{"id":341,"date":"2019-06-28T17:15:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=341"},"modified":"2019-06-28T17:44:19","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T17:44:19","slug":"d-c-attorney-general-goes-after-another-landlord-for-discriminating-against-voucher-holders-dcist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/341\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C. Attorney General Goes After Another Landlord For Discriminating Against Voucher Holders | DCist"},"content":{"rendered":"

dcist.com\/story\/19\/06\/27\/d-c-attorney-general-goes-after-another-landlord-for-discriminating-against-voucher-holders\/?utm_source=DCist+Newsletters&utm_campaign=0b5294d573-DCIST_DAILY_2019_06_24_03_…<\/a>
\nD.C. Attorney General Goes After Another Landlord For Discriminating Against Voucher Holders | DCist D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is suing a local real estate and property management company over claims that it discriminated against renters with housing vouchers and refused to accept payments from the city\u2019s rapid re-housing program.
\nAdvertisements for Southeast D.C. apartments run by Maryland-based Curtis Investment Group included the language \u201c**NOT ACCEPTING VOUCHERS AT THIS TIME**\u201d and \u201cwe are not accepting any vouchers or rapid rehousing\u201d as recently as this month on both its own website and third-party sites like Apartments.com, Racine\u2019s lawsuit alleges. The complaint includes images of the advertisements in question. D.C.\u2019s Human Rights Act prohibits housing discrimination based on a person\u2019s source of income.
\nThe lawsuit calls on the court to stop Curtis from this practice with an injunction, and to impose civil penalties on the company. Curtis has not responded to a request for comment.
\nAbout 10,500 D.C. households use housing vouchers, a federally funded program that pays part of a qualifying tenant\u2019s rent to private landlords. Additionally, the city runs a rapid re-housing program for people and families experiencing homelessness, in which the D.C. Department of Human Services pays the rent directly to the landlord for up to a year, with participants then paying a percentage of that rent to the city.
\nWhile it\u2019s illegal to discriminate against tenants who refuse to rent to people who use federal rental assistance vouchers or are part of the rapid re-housing program, landlords and rental companies in D.C. continue to do so in plain language in housing advertisements. Approximately 15 percent of D.C. landlords refuse to accept vouchers, per an Urban Institute study, and a WUSA 9 investigation from September found that more than 100 Craigslist housing ads in the District included phrases that explicitly said vouchers weren\u2019t accepted. At-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman introduced legislation at the D.C. Council in March that would further penalize landlords who discriminate against voucher holders.
\nThis isn\u2019t Racine\u2019s first time suing property management companies for allegedly refusing to rent to people using housing vouchers\u2014he filed a lawsuit against Evolve and Evolve Property Management for the same reason in November. And these lawsuits are part of a broader effort from Racine\u2019s office to go after bad landlords for issues like building neglect. Coupled with the complaint filed against Curtis Investment Group, Racine sent letters to housing ad hosts Craigslist, Zillow, and CoStar Group, which owns Apartments.com, to call for meetings to discuss how the companies \u201ccan help ensure that advertisements that violate the prohibition on source-of-income discrimination either do not appear on your platforms or are quickly removed.\u201d
\nThe most recent lawsuit marks the start of the D.C. AG\u2019s newly launched civil rights division, for which the D.C. Council gave Racine the go-ahead and funding. The new division already has two lawyers and will have two more attorneys plus an investigator when the money from the council comes through in October. In July, the office is hosting a series of listening sessions to learn about residents\u2019 experiences with discrimination.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s actions illustrate that the Office of the Attorney General is making civil rights a priority going forward,\u201d Racine tells DCist. \u201cWe\u2019re in a housing crisis. Housing is a precious commodity and it is not being distributed equally and, in many instances, it\u2019s not being distributed lawfully \u2026 Laws are on the books and we intend to enforce them.\u201d
\nRacine says the new division is a response to the uptick in hate crimes in the District and to what he deems as the current failures of the federal government in protecting residents\u2019 civil rights. \u201cThere is no doubt about the fact that the federal government has largely removed itself from prosecuting discriminatory action,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s incumbent on states and jurisdictions like the District of Columbia to fill that vacuum.\u201d
\nView this document on Scribd This story has been updated with comment from Karl Racine.<\/p>\n

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dcist.com\/story\/19\/06\/27\/d-c-attorney-general-goes-after-another-landlord-for-discriminating-against-voucher-holders\/?utm_source=DCist+Newsletters&utm_campaign=0b5294d573-DCIST_DAILY_2019_06_24_03_… D.C. Attorney General Goes After Another Landlord For Discriminating Against Voucher Holders | DCist D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is suing a local real estate and property management company over claims that it discriminated against renters with housing vouchers and refused to accept payments from the city\u2019s rapid re-housing program. Advertisements for Southeast D.C. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}