Fair Housing / Lending News

  The 1968 Fair Housing Act directed governments and their agencies to "affirmatively further" fair housing.   The Act outlawed discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. Yet after more than four decades, residential segregation and racial discrimination in housing remains virtually unchanged in many of our cities. Minorities, mainly African-Americans and Hispanics continue to experience discrimination in housing partly because of the lack of local and federal agencies not willing to enforce the mandate of "affirmatively furthering" fair housing.   As a result discrimination continues. ProPublica’s story on the Rembis family is an all too familiar example of housing discrimination. Claire Rembis and her husband came across a four-bedroom house advertised on Craigslist. It sounded like just what they had been looking for. It provided ample room for their children to run and play and the monthly rent was much cheaper than th

On February 8, 2013, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) issued a final rule, “Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Discriminatory Effects Standard. The rule formalizes a national standard for determining whether a housing practice violates the Fair Housing Act as the result of a discriminatory effect. The rule goes into effect on March 18, 2013. HUD takes the position that the Rule reaffirms, formalizes, and provides a consistent interpretation of, its longstanding position that liability may arise under the FHA from a racially neutral practice that has a discriminatory effect, even if there is no evidence that the practice was motivated by discriminatory intent. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said “the Department, which has the responsibility and authority to interpret and enforce the Fair Housing Act, has long interpreted the Act to prohibit housing practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect, if those acts actually or predictably result in a dis