Supportive Living Facility Sued for 'No Mental Illness' Policy

A supportive living facility with a stated mission to "promote a better lifestyle for people with physical disabilities while encouraging self-direction, greater privacy, independence and dignity" is under fire for allegedly refusing to rent to people who have received a mental health diagnosis.

According to a report from The Beacon News, Eden Supportive Living of North Aurora, Illinois, communicated a "no mental illness" policy to prospective tenants and told prospects who revealed a mental health diagnosis that they can't live there.

The lawsuit, filed by HOPE Fair Housing Center in federal district court against Eden and the State of Illinois, claims this policy violates the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on disability-based discrimination and that state regulations that facilitate such a policy are illegal.

(Indeed, at the time of this writing, Eden indicates on its Web site that "Supportive Living is an assisted living model administered by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services that combines housing with services for persons 22 and over with physical disabilities.")

The FHA specifically includes "a physical or mental impairment" in its coverage definition, and so limiting tenancy only to people with physical impairments would mean denying housing to people who are protected under the same part of the law.

_______________

Visit fairhousinghelper.com to learn about comprehensive, convenient, low-cost fair housing training, with Web site badge and personalized certificate of training included.

Comedian Not Laughing Over Alleged Racial Discrimination

Often enough, people who put their homes up for sale decide to stay put after all. If you're in this situation and you haven't yet signed a contract, you should be on good legal footing if you change your mind for a legitimate reason — for example, you can't find another suitable home and you want to keep your children in the current school district.

These are the reasons the sellers of a luxury home in Bridgeport, Illinois gave for suddenly not wanting to sell their house after verbally accepting a $1.7 million counteroffer from comedian George Willborn and his family.

But the Willborns aren't buying it. They believe that the sellers decided not to go through with the deal because they're black, in violation of the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) race-based discrimination ban. In January, the Willborns complained to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), pointing out that the sellers had been trying to sell the house for two years and that their counteroffer was very close to the $1.799 million asking price (reduced from an initial listing of $1.99 million).

HUD issued a charge of discrimination in early August, and the Willborns then elected to have the issue resolved in a federal civil lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that it filed this suit, which seeks unspecified damages against the sellers and their real estate agents.

According to the lawsuit and the initial HUD charge, the sellers told their real estate agents early on that they would prefer not to sell their home to a black family but would do it for the right price.

In addition to the DOJ lawsuit, the Willborns also filed a private federal suit against the sellers last month, seeking $100 million in damages, according to NBC.

If the allegations are all true, how much should the sellers and their agents be ordered to pay for their violations? Are punitive damages appropriate here?

What do you think?

On Memorial Day, Considering Military Status Protection

Today is Memorial Day, a federal holiday when we remember the sacrifice of servicemembers who died protecting the United States. As some are surprised to learn, federal law doesn't protect servicemembers when it comes to housing discrimination.

A number of states and cities have enacted human rights laws to cover this gap in recent years. For example, Washington protects tenants and prospective tenants against discrimination based on "honorably discharged veteran or military status." Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago all go a step further and include military discharge status as a protected class.

Is it time for the Fair Housing Act to be amended to protect against discrimination based on military status? If so, would you be in favor of limiting the coverage only to current servicemembers and those who have been honorably discharged? Or is it best to leave these decisions up to individual states and municipalities?

What do you think?

Fair Housing Month: Learn the Lingo

Do you know what "steering" means? How about "blockbusting"? What's the difference between "accessibility" and "visitability"?

As housing discrimination issues have evolved over the past 42 years since the enactment of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), several words have emerged that you'll often hear in speeches or conversations, or read in texts about fair housing.

Here are two online fair housing glossaries you can use to get familiar with the definitions of common industry terms:

1. "Fair Housing Glossary," by the Idaho Fair Housing Forum, a coalition of stakeholders cooperating and collaborating to provide education and outreach opportunities through the state.


2. "Fair Housing Glossary of Terms," by the
   Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, a membership-based, non-profit organization fostering open communities in north suburban Chicago since 1972.

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

Landlording in a World of Fair Housing Testing

Government and fair housing agencies across the United States have been using so-called "testers" for years to help craft compelling cases of housing discrimination.

Testers are people who call or visit properties to inquire about vacancies. They pretend to be genuinely interested in renting or buying them, but their true, secret purpose is to determine whether a property owner or manager is complying with fair housing laws.

Fair housing testing programs have proven effective at gathering evidence because their targets don't realize they're under investigation and therefore often have their guard down (and their mouth open).

For a good example of how much testers can help a case, you needn't look far into the past. A complaint filed November 23, 2009 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against an Illinois landlord for discrimination based on race and color shows the type of useful evidence testers can obtain.

According to the complaint, the Illinois landlord allegedly refused to rent a single-family house in a Chicago suburb to a black couple because of their race. The couple suspected race as a factor because after they arrived to look at the property, the landlord was quick to tell them he just rented the house to a white prospect. The landlord also insisted that the couple wouldn't be interested in his other vacancy.

The next day, the wife decided to call the landlord to ask the status of the property they had just visited, without identifying herself. When the landlord told her it was available, this confirmed the couple's suspicions and led them to pursue a fair housing claim.

A local fair housing agency and the DOJ each dispatched testers to contact the landlord in the hope of gathering more evidence to bolster their discrimination case against him.

Here's what the testing produced, according to the complaint:

• The landlord didn't return a phone call from a black tester inquiring about the house.



• The landlord separately told two white testers that the house was available and invited them to see it. While showing the property to each of the white testers, the landlord: a) asked the tester if her husband was black (to which each one said no); b) told the tester about problems he had after unknowingly renting the house to an interracial couple; c) made various statements against renting to black tenants; and d) claimed to have rejected a black prospect's offer to rent the house at the advertised rent with paying a year's worth of rent upfront. The also landlord told one of the white testers that several black people inquired about the house, and he offered a discounted rent to the other tester because she was white.

If there's a landlording lesson to be learned or advice to be gleaned from this type of story, it's this:

Treat all prospects as if they're testers.

Sure, doing so is smart because it means not helping the government build a case against you. But, more importantly and proactively, if landlords require staff not only to get fair housing training but to keep fair housing concerns in mind when interacting with prospects, they'll be much less likely to say or do something that could lead — fairly or unfairly — to accusations of discrimination.

Interesting to note:

• The Department of Justice (DOJ) launched its testing program in 1992. Since then, the DOJ has recruited and trained over 1,000 employees to pose as testers.

Cooperative Pays Price for Running Unqualified Senior Housing

The owners and board of directors of a 104-unit Wilmette, Illinois cooperative apparently knew that the Fair Housing Act exempts senior housing properties from the ban against familial status discrimination. But what they didn't seem to know is that your property has to qualify as senior housing before you can safely start discriminating against families with children.

The problem arose in 2006 when individual unit owners tried to sell their unit to a family that had two young children. The cooperative blocked the sale, pointing to a rule that the "community is not considered suitable for children under 18 years of age." A local HUD-funded fair housing enforcement agency promptly filed a fair housing complaint with HUD, arguing that the cooperative can't discriminate against families with children if it's not truly senior housing.

The legal dispute recently led to a settlement, announced January 14, 2009. Under the terms of the settlement, the cooperative will begin to operate the property as a "55 and older" senior community. But it must pay — $20,000 to the fair housing agency and $8,000 as a civil penalty — plus agree to fair housing training, monitoring, and extensive advertising showing continued compliance with the Fair Housing Act.

Mezuzah Mishigas: Reasonable Accommodations for Religion?

On July 10, 2008, a federal appeals court ruled that a Chicago condominium association complied with the Fair Housing Act (FHA) in not making an exception to its “hallway rule” barring owners from placing objects outside their doors. The exception in question concerned the placing of mezuzot (the plural of mezuzah, Hebrew for “doorpost”), which are small decorative cases containing religiously significant parchment that observant Jews are widely known to affix to their doorframe.

The court ruled that the hallway rule didn’t violate the FHA because it’s “neutral with respect to religion.” In other words, the condo association’s ban covers all items without singling out religious ones or items relating to a particular religion. The court likened the request for an exception to “reasonable accommodations,” pointing out that the FHA’s requirement to make reasonable accommodations apply only to people with disabilities. There is no requirement to reasonably accommodate people based on their religion (or sex, race, or anything else) but only a requirement of equal treatment, the court said.

The dissent, however, claimed that the condo association’s refusal to make an exception in this case is, in essence, a “constructive eviction” of observant Jews, who must choose between honoring their faith and keeping their home.

Should reasonable accommodations for people based on characteristics other than disability be required under the FHA? Should the court have ordered the condo association to make the exception on the ground that, while facially neutral, the rule has a “disparate impact” on Jews? Or, should the court have required the exception because it really amounts to intentional discrimination on the part of the condo association?

What do you think?

Interesting to note:

1) By the time the lawsuit was filed, the association’s board had adopted a religious exception to the hallway rule and had instructed its staff to leave mezuzot, crucifixes, and other religious items. The plaintiffs still sued to recover damages for distress they had suffered, plus an injunction to prevent the association from reversing itself.

2) As of December 14, 2005, Chicago has an ordinance that denies a residential building authority to prevent any owner or lessee “from placing or affixing a religious sign, symbol or relic on the door, door post or entrance of an individual apartment, condominium or cooperative housing unit” unless necessary to “avoid substantial damage to property or an undue hardship to other unit owners.”

3) As of January 1, 2007, an Illinois state law requires condo associations to establish a “reasonable accommodation for religious practices, including the attachment of religiously mandated objects to the frontdoor area of a condominium unit.”