April 17, 2024 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: 
Caroline Peattie, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
(415) 483-7552, [email protected] 
Julia Howard-Gibbon, Supervising Attorney, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
(415) 483-7516, [email protected] 

Announcing: Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California Settles Disability Discrimination Complaint 

San Rafael, CA – Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) settled a disability discrimination complaint against Burbank Housing Development Corporation (BHDC) and Burbank Housing Management Corporation (BHMC), who manage or own dozens of properties in Sonoma County, including Parkwood Apartments in Santa Rosa and Oak Ridge Apartments in Sonoma. The complaint settled for $41,500 and injunctive relief. The settlement can be accessed here. 

“We are very pleased with the outcome of this settlement and are encouraged with the changes that Burbank is making to the way they conduct business at their properties,” said Julia Howard-Gibbon, the Supervising Attorney who represented FHANC in the complaint. “Burbank manages hundreds of units of housing, so it has an enormous impact on the community where they operate. This settlement and the fair housing training Burbank employees receive is the first step to having a sound understanding of fair housing laws and how to comply with them, and specifically how to process reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities so they can have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy their housing. We applaud Burbank’s willingness to work with all parties to comply with fair housing law and employ best practices.” 

The complaint (which can be accessed here), which FHANC filed in June 2022 with the Department of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleged that Burbank and other named respondents discriminated against people with disabilities.

​“For many years, our agency had been receiving calls from tenants who have complained that agents at Burbank properties make it difficult for them to access reasonable accommodations in many ways – including unreasonably delaying responses to their requests, conditioning accommodations only if they agree to unreasonable terms, requesting unnecessary documentation in order to process their requests, and unreasonably or unjustifiably denying their requests,” said Caroline Peattie, FHANC’s Executive Director. “Our staff corroborated these allegations through their own experiences while attempting to assist clients in accessing reasonable accommodations from Burbank and others named in the complaint. In addition, we conducted investigative surveys at some of the named properties and found further evidence of discrimination.” ​

FHANC alleged uncovering evidence of discriminatory policies and/or practices at properties owned and/or managed by Burbank and the other named respondents, including: 
     1) Policies and practices requiring tenants to use their form when requesting reasonable accommodations (and refusing to process requests if tenants did not use their form); 
     2) Policies and practices requiring tenants to authorize health care providers to broadly release their medical information in order to have their reasonable accommodation requests processed (and refusing to accept alternative forms of medical verification such as a letter from a doctor); 
     3) Policies and practices requiring tenants to consider alternative accommodations, even when the tenant establishes that the requested accommodation is necessary to accommodate the tenant’s disability and is not unreasonable; 
     4) Policies and practices requiring assistance dogs to conform to weight and/or breed restrictions;
     5) Policies and practices requiring assistance animals to be on leash in common areas, even when the assistance animal is one that traditionally does not use a leash, such as a cat; 
     6) Practice of delaying and/or failing to respond to reasonable accommodation requests beyond a reasonable amount of time; and 
     7) Practice of denying reasonable accommodation requests, even when the disability and disability-related need for the requested accommodation is verified and/or known or obvious. 

In 2022, after receiving complaints from tenants residing at Burbank properties, FHANC and the Sonoma County Tenants Union (SCTU) conducted in-person surveys of tenants, first at Parkwood Apartments, and then at Crossroads Apartments. Canvassers from the two agencies met with multiple tenants who reported experiencing barriers to accessing reasonable accommodations from Burbank Management. 

FHANC conducted outreach to educate the community about disability discrimination, including multiple fair housing law workshops for local housing providers, which included fair housing laws related to disability discrimination and specifically reasonable accommodations. 

In addition to the monetary damages, the settlement agreement included significant injunctive relief. Burbank agreed to consider reasonable accommodation requests made at any time and in any manner, even if made orally or in writing not using their designated form; to only request medical verification if the disability and/or need for the accommodation is not obvious or apparent; to process requests in a timely manner; to acknowledge that any type of animal – and any breed or size – may qualify as an assistance animal even if it has no training; to not charge a deposit or surcharge for assistance animals; to allow each tenant with a disability their own individual animal (and not require them to share an animal); to review and revise their reasonable accommodation and modification policies, letters, and forms, as necessary to comply with fair housing laws (e.g. remove requirements that an animal must be spayed or neutered); revise their denial of reasonable accommodation notices to inform tenants that they have a right to dispute the denial by filing a grievance); to instruct all employees via email that they may not recommend or otherwise suggest that an individual obtain a specific type of assistance animal; and to ensure all employees who interact with applicants or tenants attend fair housing training. 

“The terms of the settlement are very encouraging,” said Ms. Peattie. “We are looking forward to working with Burbank in the future.” 
​
If you feel you may have experienced housing discrimination, contact FHANC’s office to complete an interview. Contact FHANC at [email protected] or 415-457-5025 x101 or fill out an online intake at https://www.fairhousingnorcal.org/. 

Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure equal housing opportunity and to educate our communities on the value of diversity in our neighborhoods. FHANC serves several Bay Area counties and provides free counseling, enforcement, mediation, and legal or administrative referrals to persons experiencing housing discrimination. Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California also offers foreclosure prevention counseling, pre-purchase education, seminars to help housing providers fully understand fair housing law, and education programs for tenants and the community at large. Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California is a HUD-Certified Housing Counseling Agency. Please call Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California at (415) 457-5025 or TDD: (800) 735-2922 for more information. Note: This material is based on work supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under FHIP PEI Grant FPEI190035. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of HUD. ​

April 4, 2024
​
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Caroline Peattie, Executive Director, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
(415) 483-7552, p[email protected]
Julia Howard-Gibbon, Supervising Attorney, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
(415) 483-7516, j[email protected]

​Announcing: Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California Settles Source of Income Discrimination Complaint

San Rafael, CA – In March 2023, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) filed a discrimination complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), alleging source of income discrimination against the owner and manager of Novato Park Apartments because of their ban on renting to people with Section 8 housing choice vouchers, which violates’ California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. One year later, an agreement was reached between the parties settling for $35,000, policy changes, training, and posting vacancies to sites serving people with Section 8 vouchers.

In the spring of 2021, FHANC released the results of its testing investigations of Marin, Sonoma, and Solano counties to ascertain the extent to which Black renters with Section 8 vouchers experienced discrimination when applying for rental housing. The publicity included the results of the investigation and sought to educate the community about the California law that went into effect in January 2020 making it illegal to discriminate against renters with housing subsidies.

Soon after, in May 2021, the Marin Independent Journal (IJ) published a Letter to the Editor submitted by the manager of Novato Park Apartments, stating that they no longer accepted any tenants with Section 8 vouchers because of a difficulty they had previously had with a Section 8 tenant. FHANC emailed and sent a letter to the manager, explaining the law once again, letting him know that the reason he gave for not renting to Section 8 tenants did not negate the discriminatory effect of their policy. FHANC also submitted a response letter to the Marin IJ that FHANC and the Marin Housing Authority collaborated in writing, explaining source of income discrimination so that the community was made aware that it was illegal to deny renters because of their housing vouchers.

“It’s really important that landlords do not make the decision to rent to an entire group of people because they had a couple of bad experiences, particularly if that decision involves a blanket refusal to rent to a group of people protected under fair housing law,” said Caroline Peattie, Executive Director of FHANC. “While you may have a negative experience renting to a Section 8 voucher recipient, renting only to those who don’t have housing vouchers is no insurance against a bad experience. The best way of gauging whether or not someone will be a good tenant is to contact previous landlords, rather than making assumptions about an applicant based solely on unrelated characteristics.” Because voucher holders are usually more likely to be members of other protected classes (e.g.: people of color, women, people with children, and people with disabilities), excluding all voucher holders from rental properties will have a discriminatory effect, even if the reason for the denial is not based on animus toward protected groups.

FHANC then conducted several fair housing testing investigations – in September 2021, March 2022, and February 2023, which all confirmed that the apartment complex was still not accepting Section 8 tenants (“We don’t take those, sorry… we’ve had trouble in the past”).

“We’re pleased with this settlement,” said Peattie. “We believe strongly in educating the community about both well-established and new fair housing laws – which we did in this case through publicizing the results of our testing investigations, replying directly to the manager’s discriminatory statements in the newspaper, and submitting an editorial letter to educate the community – but sometimes it’s necessary to file enforcement actions to bring attention to fair housing laws and how to comply with them. In this particular case, we were very pleased that the owner took advantage of CRD’s mediation process and was willing to negotiate in good faith for a positive outcome for the community.”

In addition to the monetary settlement, the owner and manager agreed to the following:

• Change its illegal policy of refusing to rent to Section 8 voucher holders;
• Advertise all vacancies in California on AffordableHousing.com and other suitable locations where housing choice voucher holders are served, including local housing authority websites;
• Include “Equal Opportunity Housing Provider” in future posts advertising vacancies;
• All employees / agents will attend an annual fair housing training for the next two years;
• Establish and distribute to staff a written policy that states 1) applicants will be treated equally regardless of their source of income; 2) the minimum income requirement will be calculated based on the monthly rental amount to be paid directly by the voucher holder only, and not include any amount to be paid through the voucher; and 3) voucher holders are welcome to apply;
• Post and make available copies of CRD’s fair housing factsheet in both English and Spanish in rental offices and common areas; and
• Maintain copies of all documents related to the rental of housing accommodations as well as records related to Section 8 voucher holders, including waitlist members, applicants, tenants, and former tenants, for a minimum of five (5) years and make those records available to FHANC.

The full settlement can be reached here.

“When we find evidence of discrimination as a result of our fair housing investigations, even when a client has not come forward with a complaint, our agency has legal standing to file a complaint,” said Julia Howard-Gibbon, FHANC’s Supervising Attorney. “This is an opportunity for FHANC to ensure that discriminatory policies are addressed so that future rental applicants won’t be illegally turned away because they have a housing voucher."

If you feel you may have experienced housing discrimination, contact FHANC’s office to complete an interview. Contact FHANC at [email protected] or 415-457-5025 x101 or fill out an online intake at https://www.fairhousingnorcal.org/.