The fACTs newsletter is for TSAHC's local partners in the Affordable Communities of Texas (ACT) program. The quarterly newsletter provides information to help make your programs as successful as possible.
April is Fair Housing Month
President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs the Fair Housing Act (Photo Credit: Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News &World Report)
April is Fair Housing Month as it commemorates the passage of the Fair Housing Act on April 11, 1968. Here are some basic answers to common questions about the Fair Housing Act.
What is the Fair Housing Act?
The Fair Housing Act is a federal law that prevents housing discrimination based on the following protected classes: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability.
What is housing discrimination?
Housing discrimination is the refusal to rent an apartment, sell a house, provide a mortgage, or offer homeowners insurance to a person based on a protected class. This is the federal law, and individual states (like the Texas Fair Housing Act) or municipalities may have additional protections.
What do we require?
We require our local partners to follow all local, state or federal fair housing laws.
To ensure you're complying with fair housing law, you must be sure you are not discriminating, either intentionally or unintentionally, in the marketing or sale of your homes.
This means having an affirmative marketing plan in place and marketing your properties via MLS. For those partners who approve buyers before constructing homes, affirmative marketing and fair housing still applies. The links below provide more information on fair housing laws and assist you with creating an affirmative marketing plan.
We also wanted to make you aware the the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently released their
2018 income limits.
HUD develops income limits based on Median Family Income estimates and Fair Market Rent area definitions for each metropolitan area, parts of some metropolitan areas, and each non-metropolitan county.
TSAHC's On The House Blog Entries on Fair Housing Topics
