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The management agents and owners of four HUD-subsidized apartment complexes in Southern California recently reached a Conciliation/Voluntary Compliance Agreement with HUD, resolving allegations that the property managers refused to rent to or provide adequate language services for applicants with limited English proficiency (LEP).
HUD recently signed a Conciliation Agreement/Voluntary Compliance Agreement with owners of a HUD-subsidized community in Fairhope, Ala. The agreement resolves allegations and a HUD investigation into whether the owners’ policy prohibiting visitors under the age of 12 due to COVID-19 was discriminatory.
A resident, who had been providing childcare for her grandchildren, was allegedly told that she could no longer do so because it violated the owners’ policy, instituted due to COVID-19, prohibiting visitors to the property under the age of 12.
HUD recently announced that it has approved a Conciliation/Voluntary Compliance Agreement between the Housing Authority of Maricopa County, in Mesa, Ariz., and one of its residents who has a mental health disability. Under the agreement, the housing authority will pay $10,000 to the tenant and provide fair housing training for its employees who work with the public. The housing authority will also vacate the tenant’s eviction and waive the $3,516 eviction judgment that had been entered against her.
The City of Santa Maria, Calif., recently entered into a settlement agreement with HUD resolving allegations that the city’s enactment and enforcement of restrictions on housing for certain farmworker visa-holders in residential areas of the city violated the Fair Housing Act and Section 109 of the Housing and Community Development Act.
HUD recently approved a settlement agreement between an owner of rental properties in Massachusetts and a prospective tenant, resolving allegations that the owner refused to rent available units to the woman after learning that she has a child under the age of 6.
The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against families with children. Housing providers may exclude children only if the housing meets the Fair Housing Act’s exemption for housing for older persons.
A New York City co-op board sued a shareholder resident for violating her proprietary lease by keeping eight dogs and two cats in her apartment. This created noise and odors that other residents complained about. The co-op board didn't seek eviction but sought removal of five of the eight dogs.
A tenant sued her landlord for disability discrimination in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act. The tenant lived in a ground-floor unit in an apartment complex. Due to multiple disabilities, the tenant used a motorized scooter to get from her apartment's patio door across a lawn to the parking lot. But the landlord couldn't maintain a clear, level path to sidewalks and parking lots and therefore forbade the use of apartment patio doors for coming and going. An insurance agent's report also advised the landlord that the motorized scooter use created liability exposure.
A federal judge recently issued a preliminary injunction to stop HUD from implementing a rule that would have made it harder to bring discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act. The rule would have required plaintiffs to meet a higher threshold to prove unintentional discrimination, known as disparate impact. The new rule, which is an update to the agency’s 2013 disparate impact rule, would also have given defendants more leeway to rebut the claims.
The Justice Department recently announced that it has filed a lawsuit against a Staten Island, N.Y., realty company and its former rental agent, alleging discrimination against African Americans in violation of federal fair housing law when offering housing units for rent. The lawsuit is based on the results of testing conducted by the department’s Fair Housing Testing Program, in which individuals pose as renters to gather information about possible discriminatory practices.
The Justice Department recently announced that a manager of rental properties in and around Harrisonburg, Va., together with owners of the properties, will pay $335,000 to resolve allegations that the manager sexually harassed multiple female residents and discriminated in housing on the basis of race in violation of federal fair housing law.
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