![]() ![]() Redfin settled that lawsuit for $4 million in 2022. The group was also a co-plaintiff in a 2020 lawsuit alleging real estate listing company Redfin's policy of only listing homes above a minimum value had a discriminatory effect. Last year, it sued an Illinois property management company over its policy of not renting to people with criminal records. In recent years, HOPE has participated in a number of lawsuits that expand the universe of housing industry practices that fall afoul of this disparate impact standard. "It does put landlords in a really tough position, and it's tough to know what a court will find legitimate." "There's no way to really know that you're going to be facing potential liability down the road," says Ethan Blevins, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. But critics argue that broad direction leaves housing providers with little guidance on the kinds of policies they can adopt to screen tenant or mortgage applicants. HUD, for instance, has issued guidance saying that blanket policies that exclude tenants who have a criminal record can violate the Fair Housing Act. Subsequent court decisions and federal regulations established the idea that prohibition can apply to policies that had a "disparate impact" or "discriminatory effect" on protected classes-even if there's no discriminatory intent present. The federal Fair Housing Act bars housing providers from discriminating "because of" race and sex, along with other protected classifications like disability, national origin, and family status. "Often referred to as the 'Scarlet "E",' a history of eviction has effectively become a life sentence diminishing housing opportunities." "Numerous studies, news reports, and advocate and tenant stories document just how typical a no-evictions policy is within the rental property owner community nationally," reads the complaint. Both the text of the complaint and the press materials argue this is a nationwide problem. HOPE's complaint targets the "no-evictions" policy of one specific landlord, Oak Park Apartments, which owns 90 multifamily buildings in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois. "A housing provider that enforces a policy that denies the opportunity to rent to anyone who has an eviction filing or judgment is disproportionately denying housing to Black households and Black women in particular," wrote HOPE Deputy Director Josefina Navar in a blog post published by the ACLU about the complaint.Īttorneys with the ACLU and the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) are assisting HOPE in their complaint. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week, the group HOPE Fair Housing Center argues that such policies amount to illegal discrimination based on race and sex, given the higher likelihood that black people, and particularly black women, will have an eviction record. A taxpayer-funded fair housing nonprofit in Illinois, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is demanding a federal crackdown on landlords who don't rent to tenants with eviction records. ![]()
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