City of Boston Announces Fair Housing Testing Initiative
The City of Boston has announced that it will be launching a major initiative to combat housing discrimination, which will target rentals, but also investigate complaints in the home sales market, and mortgage lending community. The initiative, which is set to begin on October 1, will include deployment of fair housing testers across the city to identify bias and discrimination occurring among real estate agents and brokers, landlords/property managers, and property owners. While violations of fair housing law based on race and voucher holder status will be the primary focus, the program won’t be limited to these factors, but instead will test across all 14 classes protected under state fair housing laws.
The testing program, which is being taken up by the Boston Office of Fair Housing & Equity, is being conducted in the wake of a recent year-long study commissioned by The Boston Foundation and implemented by the Suffolk University Law School, which focused on race and source of income/public assistance (i.e. Section 8). That study showed empirical evidence of the discrimination that people of color and those with housing vouchers face in our community and city at large, but only reported broad results and general findings of unequal treatment within the rental market.
The City of Boston initiative not only will be more extensive in its reach, but also include an element of enforcement. Most notably, all individuals and brokerages investigated during the Suffolk Law School study will be re-tested with the intent of bringing stiff enforcement measures against those individuals and others who are found to commit discriminatory practices, according to Will Onuoha, commissioner of the Boston Fair Housing Commission and executive director of the Office of Fair Housing & Equity, who recently met with the GBAR Board of Directors to discuss opportunities for collaboration in fair housing training, consumer awareness, and disciplinary penalties. Additionally, the intent is to share results of the investigation, including names of persons who act in a manner that violates fair housing law, with The Boston Globe and several public and private agencies, such as the state Attorney General’s Office, Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and Boston Human Rights Commission for additional sanctions and prosecution.
To better understand and position yourself to comply with state and federal fair housing laws, consider completing this fair housing quiz from REALTOR® Magazine, watching this implicit bias training video, and accessing the NAR fair housing resources page.