Fair Housing

Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity

The Fair Housing program, launched in February 2001, addresses the growing need for fair housing education among the city's stakeholders. Stakeholders include primarily our Residential and Community Services and Development Finance Division grant subrecipients, the non-profit and for-profit sector partners, the housing industry, and District residents in general.

The program promotes fair housing and equal opportunity in housing and ensures compliance of federal fair housing and equal opportunity laws, rules, and regulations by community non-profit organizations, housing developers, and individual residents who receive program and project funding through DHCD. For information on any of these programs, Ask the Director or call (202) 442-7200.

Fair Housing Partnerships

The FHIP award from HUD provided DHCD an opportunity to seek and partner with local non-profit organizations to bring about greater awareness of fair housing laws, rules, and regulations to targeted communities. In this first year, DHCD partnered with the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), a 20-year-old, non-profit organization based in the District which provides education, employment, immigration, housing counseling, and legal advocacy to the Salvadorian and Latino community in the District. DHCD also partnered with Boat People, S.O.S (BPSOS), a national organization with a local office which serves the needs of the growing Vietnamese community. They provide counseling in various domestic, social, and professional aspects of daily living to Vietnamese refugees.

To learn more about your fair housing rights, or schedule training for your organization or tenant association in Spanish or Vietnamese, please contact: CARECEN for Spanish or (202) 328-9799 and the Boat People, S.O.S. at (202) 234-3598 for Vietnamese.

Education and Outreach

The Fair Housing program also aims to educate city residents—particularly underserved populations such as the immigrant communities, people with disabilities, and the elderly—about their fair housing rights in rental, sales, financing or home insurance transactions. To this end, DHCD applied for and was awarded a competitive Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) education and outreach grant in fiscal year 2001. The Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) grant award provides funding for education and outreach activities in the Hispanic and Vietnamese communities.

Fair Housing Statutes

DHCD educates and provides training to its subrecipients and housing partners on their responsibilities as housing providers and, CDBG and HOME grant recipients. DHCD will enforce compliance of fair housing equal opportunity (FHEO) civil rights laws with any organization it contracts with. These laws are:

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (The Fair Housing Act as amended);
Title II of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990
Executive Order 11063, Non-Discrimination (1962)
Executive Order 12892, Equal Opportunity in Housing (1994)

In addition to the laws cited above, ALL direct or indirect recipients of federal funds (i.e, contractors, consultants) for programs or activities, must comply with the following laws, rules and regulations:

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964;
The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968;
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973;
Section 109 of the Community Development Act of 1974;
The Age Discrimination Act of 1975;
Executive Order 12898, Environmental Justice (1994)

Fair Housing and Equal Opportunities Links

More Information

For more information on fair housing issues, select from the following list. These links are provided by the DHCD website as a public service; DHCD is not responsible for content on these pages.

Filing a Fair Housing Complaint

Responsibilities of Subrecipients

Contractor’s Draft Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (A.I.) Report

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