My next Quick Hits blog will discuss federal court decisions in the last month; this special is about only one thing – HUD’s very active enforcement activities concerning the Fair Housing Act, especially with respect to disability rights claims. Here are the press release headlines from September 1 to the present:

HUD AWARDS OVER $47 MILLION TO FIGHT HOUSING DISCRIMINATION

These grants go to local organizations that file FHA lawsuits, engage in FHA testing, and help process FHA Complaints. Most of the money is going to organizations that conduct testing campaigns in which they either expose discrimination or trap innocent landlords using calculated deception, according to how you view tester tactics. It may be a little of both since not all organizations are equally committed to fairness in fair housing. It is telling that litigation related activities will get three times as much money as education related activities. HUD seems to be more interested in punishing landlords than in helping them understand the law. This is an attitude left over from the decades in which most FHA complaints were  based on obviously wrong conduct in the form or racism. Disability discrimination is far more difficult for landlords to understand because it is usually in found in failures to grant modifications or accommodations in situations where the morally correct choice is not necessarily the same as the legally correct response. HUD might take note that the education to enforcement ratio is backwards in an era where most claims arise out of ignorance rather than obviously evil conduct. If you are a landlord or HOA you need to be aware that more money means more testing, so you need to be careful in dealing with callers who claim to have a disability or fall into a protected category under the FHA. They really are out to get you. More