New Housing Bias Laws Protect Disabled

New amendments to the federal Fair Housing Act will require most new apartments and condominiums to be accessible to the handicapped and could subject landlords who discriminate to tougher penalties, officials told representatives of the Glendale housing industry this week.

A panel of federal and local officials explained the new rules to about 60 Glendale real estate agents, landlords, bankers and builders Tuesday morning at a breakfast forum organized by the Glendale Department of Community Development and Housing.

They said the changes are aimed at quashing discrimination against handicapped people, families with children and minorities as a growing population struggles to find housing.

“We have a history as a country and as a human race of scapegoating, of reacting in an almost tribal way by cutting people out,” said Thomas F. Honore, director of fair housing for the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Honore said unfair housing practices seem to represent the last bastion of discriminatory exclusivity in a society that has gradually accepted fair access to education and jobs.

Stricter regulations designed to fight such discrimination will open more legal avenues to those who have been denied fair housing, said Gabrielle Woods, senior counsel for the California Assn. of Realtors. The rules will increase housing options for the handicapped, she said, and will set aside certain buildings for senior citizens.

Ray Vargas, who directs housing programs for the city of Glendale, said the new federal law likely to have the greatest impact on the city would require new housing to be accessible to handicapped people.

As of March 12, 1991, new apartments or condominiums consisting of more than four units must have doorways, bathrooms and kitchens wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs. Furthermore, light switches, thermostats and electrical outlets must be placed within reach of people in wheelchairs, Vargas said.

In addition to the physically and mentally impaired, those protected by the federal amendments include members of ethnic and religious minority groups, people with children under 18 and those who are pregnant or in the process of getting legal custody of children, and people with AIDS. Drug users who were rehabilitated in approved programs also qualify as handicapped individuals, Woods said.

Woods said that before the 1988 Federal Fair Housing Law amendments became effective in March, 1989, people who proved they were victims of housing discrimination could claim only out-of-pocket damages. Now, she said, claims for pain and suffering and mental anguish can also be awarded.

“Owners have to understand that if they create intentional housing barriers to people, it will be very costly to their businesses,” Vargas said in an interview after the forum.

Vargas said that about half of the complaints of discrimination received by his office involve families who claim that landlords are trying to create “adults only” units. California law has protected families with children from housing discrimination since 1982, but the new federal laws create two permissible ways to maintain an adults only building.

Under the new amendments, young families can be turned away in favor of senior citizens:

* If every resident of a housing facility was 62 years old or older when the amendments took effect, in which case no other criteria must be met.

* If, at the time the law was enacted, 80% of the units housed at least one person over the age of 55. In this case, the building must be identified in writing as a senior citizens complex, and owners have to provide special services to seniors: transportation, perhaps, or social programs.

Vargas said housing discrimination claims have declined in Glendale since the mid-1980s, when housing units were scarce and demand for them was high.

But Vargas and other speakers at Tuesday’s forum expressed fears that discrimination could increase as a rapidly growing immigrant population tries to find housing.

Eugene Mornell, executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Rights Commission, said one of every 10 newcomers to the United States is settling in the county, and housing can’t keep up. The middle class is shrinking, he said, and hate crimes are on the rise.

Mornell said Glendale has displayed a “tremendous change in attitude” toward minority groups and immigrants, and now has an opportunity to serve as a model for the nation in dealing with housing needs.