Housing discrimination, in short, is discrimination of certain groups of people as it pertains to housing. Think job discrimination, but with real estate.
6 Signs of Housing Discrimination
1: Unfairness and unequal treatment of tenants.
Example: Black tenants are not allowed to pay rent late, but white tenants are.
2: Falsely denying a property is available for sale or rent.
Example: Retail Lady: “Oh no, this apartment complex is full, but there’s another nice one on the other side of town!”
3: Unwillingness to rent to different groups of people.
Example: “I don’t rent to black people. They’re loud and lower the property value.”
4: Refusal to accommodate the disabled.
“I don’t care if you’re blind and he helps you, no dogs period. My rules.”
5: Ending a tenancy for prejudice reasons.
“We’ve been getting complaints from the neighbors. You have to go.” (Or some other suspiciously contrived reason.)
What can be done?
If you believe you’ve been discriminated against you can contact the U.s Department of Housing and Urban Development and make a claim. This claim must be made within a year of said discriminatory act happening.
Phone number:
- 1 (800) 333-4636
Website:
Other things to note:
- Landlords must give you a written, 30 day notice if they’re going to raise the rent. If you’re in a lease, a landlord may not raise the rent unless the lease agreement allowed this.
- Landlords rejecting you on the basis of low or unstable income, past evictions (unless those were due to discrimination), and credit history is not housing discrimination.
There is a video we have created on this which will be released in the next few days along with the re-launch of our Youtube channel. This video will answer much more questions concerning housing and the powers of tenants and their landlords.
