Affordable housing providers and public housing agencies across the country are celebrating Fair Housing throughout the month of April, led by HUD’s annual commemoration of the Fair Housing Act. What better time to look at how a smart approach to delivering service to the community can make a positive impact and promote equality? Reducing use of paper forms and in-person meetings with applicants, residents and participants is a smart strategy for affordable housing providers and PHAs to minimize exposure to fair housing claims. That’s because digital apps that qualify households for assistance eliminate the possibility of housing specialists unlawfully influencing the submission of an application or steering applicants to certain properties. Here are three ways to leverage digital affordable housing workflows to help keep in fair housing compliance. Stay Non-Partial While it is natural for employees to want to help customers, a hands-off approach is often better for everyone. Fair housing laws dictate that households are free to seek residency wherever they like. Neighborhoods or city districts cannot lawfully be unwelcoming, inaccessible or unavailable to households because specific demographic criteria. The most basic way to make sure affordable housing applicants have the freedom to consider a property for residence is to leave the decision up to them. Housing specialists should not be part of the process of deciding what neighborhood would be best for a prospective renter, lest you expose your organization to the perception of steering applicants to properties. Publicizing available units on the web ensures everyone has equal access to your list of properties and vacant units. There’s no need for your team to tell applicants about one property or the other because your applicants can see all vacancies online without need for assistance. Eliminate the Language Barrier Housing providers must accommodate...

Spring is a time for cleaning house and fresh beginnings! Unfortunately, spring cleaning isn’t intuitive or easy for some residents. Your intervention may be needed to keep residents and your property safe. Hoarding disorder is the excessive collection of possessions. It is closely linked with obsessive compulsive disorder, a mental illness that affects nearly 3 million people nationwide. As a mental illness, residents that hoard are protected under the Fair Housing Amendments Act and the Disabilities Act. They must be cared for accordingly. When It’s More than Just a Mess When do you need to get involved? Some residents have different standards of tidiness, or they are avid collectors of certain items. Not all collectors are hoarders. A few key risks identify hoarding behavior: A living environment that is dangerous to the hoarder, neighboring tenants, and the property Blocked access to emergency exits, hallways, and windows Blocked pathways to ventilation that may result in mold, mildew, and poor air quality for the inhabitants of the unit as well as neighboring units Improperly stored food items that attract and harbor pests If a resident displays one or more of the aforementioned risky behaviors, an intervention may be necessary. Staff Training  To address hoarding properly, early detection is key. Regularly scheduled inspections for health code compliance, fire safety compliance, and smoke detector maintenance provide staff with reasonable access to units. When risky behaviors are identified, promptly get assistance. On-site staff members do not have to be experts in the illness to help renters in need.  More than 100 task forces are available to assist you through the International OCD Foundation. Such organizations can help property managers assist residents with hoarding issues—without compromising health and safety for other residents. Avoiding Catastrophe Hoarding disorder is a mental illness...

In our previous article link, IT specialist Linda Greenwaldt explained how CommonBond Communities implemented Yardi RentCafe for subsidized housing to improve efficiencies. Yardi eLearning helped the organization optimize their use of RentCafe. It is also the nonprofit’s go-to tool for employee education. The eLearning Solution eLearning provides on-demand training through a convenient online platform. Administrators can choose between pre-written classes, customized classes, and any combination in between. The fully configurable courses offer quantifiable insight into employee learning and content retention. “eLearning is perfect for rolling out RentCafe,” said Greenwaldt. “For introductions, this is perfect, perfect, perfect. During training, it has been great to prepare what onsite staff need to know, when they need to know it, without making them feel overwhelmed.” “Most people only pick up 10 percent of information their first time through it,” shrugged Greenwaldt. “We structured [the courses] in a way where they can always go back and review it. The 10 percent that I tell people that they can’t forget is going to eLearning and retaking the class!” Greenwaldt using eLearning to issue high-priority courses like Fair Housing first, followed by role-based learning for RentCafe and Yardi Voyager for PHA and Affordable housing. Customized Learning eLearning offers an extensive library of courses written by Yardi industry experts. Administrators are welcomed to use the courses as-is, but they are also encouraged and empowered to customize content. “A lot of times, I’ll reach out and see what Yardi has and modify it or do something slightly different. It’s helpful because I can copy the class and add the CommonBond content,” said Greenwaldt. Learning assessments promote information retention while helping leadership identify topics that need clarification or review. Greenwald said, “I love the ability to throw in a test or quiz. I can...

Many states do not require landlords to specify a reason for lease non-renewals. It is in your best interest, however, to have a well-documented reason for not renewing a resident’s lease. Here’s why. Keep Fair Housing Fair Fair Housing laws forbid non-renewals based upon discrimination or retaliation. You likely know this from your new-hire orientation, but here is a quick review of why it matters now: Discrimination: You cannot treat residents differently based upon their race, ethnicity, family status, ability level, sexual orientation, or any other protect class group. Your resident’s rambunctious kids are not a sound reason for lease non-renewal. Retaliation: You cannot treat residents differently because the residents assert their rights in any capacity. Residents always retain their legal rights. For example, if a resident issues a complaint about your property to a government agency and, subsequently, you opt not to renew the lease, you may face legal action. Thorough documentation prior to a lease non-renewal provides clarity for both landlords and residents. You can minimize claims of discrimination or retaliation when there are time- and date-verified correspondences of your concerns. Documentation Best Practices If peer complaints are your first indicator that a resident is a problem, document the complaints electronically. For example, if a resident calls with a noise complaint about a neighbor, write an email identifying the details of the complaint and send it to yourself. It’s beneficial to send a copy to the resident as well. (Your message does not need to contain the name of the person who issued the complaint.) Primarily, the resident may be unaware of the issue. Your message may stop the problem and prevent the costly turnover. The email also lets the resident know that you are tracking their non-conformity to the lease or...

Shortly after the passing of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Congress expanded the Civil Rights Act to protect equal access to housing resources. Fair housing protection is a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. Fair housing legislation makes it illegal to impede access to housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as later amended), handicap and family status. Nearly every state has expanded protection for residents beyond the national Civil Rights Act. State housing agencies and advocacy groups often test property managers and real estate agents for fair housing compliance. It’s unlawful for an agent steer a prospect to or away from a unit based on perception or opinion of prospective residents. Advertisements can’t target only one segment of the community or purposefully omit another community. Yardi eLearning streamlines access to role-based training resources for more than 44,000 active users. It replaces traditional classroom instruction with web-based, interactive courses and live webinar events. Users can access Yardi eLearning from any device with Internet access, including tablets and smartphones. Patty Evans, manager of the Yardi eLearning team, announced the addition of new fair housing curriculum to Yardi’s library of property management training courses. “Proper training makes leasing agents aware of fair housing concerns they may not even be conscious of – it’s not always easy for an agent to know when they may be treading into fair housing territory. That’s why fair housing training is so important for every real estate management company,” says Evans. Yardi eLearning fair housing courses and learning materials cover topics applicable to every state and residential real estate market, including the affordable housing and PHA industries. Yardi eLearning can also specialize content for states or cities. For example, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs...

This week’s NAA Education Conference & Exposition kicked off with a special session on Fair Housing, The New Five: Fair Housing Issues You Didn’t Know About. Panelists Doug Chasick, President, The Fair Housing Institute; Theresa Kitay, Attorney, Law Firm of Theresa L. Kitay; and Kathelene Williams, Partner, Williams & Edelstein, P.C. led the discussion. The team compiled a list of five hot topics in Fair Housing that can be confusing due to recent changes and ambiguities. The forum discussed best practices to help housing professionals avoid liability. Chasick opened with a piece of general advice before diving in: let common sense comes to the rescue when gray areas arise. “Take off your Fair Housing hat and put on your ‘Do I want to be the next slide in their presentation’ hat,” he laughs. “We can’t forget the, ‘Be a decent person’ hat,” adds Kitay. Below are the panelists’ recommended best practices: Occupancy Policies – Many properties rely on a two occupants per bedroom standard. The panel suggests reconsidering that standard, as it can lead to disparate impact claims from families with children. Consider two people per bedroom, plus one per unit as a base. Additional considerations might include items listed in the Keaton Memo, special circumstances such as the age of kids (e.g. exclude infants from occupancy rules), the size of rooms, and extra finished rooms like libraries or lofts that can safely serve as a sleeping quarters. When it comes to evictions or rejecting an application based on past troubles, victims of domestic violence may also require additional occupancy consideration. See statement HUD 16-159, issued Oct 24, 2016 for additional details. Immigration Status vs. National Origin – Immigration status is not a protected category in Fair Housing in most states. National origin, however,...