June 29, 2020
Have you experienced housing discrimination at any stage in the housing process? Violations of the Fair Housing Act can occur at any stage of your journey to find a new rental home or purchase including home loans, refinance loans, home buying, etc.
If you have experienced ANY kind of discrimination while looking for a house or apartment, file a complaint of discrimination with the HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at (800) 669-9777.
You can also file a Fair Housing Act complaint online by visiting How to File a Complaint at the HUD official site.
Why? Because Fair Housing violations continue to be an issue in the United States of America, and often the only thing that prevents those who discriminated against YOU to keep violating the law is your report of these violations of federal law.
One of the most recent examples involves an announcement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development–a press release on its official site announcing Fair Housing Act charges against the owners of an apartment complex in Atlanta Georgia.
The announcement alleges that Fulton County’s Columbia at Mechanicsville, LP, Columbia at Mechanicsville Partners, LLC, Mechan-Summech, LLC, Columbia Residential Property Management, Inc., and a former property manager, Kalisha Winston, denied a mother’s reasonable accommodation request to relocate to a different apartment after flood damage began to create mold-related health problems for a child with asthma in the affected apartment.
The mother had asked to be relocated to an apartment free from the molds and other issues causing aggravation of the asthma; Fair Housing Act laws forbid housing providers “from denying or limiting housing to people with disabilities”.
It also forbids landlords from refusing to make reasonable accommodations “so that those with disabilities can reasonably use and enjoy their housing” according to HUD.
Those Fair Housing Act rules allow reasonable accommodation under the law including relocating when certain medical issues require it.
“Reasonable accommodations mean so much to families that have a need for them,” according to Anna María Farías, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “At HUD we always say, ‘you can’t be healthy if your house is sick…” Landlords have legal obligations in such cases.
In this case apartment mentioned in the HUD complaint flooded multiple times, and as a result, HUD alleges, “…one of the mother’s minor sons developed increasingly severe asthma symptoms that required multiple treatments by a specialist, including surgery.”
The mother requested that the family be allowed to move to a different apartment, but the request was denied.
The Fair Housing Act case is scheduled to be heard by an U.S. Administrative Law judge (unless one of the parties objects), and in cases where it is determined that Fair Housing Act laws have been violated, monetary damages may be awarded to the victims of such discrimination.
Housing discrimination affects every level of housing including those who must rent a home while looking for a house to purchase. The reason we report those cases here?
There are times when only the victims of Fair Housing Act violations are the ones with the power to stop future discrimination–if you don’t report the crime, it can’t be investigated and prosecuted by HUD. File a complaint of discrimination with the HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at (800) 669-9777.
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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