Fair Housing and Sex Discrimination

Sexual harassment can be any unwelcome sexually suggestive or inappropriate language, touching, gestures, demands, or conditions made toward or about another person. Housing providers should be concerned about two types of sexual harassment:
(1) residents sexually harassing other residents or staff and
(2) staff sexually harassing other residents or other staff.

Advertise without Discriminating

Among housing providers, it's common knowledge that putting up a sign in front of an apartment building that says "no children" or "adults only" would be discriminating against families with children. Housing providers also need to be careful not to use ads that say, "perfect house for couple," or "Christian family preferred." As a general rule, ads should not contain words that express a preference based on a protected class.

Drafting Tenant and Community Rules

A good rule to follow when drafting rules or regulations is to draft them so they don't single out children or members of a protected class. Rather than having a sign that says, "Children are prohibited from running in the common areas," simply say, "No running in the common areas."Instead of saying, "Children keep off the grass," just say,"Keep off the grass."Rules and regulations that apply to "all residents" are less suspect than rules that single out children.

In 1991 the General Assembly added "handicap" as an additional protected class to Virginia's Fair Housing Law. Handicap or disability includes, but is not limited to, physical or mobility limitations, psychological disorders, emotional and mental illnesses, learning disabilities and addiction recovery. If someone is disabled, you cannot refuse to rent to them because of their disability.

Accessible Housing - Design & Construction for Multi-Family Housing

In 1988, Congress added design and construction requirements to the Fair Housing Law, requiring "new multi-family housing" be designed and constructed with certain accessible features. "New" means anything built after March 13, 1991. "Multi-family housing" means any project with four or more units and includes condominiums, apartments and single-story townhouses.

Design and Construction Requirements

The seven design and construction requirements are: