April was the 35th Anniversary of the signing of the federal Fair Housing Act. Think of that: half a lifetime, but the Fair Housing child will mutate into something far different than how it began life.
Fair housing is a terrific idea and practice. No one should be denied housing or have their living arrangements made unpleasant or difficult because of their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Originally familial status and disability weren’t part of the law, those came in 1988.
That’s one of the problems when government passes laws. You can’t do just one thing. In spite of what those who constantly advocate the passage of some law or another say, you can’t think of every unwitting, innocent victim that some clause of a law will ensnare. So just when they were patting themselves on the back that they had just about done in discrimination in housing, along come complaints from people with children, and people with disabilities, saying that it wasn’t fair that they were being denied housing just because they had families or a disability.
Lots of things aren’t fair. The world isn’t fair. While the Fair Housing law enjoins some kinds of unfairness on the part of landlords, mortgage brokers and real estate agents, it leaves all three of them hung out to dry because of the terrorist activities of the Fair Housing enforcers. Over and over I hear and read about property owners’ fear of unknowingly and unintentionally violating the Fair Housing law because they innocently said something that someone was offended by, when no offense was intended or implied, were unable to make an appointment to show an apartment, or rented an apartment before a member of a protected class was able to see it.
Landlords take rental properties off the market for a month or two, losing rental income, because they don’t want to rent to an unqualified applicant who happens to be a member of a protected
class, but are afraid to reject him or her because they will be accused of being a bigot and suffer the wrath of government-funded zealots.
Their fears are far from groundless. The Fair Housing persecutors assume an innocent landlord is guilty right up to and through the time the landlord is forced into bankruptcy fighting them or gives in to their intimidation, by contritely admitting that he really is a bigot, won’t do it again, will change his ways, and pays the fine.
That isn’t fair. But landlords, mortgage brokers and real estate agents don’t have the intimidation power and might of the government to try to ensure fairness for them.
What can we do to balance the scales a little? First, we can educate ourselves about the Fair Housing law. You can read it, you can take classes offered by your local landlord, rental owners or apartment association.
I can’t recommend the classes the Fair Housing persecutors conduct, because they are from the point of view of the over-zealous bureaucrats, not property owners. I have heard actual misstatements and exaggerations of the provisions of the Fair Housing law from speakers at these classes. These people are not on your side, but on the side of the supposedly discriminated-against tenants and home buyers.
Second, you can join your local landlord, rental owners, or apartment association. They are usually members of larger, state and national organizations that go to bat for us as rental property owners to lobby for laws that favor our rights or against laws that further restrict our right to do business.
The only way we will ever make Fair Housing actually fair is through eternal vigilance toward protecting our property and civil rights.
