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Tuesday, July 23, 2024
State Cannabis Symposium is Now Virtual on July 25th
HUD Charges Wisconsin Housing Provider with Discriminating Against a Tenant with Disabilities
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has charged Tammy and Ramiro Estrada, the owner of a duplex in Appleton, Wisconsin, with violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to grant a tenant with a disability a reasonable accommodation to allow the tenant to live with her assistance animals.
Under the Fair Housing Act, individuals with disabilities have the right to reasonable accommodations when such accommodations are necessary to afford them equal access to their home, including the use of assistance animals. Individuals also are legally protected from coercion, intimidation, threats, or interference when they assert their fair housing rights or file a complaint with HUD.
HUD’s Charge alleges that the owners applied unlawful breed restrictions, fines, and fees to the the Complainant's accommodation request. Respondents also interfered with her attempt to obtain a service dog and threatened eviction, eventually non-renewing their lease. citing the reasonable accommodation requests in the non-renewal notice. As a result, the tenants were forced to rent more expensive housing elsewhere.
A U.S. Administrative Law Judge will hear HUD’s Charge unless any party to the Charge elects to have the case heard in federal district court. If an administrative law judge finds, after a hearing, that discrimination has occurred, the judge may award damages to the family for their losses because of the discrimination. injunctive relief, other equitable relief to deter further discrimination, payment of attorney fees, and civil penalties to vindicate the public interest. If the federal court hears the case, the judge may also award punitive damages to the family.
People who believe they are the victims of housing discrimination should contact HUD at (800) 669-9777 (voice) 800-927-9275 (TTY). Additional information is available at www.hud.gov/fairhousing. Housing providers and others can learn more about their responsibility to provide reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications to individuals with disabilities here. Materials and assistance are available for persons with limited English proficiency. Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing may contact HUD using the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339.
PD&R Quarterly In-Person & Virtual Update on Source of Income Discrimination will be on July 25th
On Thursday, July 25th, HUD's Office of Policy Development & Research (PD&R) will host a hybrid PD&R Quarterly Update on source of income (SOI) discrimination and laws. Over the past 20 years, evidence of discrimination against housing choice voucher holders has grown. Over half of voucher households live in states and localities that have adopted ordinances to prevent this kind of discrimination - such as Maryland. Go to the Source of Income Protections for Housing Choice Voucher Holders website of HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing to see jurisdictions that have adopted SOI protections.
Thursday, July 25, 2024
2:00-4:00 pm ET
Hybrid Event
HUD Headquarters
451 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20410
Attending this HUD event will be researchers, municipal and state government officials, and fair housing practitioners. They will discuss recent passage of local anti-discrimination ordinances; evaluate research about the impacts of these anti-discrimination laws; and discuss challenges to the enforcement of these ordinances.
Data Spotlight - Veronica Helms Garrison, Analyst, PD&R/HUD
Panel Discussion: Overview of Source of Income Protections and What the Research Tells Us About Their Effectiveness - Panelists are:
- Martha Galvez, Executive Director, Housing Solutions Lab at the Furman Center, NYU.
- Philip Tegeler, Executive Director, Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC).
- Dan Teles, Principal Research Associate, Urban Institute.
- Moderator: Dr. Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring, PD&R/HUD.
Panel Discussion: Lessons from State and Local Implementation - Panelists are:
- Adria Crutchfield, Executive Director, Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership.
- Sandra Park, Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau, New York State Office of the Attorney General.
- Manon Vergerio, Co-Founder and Head of Data & Advocacy, Unlock NYC.
- Moderator: Chang Chiu, Chief of Staff for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, HUD.
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Wednesday, July 17, 2024
MCCR's Cannabis Symposium is July 25th in Owings
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Monday, July 15, 2024
MCCR's 60th Anniversary Celebration of the Civil Rights Act will be on October 22nd
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Tuesday, July 9, 2024
The Fair Lending Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for 2023 is Released
The June 2024 Fair Lending Report describes CFPB's fair lending activities in enforcement, guidance and rulemaking, interagency coordination, and outreach and activities for calendar year 2023. It is submitted to Congress. The fair lending activities of the CFPB are summarized here.
Fair Lending Activities
In 2023 the CFPB focused much of its fair lending supervision efforts on: mortgage origination (including redlining, property valuation bias, and HMDA and Regulation C compliance); credit card marketing and the use of alternative data in digital marketing; and on the use of automated systems and models, sometimes marketed as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models, in credit card
originations.
originations.
The CFPB’s 2023 mortgage origination work continued to focus on redlining (intentional discrimination against applicants and prospective applicants living or seeking credit in minority neighborhoods, including by discouragement). The CFPB’s mortgage work also included assessing potential discrimination in mortgage underwriting and pricing processes, including assessing whether there were disparities in application, underwriting, and pricing processes, and whether there were weaknesses in fair lending-related compliance management systems. The CFPB’s mortgage origination work also included reviewing residential property appraisal service providers to identify risks that may arise due to potential discrimination or bias as well as HMDA data integrity and validation reviews.
The CFPB continued to assess whether lenders complied with the adverse action notice requirements of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Regulation B and evaluated whether lenders maintain policies and procedures that unlawfully exclude property on the basis of geography in underwriting decisions, unlawfully exclude certain types of income, and treat criminal history in an unlawful manner.
Fair Lending Enforcement
In fair lending enforcement, the CFPB:
(1) Did two ECOA-related public enforcement actions, relating to discrimination on the basis of race and national origin, one against Citibank N.A. (Citibank) and the other against Colony Ridge Development, LLC, and Colony Ridge BV, LLC, and affiliate mortgage company Colony Ridge Land, LLC (collectively, the Colony Ridge defendants).
(2) Took public enforcement actions against two repeat offenders for
reporting false, erroneous, or incorrect HMDA data: Freedom Mortgage Corporation (Freedom
Mortgage) and Bank of America, N.A.
(3) On October 10, 2023, the CFPB filed a lawsuit against Freedom Mortgage, a residential
mortgage loan originator and servicer, alleging that it submitted legally-required mortgage loan
data that were riddled with errors.
(4) On November 28, 2023, the CFPB issued an order against Bank of America for routinely
submitting falsified HMDA data.5 The CFPB found that between 2016 and late 2020, hundreds
of Bank of America’s loan officers failed to ask applicants for their race, ethnicity, and sex, as
required by law, and instead falsely recorded that the applicants chose not to provide this
information.
(5) In 2023, the CFPB issued several fair lending-related Matters Requiring Attention and entered
Memoranda of Understanding directing entities to take corrective actions that the CFPB will
monitor through follow-up supervisory actions. In these communications, the CFPB directed
mortgage lenders to correct violations relating to redlining, including by institutions providing
consumer remediation designed to spur lending in redlined areas.
Memoranda of Understanding directing entities to take corrective actions that the CFPB will
monitor through follow-up supervisory actions. In these communications, the CFPB directed
mortgage lenders to correct violations relating to redlining, including by institutions providing
consumer remediation designed to spur lending in redlined areas.
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