interesting to note:

• Spanos was reportedly "shocked" to learn that the buildings weren't built in compliance with the FHA's design and construction requirements. According to a report from the San Diego Union Tribune, the company claims to have hired and relied on competent architects and other professionals to ensure compliance with all applicable laws, but they apparently dropped the ball.


• Alex Spanos, who founded A.G. Spanos Construction in 1960, has owned the San Diego Chargers since 1984 and formed the Chargers Community Foundation in 1995.

Racism Again Proves Costly As a Marketing Strategy

If having no black tenants at your apartment complex is your selling point, fire your marketer. That's the message the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is sending to landlords by going after the owners and operators of a Davie, Florida apartment complex for refusing to rent to black people — and boasting about their policy to prospective white tenants.

Sound familiar? That's because the same type of racial marketing strategy was allegedly recently employed at an apartment complex in Alabama, leading the DOJ to file a fair housing complaint against the complex's owner, manager, and maintenance employee (see "Using Racism to Rent Apartments," July 24, 2009).

The owners and operators of the Florida complex have agreed to settle, in light of evidence gathered by DOJ testers that indicate the complex violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) by:

• Directing the property managers not to rent to applicants who even "appear" to be black;
• Telling white applicants that an advantage of living at the complex is its lack of black tenants;
• Encouraging white prospects to apply for an apartment while discouraging black prospects from doing the same;
• Offering to waive costs such as the application fee only for white prospects.

Under the August 27, 2009 Consent Decree, the complex must pay $115,000 to identified "aggrieved persons," plus up to $25,000 in compensation to additional discrimination victims who still may come forward — as well as a $74,000 civil penalty. The complex has also agreed to have its employees undergo fair housing training and take other steps to prevent violations in the future.

Does a Ban on Sober Houses Violate the Fair Housing Act?

That's a question that may soon be litigated in Florida courts. Yesterday, the commissioners of Delray Beach, Florida unanimously voted to pass four ordinances that effectively ban sober houses and other transient rental homes from having a place within single-family communities.

The city's mayor insisted that the move was aimed solely at preventing "unscrupulous and profit-mongering landlords" from operating in their city, according to the Palm Beach Post. But others say the real motive is to help Delray Beach shed its image as the "recovery capital of the world," and the Post noted that residents have complained about added noise and crime from the presence of so many sober houses.

Should the new ordinances banning sober houses in Delray Beach stand? Or, given that the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on disability-based discrimination includes protections for people who have an addiction to drugs and alcohol, should these ordinances be overturned?

What do you think?

Protecting Children or Discriminating Against Families?

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) bans discrimination based on familial status, which means property owners can't treat people differently because they have children under 18 living with them. However, unlike adults, children are particularly susceptible to danger, and so it's okay for owners to impose reasonable rules aimed at protecting them. For example, an apartment complex shouldn't fear requiring adult supervision of young children in the swimming pool area. But a rule banning children from the pool from 12 p.m. until 2 p.m. so that residents can enjoy a "quiet, adult swim" would be problematic.

The question is, where do you draw the line? When is it protecting children (legal) and when is discriminating against families (illegal)?

Citing safety concerns about children being hit by cars, the homeowners' association at a Florida condominium recently created a rule barring children under 17 from being outside on the property without adult supervision. The association has also outlawed bicycles and skateboards, according to Fox's Orlando affiliate.

Is this an example of a reasonable attempt by adults to protect children from danger? Or is it a violation of the FHA's ban on familial status discrimination? Should the association overturn its rule, and just leave it to the children and their parents to be safe when playing outdoors? Does it go too far, to the point where families with children might hesitate to live there?

What do you think?

Two More States Happy to Consider Gay Housing Rights

Two states are introducing legislation that would extend their housing discrimination laws to cover people based on sexual orientation:

• Florida's proposed law (HB 397) covers employment, housing and public accommodations, and would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.


• North Dakota's proposed law (SB 2278) covers housing, employment, credit transactions and the use of public accommodation, and would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Currently, 20 states plus the District of Columbia protected prospects and tenants based on sexual orientation.

Mobile Home Park's "Report Card Policy" Gets Bad Grades

According to a September 23, 2008 report by Local10.com, the owners of a Florida mobile home park denied housing to a father and his 9-year-old son after learning that the boy got a bad grade (an "F" in conduct in his science class) on his school report card. The owners claimed it was just part of a valid effort to keep out troublemakers.

But the father argued that the owners' policy, which required children to submit quarterly report cards and that apparently made their continued housing contingent upon receiving good grades, violated the Fair Housing Act's ban on familial status discrimination. The owners changed their minds and welcomed the father and his son into their mobile home park.

Is such a policy fair since it only denies housing to certain families with children (i.e., those with children who receive bad grades)? Is this type of policy fair only as long as similar "anti-troublemaking" screening policies are imposed on adults? If the boy had gotten an "F" in something other than conduct, should that matter?

What do you think?