Fair Housing

IT HAS BEEN a little more than 30 years since passage of the Fair Housing Act, part of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1968, which was approved by Congress under pressure from President Lyndon Johnson. It prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing, except owner-occupied, single-family housing with four or fewer occupants, sold or rented without the aid of a broker or an agent.The results have been mixed. Progress has certainly been made in middle- and upper-class suburban homeownership and in apartment housing.

The National Association of Realtors and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have devised a program to better educate Realtors about fair housing and housing discrimination.The course complements the "Many Neighborhoods -- One America" campaign that was launched this month in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the Fair Housing Law of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.The course is designed to teach real estate professionals to better understand the law. When Realtors complete the course, they will receive a certificate and will be allowed to use a new "One America" mark in their ads.The Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, the nation's oldest real estate board, said that for the remainder of the year the organization will be involved with many outreach programs, according to President Gilbert D. Marsiglia.

Scores of small assisted living homes for the elderly are organizing an 11th-hour battle against new state regulations that they say would force them to significantly raise their rates or go out of business.While many larger homes applaud the state's proposed changes, which are nearing a final draft, owners of homes with 15 beds or fewer say some of the new rules will create impossible financial burdens, particularly for those catering to low- or middle-income clients."The owners of these homes are scared to death over these regulations," said state Sen. Philip C. Jimeno, an Anne Arundel Democrat and chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review, which will schedule a hearing on the issue in coming weeks.

Moving to enhance equal housing opportunities in Baltimore, the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors and the Maryland office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development signed a new Fair Housing Partnership Agreement yesterday.The partnership stems from a collaborative agreement between the National Association of Realtors and HUD in December that stipulates similar agreements on the local level. The GBBR is the second real estate board in the country to sign a fair housing partnership agreement with its local HUD office.

A landlord has agreed to pay $900,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc., a fair housing group that accused the owner of a Northeast Baltimore County apartment complex of steering black tenants to the project's back buildings, BNI was to announce today.The suit in Baltimore City Circuit Court against the owners of Kenilworth at Perry Park Apartments was the result of a complaint to BNI from a former Kenilworth employee who said the landlord was practicing racial steering.

UNTIL 25 YEARS ago, people with disabilities faced a myriad of obstacles in schools, theaters, stores, restaurants, churches, government buildings and almost all other public and private buildings. Perhaps worst of all, little private or public housing was accessible.The federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 began a reversal of this cruel neglect. It had limited applicability to housing, however, and not until the Congress revisited the issue 15 years later with the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 did people with disabilities acquire broader housing rights.

Fair housing summit scheduled at Cross KeysThe second statewide Fair Housing/Civil Rights Summit will be held by a group of public and nonprofit organizations April 16-17 at Cross Keys Inn, 5001 Falls Road.Registration is $75 per person and includes lunch and materials.Topics will include changes in Section 8 and public housing, public/private partnerships to promote fair housing, hate crimes and race relations, and housing opportunities for the disabled.For information, call LaVerne Brooks of the Maryland HUD office, at 410-962-2520, Ext. 3056.

CONDOMINIUM and apartment developers across the country are about to get a major civil rights wake-up call from the federal government. Justice Department investigators have concluded that there is widespread noncompliance with the handicapped-accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act, thereby illegally denying large numbers of homebuyers and renters the right to live where they choose.Justice Department lawyers currently are in negotiations with more than two dozen building firms in the Chicago metropolitan area over alleged violations of the accessibility rules.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have signed a new fair housing partnership agreement to replace the Voluntary Affirmative Marketing Agreement that had been in effect for more than two decades.The signing took place earlier this month at a meeting of organizations participating with HUD in the "National Partners in Home Ownership" plan to raise the nation's homeownership to a record 67.5 percent by the year 2000.NAR is one of more than 50 organizations in the "Partners" plan.

THE CLINTON administration is wrestling with an explosive issue that threatens to redefine what real estate agents can -- and cannot -- tell prospective homebuyers about the racial or ethnic characteristics of neighborhoods.Since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, realty agents nationwide have been trained to avoid discussions of racial or other features of neighborhoods that may be covered by the law's anti-bias protections.But a controversial pre-election opinion letter from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)