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Because enforcement is so active and penalties are so high, it’s easy to forget that complying with the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) may not be enough to insulate your community from liability. That’s because most states (and many municipalities) have adopted their own fair housing laws that go beyond the minimum FHA requirements, particularly with regard to the kinds of people they protect. For example, 23 states ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“Retaliation” is a fancy word for revenge. It’s a nasty action that you take to get back at somebody for doing something bad to you. In the context of fair housing, retaliation means an unfavorable action a landlord takes like rejecting a rental applicant or evicting a tenant because he complains about discrimination or exercises any of his other rights under discrimination laws.
Leasing to students who attend or college or university in your geographic market can be an excellent source of income. At least 79 percent of the students attending a two- or four-year college live off-campus, according to the Urban Institute. In many rental markets, demand for student rental housing exceeds supply. Leasing to students also offers certain advantages, like the willingness of students to sign multi-year leases, even though they typically leave town during the summer.
Contrary to popular belief, housing segregation remains alive and well not just in specific regions of the U.S. but across America. So concluded HUD upon completing its most recent review of the state of fair housing in the U.S. “Real estate agents and rental housing providers recommend and show fewer available homes and apartments to minority families, thereby increasing their costs and restricting their housing options,” concludes the 2013 report.
The last thing you or your residents would ever want is to have murderers, rapists, drug dealers, arsonists, and other dangerous criminals in your community. And because “criminals” aren’t among the people that fair housing laws protect, it’s okay to refuse to rent to persons who have a record of committing these crimes.
This month, Fair Housing Coach wraps up 2020 with a review of this year’s lessons. Keep it handy—it’s a quick refresher on top fair housing concerns we covered this year. It’s also a helpful index to the full lessons, all of which are available to our subscribers for review or download at FairHousingCoach.com. And you’ll find quiz questions—with a link to the answers—so you can see how much you’ve learned.
Amid the coronavirus crisis and the gridlock in Washington, it’s hard to predict where we’re headed in this election year. Given the uncertainty about what’s going to happen on the national level, it seems like a good time to look at some recent major developments in fair housing law on the state and local level.
In this month’s lesson, we’ll look at how to avoid fair housing trouble while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. For months now, the nation has been confronting the public health emergency caused by the new coronavirus. By April, all 50 states had reported cases of COVID-19 to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), though different parts of the country experienced different levels of COVID-19 activity. According to the CDC, U.S. COVID-19 cases include:
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