Fair Housing

By: Angel Rogers, ARM, CCRM

I am a product of the 1960’s. I grew up in a middle-class bedroom community about 60 miles from Los Angeles.  We had a swimming pool and each of my siblings and I had our own bedrooms.  We went on family vacations in our station wagon every summer and when we returned, we attended summer day camp.  When we got older, we went to “sleep away” camp. We drank water from the hose, and we played outside until the streetlights came on. We had new wardrobes for back to school and Christmas was magical. Both of my parents were present my entire life, they were both college educated and they were educators as well. 

We were not wealthy. We did not live in a “certain” zip code. My parents worked ridiculously hard as schoolteachers, and when they both went back to college to pursue master’s degrees, they did so at night, taking turns on who would go when.  Getting those extra degrees (my father later earned his EdD), placed them on a higher pay scale.  They sacrificed to provide for us.

This is my lens that I view the world through.

Is it different than yours? Probably.  But what I have found is that most of us have more in common than we do different.  You would not know that in 2020 and it seems like every difference we have has been amplified and exploited.  We are no longer celebrating each other; we are fighting each other.  Publicly. With intolerance towards each other’s views and beliefs.  It seems like ourlens is the onlyacceptable lens. 

In June 2020, a court denied a Texas resident’s request for an emergency order to allow him to fence off his yard because his disability—a compromised immune system—left him vulnerable to COVID-19 exposure to passing strangers.

Given today’s volatile political climate, it’s more important than ever to be vigilant for any signs of racially motivated harassment, discrimination, or violence directed against anyone at your community. 

Criminal background checks are the latest battleground for potential race discrimination claims. If it’s been a while since you last reviewed your policy, it’s important to check to make sure your policy doesn’t run afoul HUD guidelines addressing the discriminatory effect that criminal background policies may have on racial and ethnic minorities.

When showing available units in your community, refrain from any comments or conduct that suggest a prospect should—or shouldn’t—live at your community, or in a particular area within your community—because of her race or color. It’s considered “steering,” an unlawful practice under the FHA, if you direct, guide, or encourage prospects, based on an illegally discriminatory reason, to rent only certain units at a community or to seek alternate living options.

This month MHCO focuses on fulfilling your obligation to comply with fair housing rules banning discrimination based on race and color with a six part series – with six rules community owners and managers need to follow.

The owners and operators of an Illinois mobile home community recently agreed to pay $251,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging race discrimination, according to the Justice Department. The complaint alleged that the former manager imposed more burdensome application requirements to discourage African-American prospects from living there.

This month at Manufactured Housing Communities of Oregon (MHCO), we 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:

• People who were infected while traveling, before returning to the United States;
• People who were infected after having close contact with someone known to be infected with the virus; and
• People who were infected but don’t know how or where they were infected.

Last week we uploaded “10 rules on how to avoid fair housing claims based on familial status”.   This week, let’s look at how the rules might apply in the real world. Here are  4 questions - with answers posted on MHCO.ORG.  

INSTRUCTIONS: Each of the following questions has only one correct answer.