June 12, 2017
In this month’s lesson, the Coach reviews fair housing rules banning discrimination based on sex. While the basic rules prevent you from giving preferential treatment to either men or women because of their gender, the law has evolved to outlaw a broad range of discriminatory practices based...
May 12, 2017
In this lesson, the focus is on disability discrimination, the leading cause of fair housing complaints filed each year. The reasons vary, but many stem from disputes over requests for reasonable accommodations—that is, exceptions to the community’s usual rules or policies—for...
April 5, 2017
This month, we’re going to focus on avoiding fair housing trouble when dealing with immigrants and noncitizens. The national debate over immigration reform has been raging for many years now, but it’s taken on a new—and more politically divisive—tone since last fall’s...
March 9, 2017
In honor of Fair Housing Month, the Coach is getting back to basics with an overview of fair housing law. There’s a lot going on in Washington, with many anticipating changes on the horizon for fair housing regulatory requirements adopted in the waning days of the previous administration.
February 8, 2017
This month, the Coach focuses on the rules limiting when and how you can ask for disability-related information. It can come up anytime an applicant or resident requests a reasonable accommodation. It’s a particularly big issue when dealing with requests for emotional support animals, given...
January 12, 2017
For this month’s lesson, the Coach gathered recent court decisions on fair housing law. Keeping abreast of what’s happening in the courts can help you learn from the experiences of other communities to better prevent—or respond—to fair housing complaints.
December 20, 2016
In this lesson, the Coach reviews how fair housing rules may affect your ability to regulate smoking at your community. There has been a trend toward smoke-free housing policies, which recently got a big boost when HUD ordered all public housing agencies to go smoke-free by 2018. The new rule,...
December 6, 2016
In this Special Issue, the Coach wraps up 2016 with a review of this year’s lessons. Keep it handy—it’s a quick refresher on top fair housing concerns we covered this year. It’s also a helpful index to the full lessons, all of which are available to review or download from...
November 7, 2016
This month, the Coach offers a fair housing quiz designed to help you test your knowledge of fair housing law. The rules forbidding housing discrimination can get complicated, so it’s important that everyone working at your community understands fair housing—and knows how to apply it in...
October 14, 2016
In this month’s lesson, Fair Housing Coach focuses on occupancy standards, an increasing concern for housing communities. Occupancy standards can be a problem because they can restrict the housing choices of families with children. As a general rule, fair housing law doesn’t prevent...
