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- Latest news item posted on 08/27/2008 at 07:01 AM
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New job listings: There are lots of new jobs - check them out.
- Watch the June 12, 2008 House hearings before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on "Enforcement of the Fair Housing Act of 1968" here.
Landlord to pay damages for refusing teenagers
(BIGFORK, Mont., Aug. 26, 2008)
-- A Bigfork landlord, accused of turning away tenants with teenagers in their family, has agreed to pay $33,000 in damages and fees as part of a court settlement.
“The law is quite clear,” said Pam Bean. “You cannot discriminate based on familial status. Having teenagers in your family cannot be used as a reason to refuse you housing.”
Bean is executive director of Montana Fair Housing, which helped Wendy McGill and her teenage daughter take their complaint all the way to federal court.
FULL STORY in The Missoulian
Accessible homes? Not really, say disabled residents
(NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 2008)
-- Even a kitchen cabinet can be an insurmountable challenge, when it is too high to reach. Or a sink — or a toilet — that is too low. And, as Roberta Galler knows, there are closets that cannot be entered. “You might get your wheelchair in, but you’ll never get it out,” she said during a tour of her apartment on a recent afternoon.
Ms. Galler lives not in a prewar apartment building or a decrepit walk-up, but in a 27-story building in Battery Park City that was built in 1999 under a city law intended to provide accessible housing to disabled tenants. Her status — and that of thousands of others — took the spotlight last week with the news that developers and landlords in New York City — potentially facing lawsuits from the federal government — may have to spend tens of millions of dollars to renovate more than 100,000 apartments built since 1991 to comply with federal housing laws barring discrimination against tenants who use wheelchairs.
The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has sent letters to some of the city’s most prominent landlords and architects, saying they risk prosecution under the Fair Housing Act because, the prosecutors said, their buildings are not accessible to people with disabilities.
FULL STORY in The New York Times
Attorney battled racial bias in housing
(LONG BEACH, Calif., Aug. 22, 2008)
-- When Myron Blumberg practiced law in Long Beach, he committed himself to becoming a "fierce advocate" for minority residents seeking fair treatment in housing.
It was Blumberg's unwillingness to devote "less than 100 percent, or to compromise what he knew was right, or to leave any stone unturned," that made him one of the most prominent community leaders in the region, said his son, John Blumberg.
On Aug. 15, Blumberg, 89, died from complications of Parkinson's disease.
FULL STORY in The Press-Telegram
Mass. AG settles housing discrimination case
(SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Aug. 22, 2008)
-- The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (right) said today that it has settled a housing discrimination case that involves how the expense of a service animal is factored into determining rent payments under a state voucher program for a tenant with disabilities.
Under the settlement reached earlier this week, the Greenfield Housing Authority and the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, or the DHCD, have agreed to pay $6,000 in damages to the victim, who requires a specially trained dog to help her perform daily tasks "due to mobility disabilities," Coakley's office said.
FULL STORY in The Boston Globe
OPINION: Tualatin housing balancing act
(TUALATIN, Ore., Aug. 21, 2008)
-- For the past three months, the city of Tualatin has heard from two vilified families living on Seminole Trail.
Oxford House residents expected public backlash. It comes with the territory when an unlicensed group home for recovering drug addicts moves into a suburb.
Seminole Trail residents, however, were caught off guard. Their concerns about density were perceived as smoke screens for the neighbors’ fears about living next door to addicts.
But as a Land Use Board of Appeals case against a garage conversion gets underway, Jim and Katie Bailey insist that their concerns are for the identity of their “single-family” neighborhood.
FULL STORY in The Tualatin Times
Housing advocates share tactics to fight foreclosure
(BOSTON, Aug. 21, 2008)
-- On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, the federal law that prohibits housing discrimination, local government officials and activists gathered last week for a forum designed to help endangered residents save their homes.
The rising tide of foreclosures has shaken the nation’s economy and left many homeowners nervous about their financial futures. Communities of color, frequently targeted by predatory lenders and victimized by discriminatory housing practices, have experienced a particularly strong backlash.
At the information session, held last Thursday at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury, Michael D. Mitchell of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) said that Boston is in a better position to deal the housing crisis due to its strong coalition of agencies and grassroots organizations working on behalf of the community, including the Boston regional office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Boston Fair Housing Commission.
FULL STORY in The Bay State Banner
Ill. sweeps lending companies for law compliance
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Aug. 20, 2008)
-- Officials say a state task force has conducted a sweep of more than 200 mortgage companies to make sure they're complying with a new law designed to combat predatory lending.
Twenty-two examiners will audit randomly selected loan files from the sweep that ended Wednesday.
Officials say the Mortgage Fraud Task Force is looking for five things.
They include that the borrower will be able to pay the costs of the loan, that the company gave borrowers copies of home appraisals, and that the company disclosed how much the mortgage broker was paid.
FULL STORY in The Chicago Tribune
Fair housing probe may push developers to Washington's way
(NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2008)
-- The developers and owners of an estimated 100,000 city apartment units may set their sights on Washington to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars for violations of the federal Fair Housing Act.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Michael Garcia, is opening an investigation into whether thousands of apartment units that satisfied city regulators failed to meet federal requirements for wheelchair accessibility.
At issue are provisions of the Fair Housing Act that include seven features that must be found in most new apartment buildings. One feature is that light switches be placed below a certain height. Another is that bathroom walls be reinforced to allow for the installation of grab bars.
FULL STORY in The New York Sun
U.S. says many apartments violate accessibility law
(NEW YORK, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2008)
-- Facing potential lawsuits by the federal government, developers and landlords in New York City may need to spend tens of millions of dollars to renovate more than 100,000 apartments built since 1991 to comply with federal housing laws barring discrimination against tenants who use wheelchairs, real estate industry officials say.
For 20 years, residential developers have complied with a city law requiring them to ensure that all the apartments they build are accessible to disabled tenants. Considered path-breaking legislation when it was enacted in 1988, the city law essentially meets the federal requirements of the Fair Housing Act, developers and city officials say.
But the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has sent letters to about a dozen of the city’s most prominent landlords and their architects saying that some of their buildings were “not accessible to persons with disabilities,” which would constitute discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. The recipients included Related Companies, the Durst Organization, Rose Associates, Rockrose Development and Silverstein Properties.
The letters said that doors were not wide enough, and that kitchens and bathrooms were not big enough to allow someone in a wheelchair to maneuver. Also, the letters said, tenants could not install “grab bars” to lift themselves in or out of a tub, because the walls had not been reinforced.
FULL STORY in The New York Times
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