Cases and Settlements

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The Justice Department and HUD recently announced a settlement in a civil rights lawsuit against the largest affordable housing cooperative in the United States, alleging disability discrimination against people who require service or assistance animals. The community is located in the Bronx, N.Y., with approximately 15,372 residential units and 60,000 residents.

The Housing Authority of the city of Ruston, La., recently agreed to pay $175,000 and adopt comprehensive new policies to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

HUD recently announced that it has charged the owner and manager of a Minnesota property with housing discrimination based on national origin for refusing to rent a home to an Asian family of Hmong descent.

The owner and operator of a Massachusetts community recently agreed to pay $135,000 to settle allegations of discrimination against families with children in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

In separate cases, rental communities in Kansas and Missouri and a condominium community in Minnesota recently agreed to pay a combined $280,000 to settle allegations of discrimination against families with children in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Five housing providers in Chicago are facing lawsuits accusing them of discriminating against people who are deaf. The complaints, filed by Access Living earlier this month, allege that the housing providers violated fair housing law by denying rental options to members of the deaf community because of their disability.

A Massachusetts real estate brokerage firm recently agreed to implement fair housing training and adopt new antidiscrimination policies to resolve allegations that it discriminated against families with children in housing rentals. The firm will also pay up to $17,500, including $5,000 to the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, according to Attorney General Maura Healey.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court took up a major case involving the federal Fair Housing Act, which bans housing discrimination “because of” race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.

The law clearly prohibits intentional discrimination—often referred to as “disparate treatment”—that is, intentionally denying housing or otherwise discriminating against anyone based on a protected characteristic.

An update to the February issue of Fair Housing Coach: As expected, the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on same-sex marriage.

All across the country, there has been an abrupt shift in the laws on same-sex marriage. Last year at this time, same-sex marriage was permitted in only a minority of states, but it’s since shifted to the majority of states, including Florida, which this month became the 36th state to permit same-sex marriage. The Court is expected to take up the case this spring, and to make a ruling by the end of June.

HUD recently charged a Coney Island cooperative community with discrimination against a veteran with a psychiatric disability for refusing to let him keep an emotional support animal.

HUD charged the 1,144-unit community, along with the president of its board of directors, with wrongfully denying the veteran’s request for a reasonable accommodation and taking steps to evict him and his wife in retaliation for filing a fair housing complaint.