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Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Sesion de Escucha del Condado de Howard
Maryland's 60th Anniversary Celebration of Civil Rights Act is on October 22nd
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Friday, August 30, 2024
Howard County Equity Listening Session on September 10th
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Wednesday, August 28, 2024
31st Baltimore Civil Rights Breakfast on October 7th
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Tuesday, August 27, 2024
On August 5, 2024, the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD) issued a Fair Housing Memorandum that applies to the full spectrum of housing activities, including, but not limited to, outreach and marketing, qualification and selection of residents, and occupancy.
The Department has modified their requirements for Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing Plans and Tenant Selection Plans to comply with the HUD Guidance. Owners and/or managers of properties that have received LIHTC awards, program funds, or other subsidies from the Department are now required to submit a copy of their tenant selection plan or policy by January 1, 2025, to evidence compliance with the policies.
The Memorandum includes revised and updated policies regarding:
- Credit History Screening
- Eviction History Screening
- Criminal Record Screening
- Admission Criteria
DHCD will review the tenant selection plan or policy to ensure it complies with DHCD requirements and will reject any plan that isn’t in conformance.
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
New Jersey proposes new disparate impact discrimination rule
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights have announced a proposed rule describing and clarifying the prohibitions against disparate impact discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD). The proposed rule clarifies the legal standard for disparate impact discrimination and the burdens of proof in claims in the housing, financial lending, employment, places of public accommodation, and contracting. The proposed rule largely codifies existing state and federal case law and provides examples of policies and practices that may result in a disparate impact on members of a protected class under the LAD.
New Jersey’s proposed LAD prohibits conduct that expressly treats people differently based on their membership in a protected class and policies or practices that have a negative impact on members of a protected class. Under the LAD, even policies or practices that are neutral on their face and that do not single out a protected class for different treatment may violate the LAD if they have a disparate impact on protected class members.
Proposed rule
The proposed rule is intended to clarify that the LAD prohibits practices or policies that result in a disproportionately negative effect on members of a protected class, even if such practices or policies are not intended to discriminate, unless it is shown that such are necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest and there is no less discriminatory, equally effective alternative that would achieve the same interest. The proposed new rule provides the standard for determining whether a practice or policy is unlawfully discriminatory, and the burden-shifting framework applied to the standard for disparate impact claims arising in specific contexts. The proposed rule covers how liability for disparate impact may apply to many examples of policies and practices.
Subchapter 4 regards housing and housing financial assistance. A proposed burden-shifting framework putting the burden of showing that there is not a less discriminatory, equally effective alternative means of achieving the housing provider’s or lender’s substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest on the respondent at the final stage of the burden-shifting test. If the complainant can show the practice or policy results in a disparate impact on members of a protected class, the respondent must show that the challenged practice or policy is necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest and that there is not a less discriminatory, equally effective alternative means of achieving that.The respondent may, but is not required to, identify what policy or practice options it considered and how and why it decided to select the policy or practice.
Here are some examples of policies and practices that may have an unlawful disparate impact:
- Minimum income requirements.
- Financial standards, or income standards that have a disparate impact on people seeking to pay rent with forms of government low-income rental assistance; Excluding applicants based on criminal or credit history.
- Automatically refusing all rental housing applicants who have no credit score or a score below a minimum threshold.
- Requiring
a renter or buyer to violate or forgo a sincerely held religious
practice or observance.
This framework aligns with how New Jersey courts and the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights have applied disparate impact liability. Placing the burden on the respondent to prove no less discriminatory alternatives exist is appropriate “in light of the particularly stark information asymmetry between housing providers and victims of housing discrimination, as housing providers are far more likely to have access to information about the challenged practice or policy, their interests, what potential alternative practices or policies are available, and whether an alternative could serve their interests while having less discriminatory effects.” Increased use of tenant screening reports and online platforms in housing sale and rental markets have made it especially difficult for complainants to access information about specific housing providers’ policies and practices, and that there is a significant imbalance in access to legal representation in housing cases, as landlords have legal representation in 90% of housing cases involving eviction, while less than 10% of renters have legal representation in such cases.
The proposed rule also would apply to the practices and policies of real estate brokers, agents, salespersons, property management, and lending institutions. For lending institutions, this includes making available or unavailable the provision of housing financial assistance, establishing financial assistance terms or conditions, and the creation and application of criteria requirements, procedures, or standards for the review and approval of real estate transactions, with the exception of evaluations of an applicant’s consumer credit history where required for a federal loan product or formula or practices or policies that enforce federal guidelines.
Credit Unions Exploit Federal Tax Exemption to Buy Tax-Paying Community Banks - Not Subject to Community Reinvestment Act requirements
Nonprofit credit unions are buying record numbers of for-profit banks. Until recently, a nonprofit couldn't own a for-profit, but tax changes in recent years have changed the dituation.
As the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) recently wrote: "Credit unions are increasingly exploit their federal tax exemption to acquire tax-paying community banks, the need for policymakers to re-examine their tax status is urgent. Action is needed now to preserve community banks and the communities that depend on them, ensuring the continued vitality of the relationship-based banking sector that has supported Main Street America for generations.
Credit unions pay no tax to operate the same business that was taxable the day before once they acquire a bank. As public scrutiny of these inappropriate deals and the number of credit union purchases of taxpaying community banks have raced past record highs, policymakers must protect local communities by ending the credit union tax exemption,” Rainey said. As more than 20% of bank deals this year have been credit unions leveraging their tax exemption to purchase banks, the media is taking note:
Axios: Why credit unions are buying banks.
American Banker: Credit unions extend bank-buying spree.
Credit Union Today: Citing exec pay, sports deals, 'lavish' HQs, bank group tells Congress there are new reasons to revoke CU tax exemption.
Op-ed: Confessions of a credit union executive turned community banker.
Op-ed: Stop letting credit unions buy community banks."
As Axios recently concluded: Credit unions have many advantages over banks. They pay less in taxes and don't need to deliver profits to shareholders.They also have less of a regulatory burden — they aren't subject to Community Reinvestment Act requirements, for instance, and their National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund is in healthier shape than the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund.
Axios: Why credit unions are buying banks.
American Banker: Credit unions extend bank-buying spree.
Credit Union Today: Citing exec pay, sports deals, 'lavish' HQs, bank group tells Congress there are new reasons to revoke CU tax exemption.
Op-ed: Confessions of a credit union executive turned community banker.
Op-ed: Stop letting credit unions buy community banks."
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