HOW TO REPORT HOUSING DISCRIMINATION WITH HUD

https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing/fileacomplaint

If you believe your rights may have been violated, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) encourages you to report housing discrimination. Because there are time limits on when an allegation can be filed with HUD after an alleged violation, you should report housing discrimination as soon as possible. When reporting housing discrimination, please provide as much information as possible, including:

• Your name and address.
• The name and address of the person(s) or organization your allegation is against.
• The address or other identification of the housing or program involved.
• A short description of the event(s) that cause you to believe your rights were violated.
• The date(s) of the alleged violation.

Report Housing Discrimination Now

What is Housing Discrimination?

Discrimination under the Fair Housing Act (including housing that is privately owned and operated) is:

• Discrimination in renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing-related activities.
• Discrimination on the basis of: race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, disability).

Who May File an Allegation - Anyone who has been or will be harmed by a discriminatory housing practice.

Who May Have an Allegation Filed Against Them - Property owners, property managers, developers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, homeowners associations, insurance providers, and others who affect housing opportunities.

You can Report Housing Discrimination with HUD

ONLINE in English (also available in Español, 中文, Tiếng Việt, 한국인, العربية, Русский, ខ្មែរ, and Soomaali).

BY PHONE. HUD speaks your language! Talk with a HUD intake specialist by calling: 1-800-669-9777. You can also call your regional FHEO office at the phone numbers on this list.

BY MAIL. You can print out this form (also available in Español, 繁體中文, Tiếng Việt, 한국인, عربي, Русский, ខ្មែរ, and Soomaali) and mail it to your regional HUD office at the address on this list.

Assistance for Persons with Disabilities

HUD welcomes and is prepared to receive calls from individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as individuals with speech or communication disabilities. To learn more about how to make an accessible telephone call, please visit Telecommunications Relay Service - TRS.

Assistance for Persons with Limited English Proficiency

You can report housing discrimination in any language. For persons with limited English proficiency, HUD provides interpreters. HUD also provides a Spanish language version of the online report housing discrimination form. You can find descriptions of your fair housing rights in several languages other than English here.

Retaliation Is Illegal

It is illegal to retaliate against any person for making an allegation, testifying, assisting, or participating in any manner in a proceeding under HUD’s allegation process at any time, even after the investigation has been completed. 

It is illegal to retaliate against any person because that person reported a discriminatory practice to a housing provider or other authority. 

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) also makes it illegal for a public housing agency, owner, or manager of housing assisted under a VAWA covered housing program to retaliate against someone for seeking or exercising VAWA protections for themself or another. This includes protection for people who testify, assist, or participate in any VAWA matter on their own, or another’s, behalf. 

If you believe you have experienced retaliation, you should report housing discrimination!

Types of Allegations Investigated

HUD investigates allegations, which may be one or both of the following:

(1) Discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.

(2) Discrimination and other civil rights violations in housing and community development programs, including those funded by HUD.

(3) Discrimination Under the Violence Against Women Act.

Additional Resources

Learn About the Reporting Process

Get Help Before Reporting Housing Discrimination

Reporting in Languages Other than English

Housing Discrimination Under the Fair Housing Act

HUD Multifamily Housing Complaints

Housing Choice Voucher and Public Housing Complaints

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Source of Information: HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

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Religious Accommodations and the Law

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Tackling Racial Inequities in Homeownership

The Urban Institute's recent landscape analysis of the racial homeownership gap - A Landscape Scan of Homeownership for Households of Color (November 2022) - found that households of color have lower homeownership rates than white households. While reasons for these racial disparities vary, "they are often attributable to differences in households’ access to financial resources and persistent racial discrimination."

On October 4, 2023, the Urban Institute and Living Cities held a conference to explore how homeownership could be made more equitable for everyone. Living Cities "is a collaborative of 19 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions working to close racial income and wealth gaps in American cities."

At the conference, local and federal government leaders discussed systemic inequity in homeownership for people of color and various innovative solutions to close these persistent homeownership gaps. Especially highlighted were the local homeownership initiatives currently being done by cities in the "Closing the Gaps’ Year of Reckoning Cohort" and existent racial equity plans by federal agencies.

While racial disparities in homeownership persist, institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and state and local governments are working to achieve greater racial equity in U.S. homeownership. 

Barriers to Homeownership Equity

One conference focus was a panel focused specifically on federal barriers to homeownership for nonwhite communities. Participants included Katrina Jones, vice president of racial equity strategy and impact at Fannie Mae; Demetria McCain, principal deputy assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at HUD; Pamela Perry, vice president of single-family equitable housing at Freddie Mac; and Rekha Balu, director of federal equity initiatives at the Urban Institute.

Saving the funds needed to close on a single-family home is a major impediment for prospective first-time homebuyers in communities of color. This challenge stems from historic wealth inequities that diminish generational wealth.  Additional obstacles to equity include insufficient access to credit disproportionately impacting Black and Latino families and high rental housing costs sap families' efforts to save money toward a downpayment. Most renters' on-time rental payments are not reported to credit bureaus, reducing their credit scores and lessening their ability to qualify for a mortgage at a favorable rate. One solution could be to increase an applicant's credit score by 60 points and make them eligible for prime financing rather than a subprime loan.

Even among homeowners, inequities persist.  A homeowner's race often affects assessments of home values is attested by the approximately 200 active appraisal discrimination cases HUD is managing. Scammers have targeted communities, such as Black and Caribbean homeowners in New York, and defrauded them out of their titles, according to HUD. 

Possible Solutions to Inequity

Important solutions proposed included: 

(1) Efforts to bridge the gap between aggregate and abstract data and families’ on-the-ground, anecdotal experiences. Jones described efforts at Fannie Mae to create fictional personas to illustrate the specific barriers different groups of people face in their journeys toward homeownership; these personas, created from housing data and research reports, help make housing challenges more comprehensible and less abstract. The personas give researchers at Fannie Mae analytic clarity to better understand how different groups’ challenges in the journey to homeownership intersect and differ. According to Jones, this approach offers a powerful way to bridge the gap between individual experience and aggregate data to drive tailored policy changes through the organization’s Equitable Housing Finance Plan.

(2) The panelists pointed out that real estate professionals can also make improvements. For example, diversifying the home appraisal industry can help reduce racial appraisal gaps. Perry described a partnership among Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Appraisal Institute (a professional organization that educates, credentials, and develops ethical standards for real estate appraisers) to hold recruiting events and increase scholarship and mentorship opportunities to diversify the profession. McCain added that Mississippi, which had scored poorly on a national assessment of diversity among home appraisers, responded by creating a program to recruit and train a more diverse cohort of appraisers.

(3) Special purpose credit programs, which target credit to historically underserved communities and communities living with the legacies of past discrimination, can also help alleviate homeownership inequities. McCain stated that HUD has found that special purpose credit programs for real estate loans or credit assistance are permissible and has advocated for their expansion to help promote homeownership equity. Perry pointed out that the U.S. has historically promoted homeownership through generous mortgage programs, noting that in the 1950s, many white families took advantage of favorable lending terms that facilitated first-time home purchases - opportunities denied to families of color, which has contributed to the inequities of the present. Jones added that similar credit programs today that require lower downpayments or offer homeownership counseling remain useful tools for promoting homeownership, this time for those who had previously been excluded.

(4) A sustained focus on identifying barriers to homeownership and a commitment to implementing solutions are showing how organizations can help homebuyers overcome longstanding housing inequities. The ongoing challenge, said panelists, is bringing these and other solutions to maturity and to scale. 

Read the November 14, 2023 PD&R Edge article.

 

 KeyBank Provided Less Loans to Black And Low-Income Homebuyers in 2022

A National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) analysis of the most recent federal data on mortgage lending has found that Black borrowers were 2.6% of the Cleveland-based bank’s home purchase mortgage lending in 2022, down from 3% in 2021. KeyBank has provided fewer percentage of its loans to Blacks each year since 2018, when 6.5% were to Blacks.

In 2022, KeyBank made 19.2% of its home purchase loans to low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers, down from 19.7% in 2021. In 2018 more than 38% of such KeyBank loans went to an LMI borrower. Other top lenders made more than 30% of their 2022 purchase mortgages to LMI borrowers and about 7% of them to Black borrowers. 

This performance by KeyBank is "counter to the spirit of the agreement it made with community leaders while seeking clearance for a merger in 2016," as a report NCRC published last year documented. From 2018 to 2022, the Bank's executives hiked shareholder dividends using the new profits from the merger. NCRC's 2022 report detailed KeyBank’s failure in serving low and moderate-income (LMI) and Black borrowers within the communities it pledged to assist. KeyBank in 2016 signed a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the NCRC and various community groups representing those same borrowers’ interests across the U.S. The deal was instrumental in satisfying legal and regulatory requirements in KeyBank’s merger with First Niagara Bank.  

By 2021, KeyBank had become the worst major mortgage lender for Black borrowers. NCRC cut ties with KeyBank after discovering the bank’s lower performance regarding Black and LMI borrowers, and notified regulators that the bank should receive a downgraded Community Reinvestment Act rating. The Bank first released "misleading and inaccurate responses asserting it had not done what the numbers show, it was later forced to commission a racial equity audit once shareholders applied pressure."

Read the November 9, 2023 NCRC article.

 New Report On Federal Home Loan Banks Released

A new federal report FHLBank System at 100: Focusing on the Future assessing the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system will help the public and policymakers achieve effective reforms to improve the FHLBs’ future performance. The Federal Home Loan Bank System has been a key component of the nation’s housing finance system since it was created over 90 years ago. Today, the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) connect domestic financial institutions - many of which are small, community focused lenders - to the global capital markets. Those connections make it possible for lenders to better support housing and community development. 

The Report recommends that: (1) The role of the FHLBanks in providing secured advances must be distinguished from the Federal Reserve’s financing facilities, set up to provide emergency financing for financial institutions with immediate liquidity challenges. The FHLBank System does not have the functional capacity to serve as the lender of last resort for troubled members. (2) FHLBanks should coordinate with their members’ primary regulators and the Federal Reserve Banks to make sure their members’ borrowing needs continue to be met when they no longer satisfy the FHLBanks’ credit criteria. (3) FHLBanks also should regularly update their credit evaluations of their members to avoid encouraging excessive risk taking. 

Additional steps that will better enable the FHLBanks to perform their liquidity function include: (i) improving the ability of the FHLBanks to maintain interest-bearing deposits with commercial banks to manage intra-day liquidity requests; (ii) limiting the potential for an increase in debt issuance costs for all members following a large liquidity request from a single member; and (iii) strengthening capital management and stress testing to keep the FHLBanks able to serve their members through all economic environments.

FHFA seeks to help the Federal Home Loan Bank System continue being a source of stable and reliable liquidity, while increasing support for housing and community development. The report summarizes issues raised throughout the initiative, actions FHFA will take, and recommendations, some of which are for consideration by Congress. 

FHFA will further review these issues and do the recommendations through ongoing supervision, guidance, or rulemaking. Much of this work will involve additional collaboration and communication with stakeholders. Certain recommendations require statutory changes, which in turn require coordination with, and support from, Congress.

The new report was produced with input from stakeholders including NCRC. FHFA started its review of the FHLBs in 2022, to identify how it could modernize the FHLB system and better serve the public. NCRC has called for reforms to strengthen community-based accountability, increase affordable housing resources, and further fair housing. The recommended changes would also more effectively support Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) as well as important community development investments in climate resilience and other projects. 

Read the November 8, 2023 NCRC release.

 Push for Fair Housing Education on November 14th

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have teamed up for a social media campaign to raise awareness of housing discrimination and highlight the importance of fair housing across the country.    NCRC will lead a #FairHousingMatters #WelcomeME Social Storm on November 14, all day across all platforms, to spark wider public interest in fair housing.    Here is a toolkit with sample graphics and social posts to help you post during the social storm.   The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of dwellings and other housing-related activities because of race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, familial status, or disability. If you or someone you know has experienced housing discrimination, please contact @NCRC immediately for assistance. #fairhousingmatters #welcomeme https://www.ncrc.org/fh/

 CFPB Sues Repeat Offender Freedom Mortgage Corporation for Providing False Information to Federal Regulators

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a lawsuit in federal court on October 10, 2023, alleging that Freedom Mortgage Corporation submitted legally-required mortgage loan data that was riddled with errors. The CFPB alleges that Freedom’s practices violate both the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and a 2019 consent order. In a recent separate matter, in August 2023 the CFPB fined Freedom $1.75 million for paying illegal kickbacks for mortgage loan referrals. 

Freedom is a privately held nonbank mortgage loan originator and servicer with headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. In 2020, Freedom reported HMDA data on more than 700,000 mortgage loan applications and originated nearly 400,000 HMDA-reportable loans worth almost $100 billion. Under HMDA, mortgage lenders are required to report information about loan applications and originations to the CFPB and other federal regulators. The public and regulators can use HMDA information to assess if the financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communities, and to identify possible discrimination.

In 2019, the CFPB found that Freedom had intentionally misreported HMDA data about applicants’ race and ethnicity. For example, certain loan officers were told by managers or other loan officers that when applicants did not provide their race or ethnicity, they should select non-Hispanic white. The 2019 order required Freedom to pay a $1.75 million penalty, improve its compliance management system, and avoid future HMDA violations.

The 2023 lawsuit alleges that the HMDA data Freedom submitted for 2020 contained widespread errors across multiple data fields, and that the errors constitute violations of HMDA, the Consumer Financial Protection Act, and the 2019 order. Specifically, the CFPB alleges: (1) Freedom reported information to regulators with widespread inaccuracies: After the CFPB found 51 errors in an initial review of 159 files in Freedom’s 2020 submission, the company had to resubmit its data. In that resubmission, Freedom corrected errors in 35 different required HMDA data fields. There were errors in over 174,000 data entries affecting nearly 20% of Freedom’s mortgage loan applications; and (2) Freedom violated a 2019 law enforcement order to clean up its deficient data practices. It has failed to do this, and has continued to provide federal regulators with error-ridden data.

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), the CFPB has the authority to take action against financial institutions violating consumer financial laws, including HMDA. The lawsuit seeks to stop Freedom’s alleged unlawful conduct and for it to pay a civil money penalty which will be deposited in the CFPB’s victims relief fund. 

Read today’s complaint.

Read the October 10, 2023 CFPB release.