The US Department of Housing and Urban Development provides Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society with funding to continue a fair housing testing program.
CLASI has operated its fair housing testing program for nearly two decades, partnering with HUD since roughly the program's outset. But as Delaware’s population growth outpaces its housing stock, discrimination complaints against housing providers of all types — brought to both state and federal authorities — have surged.
Relying on tenants or home buyers alone to report discrimination based on race, gender, disability status or nationality can be an unreliable strategy for addressing housing discrimination; in many cases, victims may not report violations of fair housing rules.
To enhance enforcement, CLASI fields covert investigators representing various marginalized groups to apply for rentals, mortgage loans or home purchases to identify discrimination by housing providers. Fair Housing Test Coordinator Linda Jackson says those violations can range from explicit bias to more subtle violations of federal and state protections.
“Maybe they’re observing an apartment complex with no dedicated handicap parking in the lot, or maybe the leasing agent isn’t knowledgeable about assistance animal policies," she said. "They've seen it all."
Findings from CLASI’s 250 tests over the past two years include homeowners' insurance providers illegally denying coverage to residents of majority-Black neighborhoods.
HUD Regional Administrator Matt Heckles argues Delaware could dramatically improve its fair housing rules by expanding protections against discrimination based on renters’ source of income – specifically including housing voucher recipients as a protected class.
“In states where vouchers are included, the cases supporting people’s claims based on source of income discrimination were high," he said. "When vouchers were not included, cases are quite low. When you include vouchers, it’s an important part of making sure source of income legislation is complete.”
A bill prohibiting discrimination against housing voucher recipients failed in Delaware’s General Assembly last year, though backers plan to revisit the issue.
