By MyNewPlace Guest Blogger, Ron Leshnower – About.com’s Apartment Living Expert!
Most renters think about housing discrimination only if they believe they’ve experienced it. But it’s a good idea to become aware of housing discrimination basics when you conduct an apartment search and after you’ve signed a lease and have settled into your apartment. Knowing your rights can help you spot illegal discrimination and possibly take action to end it or seek compensation for any loss you suffered. Here are two fair housing fundamentals that every renter should keep in mind:
1. Discrimination isn’t limited to rejection and eviction.
Securing and keeping a rental are the two most obvious situations in which housing discrimination may occur. For example, if a landlord rejects your apartment application because of your race or tries to evict you because you mentioned that you’re expecting a child, you may have a valid claim against the landlord under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Although many fair housing cases have focused on landlords who allegedly denied an apartment application or evicted a tenant for an illegally discriminatory reason, be aware that there are less obvious ways to discriminate. For example, say a landlord accepts your apartment application but encourages or even requires you to rent an apartment in a certain part of the building because of your race. This is a practice known as “steering.” Although it’s less direct, steering is illegal. (Read more about steering and how to spot it.)
2. Filing a fair housing complaint doesn’t have to require money or an attorney.
If you believe you’ve been the victim of illegal housing discrimination, you can file a complaint at no charge with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the federal agency charged with primary responsibility for enforcing the FHA. After completing a straightforward online form, a HUD intake specialist will contact you to determine the validity and strength of your claims. If HUD decides to take on your case, you won’t need to hire an attorney or outlay money for expensive litigation. (Learn more about pursuing a fair housing claim with HUD.)
Have legal or general apartment living questions for Ron? We’d love to pass them on – please leave them here in our comments section.
Can a landlord be sued for background check discrimination. Most use this to single out renters and it really only causes them to loose renters. People are people not numbers that’s why they post the anti-credit ads and commercals.Is there anything that can be done to stop this?
hello Ron, do you know about harassment/discrimination by owners/Board at Condominiums. I have no religious/racial “status” to protect me. Just myself and my daughter. We moved in before all those involved but one! It was very serious, and did a lot of damage. Thank you.
My daughter was on section 8 housing in barnstable, ma, she and her friend were having a party for christine, my daughter left the party for a while came back and christine attacked her, my daughter protected herself and pushed her off in the mean time the wine glass got broken in the shuffle, my daughter left and went home to her own section 8 property, she took some prescribed drugs and then about 1 1/2 later christine went in the bathroom at the other girls place and decided to call the police, the police arrived at the friends house and the friend called my daughter and told her she needed to come back, she went back and the police arrested her, and the next day my daughter was told that her section 8 voucher was going to be taken away and it does not matter to them if your are innocent or guilty the women said it the fact that the call was made and it is considered criminall activity
Is it legal for a neigbor (a condo owner) to harras the tenant and demand that the landlord not renew a lease, because the couple renting the aprtment had a child?
I do appreciate legal advice on this matter.
Thank you,
Simin
I am a physically-disabled person living in disabled (HUD subsidized) housing. Unfortunately, chemical sensitivity is one of the immune disorders that is part of my particular physical disability. Housing knew they had a ‘board of health’ type of issue in the building they rented an apartment to me, but did not disclose that fact. Therefore, I was made ill for years while tenants sprayed Lysol and Glade, etc., to cover up the board-of-health type issue and even though it is against the lease and I ended up in the ER several times, housing never punished those who violated the lease no matter how ill it made me (many hundreds of dollars out of pocket for medical expenses, having to be put on oxygen, etc.,) all of this could have been avoided if management TOLD me they had an ongoing issue, by disclosing it at the time of rental or at least the first time I voiced my concerns about the Lysol sprayers in the hall making me ill. Also, to this day we have a criminally-insane gentleman who does NOT meet the HUD definitions of someone who can safely integrate into the elderly/disabled population, so for 8 years from the week I arrived this man mashed my vehicle into mince meat. Housing said it was a police issue, and the police said it was a housing issue. More recently, this man came after my person, and is now coming against my new vehicle. Is there ANYTHING that can be done other than once again, have to give away all of my belongings because I can not afford to pay movers to move them, when the truth is, if management handled these issues (board of health issues, criminally-insane felon issues… this gentleman has a violent history of attacking and beating the elderly and STILL is allowed to live here?) Housing is difficult to find in this economy, I am looking at not just losing everything again to leave because the housing is unsafe/harmful, but I no longer have the physical health to sleep on the floor without owning a pot or a pan to my name as I have had to do so many times before through NO fault of my own… I’m not well enough to sleep on a cot in a battered women’s facility which says they will take me from night until dawn but then I have to be away during the daytime hours, and physically-disabled I have no place to go, the housing authority that comes and does door-to-door interviews and identifies themselves as ‘the feds’ say there is NOTHING that can be done about the chemicals covering up board of health issues, or the criminally-insane tenant who keeps coming back after his felonly charges and brief stays at Worcester State Hospital for evaluations where he is found not able to withstand his criminal charges, so he just comes back and busts up our vehicles with no recourse. Help?