It's Fair Housing Month: Test Your Knowledge Of Fair Housing Law

In honor of Fair Housing Month, this month's issue will give you a chance to test your knowledge of fair housing law. The rules forbidding outright housing discrimination seem fairly straightforward, but simply telling your staff not to discriminate against prospects and residents is not enough to avoid fair housing trouble. The law also bans more subtle forms of discrimination, which may not seem to be overtly discriminatory, but have an unfair impact on some prospects or applicants with a protected characteristic.

Providing fair housing training to new staff members is a good first step, but it's important to follow up to ensure your entire staff understands fair housing—and knows how to apply it in everyday dealings with the public.

The quiz in this month's issue can help clarify how well you understand and can apply fair housing principles. With that knowledge, you will be able to focus your training efforts. If, for example, a number of your staff members get the same answers wrong, it will identify particular topics where further training may be needed.

While taking a test may not be your idea of fun, it's perhaps the easiest way to identify where your efforts to comply with fair housing law need some tweaking. And it's a lot less painful than the way in which many communities learn that their compliance efforts aren't up to snuff: being on the receiving end of a fair housing complaint.