Will the HOME Act Become Law in 2011? Should It?

A bill by the House introduced earlier this month promises to "modernize" the Fair Housing Act (FHA) if passed, supporters say.

H.R. 6500, known as the Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) Act, would greatly expand federal protections against housing discrimination across the United States.

In its current form, the HOME Act would:

• add sexual orientation, gender identity, source of income, and marital status as protected classes;
  
  
• reinforce existing protections for people who are discriminated against after they have already rented or purchased a home;
  
  
• allow the public to hold municipalities accountable for failing to advance fair housing laws;
  
  
• expand the definition of "familial status" to include "anyone standing in loco parentis" of a child under 18 years of age;
  
  
• improve the Department of Justice's (DOJ) ability to investigate potential fair housing and fair lending violations; and
  
  
• clarify and strengthen protections for people with disabilities.

For more information about the HOME Act, take a look at this excellent section-by-section commentary by the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Do you think the HOME Act will become law in 2011? Should it? Do you agree with the law's supporters that it's time to modernize the FHA?

What do you think?

LANDMARK: Reasonable Accommodation Denial Leads to Record Settlement

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Monday that it has obtained the largest-ever settlement in connection with an individual housing discrimination case. The $1.25 million agreement with an Alabama property management company stems from a tenant's request for a reasonable accommodation, which the company allegedly denied.

What's interesting about this case is how a single denial of an accommodation request could wind up costing a management company so dearly. The reason? The tenant allegedly suffered severe damages as a direct result of the denial.

According to the first amended complaint filed March 17, 2009, the tenant requested to rent a ground-floor apartment in the 196-unit Mobile, Alabama non-elevator building to accommodate a physical disability. Although he needed to use full-length leg braces and crutches on account of paraplegia, he was offered an apartment on the second floor with the understanding that he would soon be transferred to a ground-floor unit. In the meantime, the apartment's small size meant the tenant had to keep his physical therapy equipment in storage on the ground floor.

Despite several follow-up requests and apparent promises, the company didn't allow the tenant to transfer to the ground floor, at one point citing a new rule barring all transfers, according to the complaint.

In November 2007, the tenant fell down the stairs from his second-floor apartment, requiring surgery and the need for a wheelchair.

Without admitting liability or wrongdoing, the company agreed Monday to pay $1,195,000 in monetary damages to the tenant, plus $55,000 in fees and costs to the federal government for the alleged Fair Housing Act violation based on disability.

In addition to the record monetary award and penalty, the consent decree requires the company to obtain fair housing training for employees and monitor their compliance, maintain non-discriminatory practices and procedures, and appoint an employee as "Reasonable Accommodation Facilitator," charged with managing all new requests at the more than 11,000 units in 85 properties across 15 states that the company manages.

Given the facts, do you think this settlement is fair? Do you believe landlords and property management companies need to become more aware of how the law protects people with disabilities?

What do you think?

Making Them Pay for Making Them Pay

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last week announced that a Methuen, Massachusetts condominium has agreed to settle charges of housing discrimination based on familial status. According to the DOJ press release, the condominium will pay $130,000 to the victims and $20,000 in civil penalties, and its board members will undergo mandatory training on aspects of the Fair Housing Act.

The DOJ claims that the condominium fined families with children (both condo owners and renters) more than $500 after kids played wiffle ball, tag, and other games in the outdoor common areas — but not from other residents (without children) for recreational use of the same common areas. In addition, the complaint states that the condominium retaliated against one mother for filing a discrimination complaint by charging her $1,000 to cover the costs of hiring an attorney to defend against that complaint.

The proposed consent decree will take effect pending approval by the federal district court.

Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST Services Suspended Pending Contract Negotiation

Since the beginning of last month, all services associated with Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), have been suspended pending HUD's negotiation of a new contract, according to a note on the initiative's Web site. Since 2003, the initiative has pursued a mission of promoting compliance with the Fair Housing Act's design and construction requirements.

The initiative's instructional programs and its toll-free information line for technical guidance and support are currently not operational. However, visitors to the Web site, fairhousingfirst.org, will be happy to note that the site's collection of useful links, informative documents, and other helpful information regarding accessibility remains online.

The site also notes that Deloitte Consulting has stopped being a point of contact as of October 1, due to contract expiration. Deloitte had assumed this role from BearingPoint in May 2009.

If you've used any of the Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST initiative's services, did you find them useful? Have you ever visited the initiative's Web site to get answers or clarification on housing accessibility and design issues?

Guest Blogging for MyNewPlace.com

I am pleased to announce that I recently became a guest blogger for MyNewPlace.com, one of the leading apartment and home rentals Web sites in the United States. If you visit mynewplace.com/blog, you can find my entry posted at the beginning of each month.

My first guest blog entry (posted November 1, 2010), entitled, "Why Read About Apartment Living?" takes a look at the five ways apartment hunters and dwellers who add apartment living resources to their daily or weekly reading can benefit.

I look forward to writing more posts in upcoming months exploring a wide range of apartment-related issues, including fair housing.

In the meantime, if you've got an idea for a topic, I'm happy to hear it! Please leave a comment.

Artifice Forces Landlord's Hand on Renting to Families With Children

A man called the managers of an Outagamie County, Wisconsin apartment he saw advertised to inquire about its availability. Apparently, after the man told one of the managers that he and his wife had children, she allegedly refused to show him the apartment.

Acting on suspicion, the man's wife decided also to call the manager about seeing the apartment, but making a point to say (inaccurately) that she and her husband had no children. Not only did the manager immediately schedule a showing, but she pressured her to see the available apartment right away, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Further testing by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council uncovered more evidence of discrimination based on familial status, which is illegal under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). For example, the manager reportedly told one tester that she's "looking for the perfect renter, meaning I don't want a lot of kids" and that she charges families with children a higher security deposit.

All this led HUD to issue a Charge of Discrimination, announced October 21, against the managers and the owner, meaning they'll need to defend themselves against alleged Fair Housing Act violations before an administrative law judge.

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.

Survey Indicates More Hispanics Fear Unfair Discrimination

A new national survey of 1,375 Hispanic adults shows that 61% of respondents say that discrimination against Hispanics in housing and other areas is a "major problem," up from 54% from a similar survey in 2007.

The survey, published Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a product of the Pew Research Center, also indicates what may be behind this increased concern. When asked about the most important factor leading to discrimination, a plurality of 36% of respondents cited immigration status, up from a minority of 23% who responded that way in 2007. (In the earlier survey, a plurality of 46% respondents identified language skills as the biggest cause of discrimination against Hispanics.)

Despite the increase in concern about discrimination, the survey notes that there has been no increase in recent years in the share of Hispanics who report that they or someone they know have been targets of discrimination or have been stopped by authorities and questions about their immigration status.

Do you think there's a political backlash against illegal immigration that's hurting Hispanics across the United States, regardless of their immigration status? What other groups of people, if any, do you believe may be experiencing greater discrimination (or, at least, increased concern over discrimination) now, and why?

What do you think?

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?

Large DOJ Settlement Shows How Waiting List Mismanagement Can Prove Costly

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Monday that it reached a $270,000 fair housing settlement with the Housing Authority for the city of Royston, Georgia (RHA), which owns and manages seven low-income apartment complexes there.

According to the DOJ's press release, the RHA maintained a waiting list for its apartments but would often ignore the list in favor of selecting prospects based on race. The DOJ also alleges that the RHA steered black prospects to certain apartments or complexes and offered them inferior rental terms and conditions than prospects of other races.

In addition to the creation of a $270,000 fund, which is intended to compensate tenants and prospects who claim to have been harmed by the RHA's alleged race-based discrimination, the settlement allows tenants who believe they were unfairly assigned to one RHA complex based on race to request a transfer.

When a building has no vacancies, putting prospects on a waiting list is a great way to help ensure people get apartments in a fair manner. But, as this case shows, a waiting list that's not strictly enforced can become a liability trap. Whether the true reason behind a waiting-list exception is racism or mere disorganization, landlords who make such exceptions are likely to find themselves with some explaining to do.

Story of Prospect's Dogged Determination to Rent With Service Animals Highlights Three Key Legal Points

Service dogs are well known for helping people with visual impairments get around — so much so that they've often been referred to as "seeing-eye dogs." But service dogs can also provide much needed assistance to people who have other types of disabilities.

For example, a South Dakota woman with a seizure disorder tried to rent an apartment for her family with two dogs that she claimed were needed to accommodate her disability. But nearly all the landlords she met quickly turned her away on account of her canine companions, according to a recent report from the Rapid City Journal.

It's not clear whether the woman, who has reportedly found temporary housing for her family through friends, will pursue a fair housing complaint against any of the landlords who refused to consider her rental application.

But regardless of what happens now, this story has already brought to light three important legal points that both landlords and renters alike should keep in mind:

1. Service animals are exempt from no-pet policies. Nothing can stop a landlord from banning pets at an apartment building. But the Fair Housing Act (FHA), as well as several similar state laws (including South Dakota's) requires landlords to consider all accommodation requests from people who claim to need the accommodation for a disability, and grant requests when the underlying need is legitimate and the accommodation is reasonable.
   


2. Service dogs aren't just for people with visual impairments. As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, service dogs often provide help to people with disabilities other than ones affecting vision. In this case, the woman's dogs assist her by howling when she has a seizure, so as to alert people who are nearby and in a position to help.
   


3. Tenants aren't limited to one service animal. Very often, tenants need only one service animal to accommodate their disability. But in some situations, only one service animal might not be enough. In this example, the woman claimed she needed two service dogs to help ensure that at least one of them is awake at any given time, since she could have a seizure at any time of day or night.