- Increase penalties and training for real estate professionals and prohibit them from charging broker’s fees.
- Strengthen anti-discrimination laws and fair housing enforcement and education and increase resources for testing.
- Improve and streamline the system for using vouchers
These recommendations were proposed by the Suffolk University Law School Housing Discrimination Testing Program in the July 2020 report that has been filed.
The situation for Black renters and renters with kids a Section 8 voucher is horrible. What will you do to fix it? What can you do?
Here are more takeaways about the housing problems as stated by the research team.
- Renting out housing is a business. Landlords should understand their legal obligations as operators of a business and renters should understand their rights.
- A national media campaign should be undertaken to educate everyone about rights and responsibilities under the FHA, the level of race discrimination that is occurring throughout the nation, and protections related to voucher-based discrimination in jurisdictions where voucher holders are a protected class.
- Legal protections do not help people if they are unaware of their rights.
- People should not mistakenly think that race discrimination in housing no longer occurs.
- Additional resources should be devoted to fair housing testing to detect discrimination.