Federal fair housing laws and their history

Federal protections in New York

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 guarantees United States citizens the same rights as white citizens to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Its racial property-rights protection is separate from the Fair Housing Act's exemptions.

History matters: Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation under the separate-but-equal doctrine. Buchanan v. Warley invalidated a racial residential zoning ordinance. Brown v. Board of Education rejected separate-but-equal in public education; it was not the enactment of a housing statute. The federal Fair Housing Act was enacted in 1968. Sex was added in 1974; disability and familial status were added in 1988.

What the Fair Housing Act protects

The seven federal categories are race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability, called handicap in the statute. Familial status includes children under eighteen living with a parent, legal custodian, or authorized designee, pregnancy, and the process of securing legal custody. A dwelling includes residential buildings and land offered for residential construction.

The Act prohibits discriminatory refusals, terms, services, advertising, and false statements of unavailability. Steering directs housing choices by protected characteristics. Blockbusting induces sales or rentals for profit through representations about protected groups entering a neighborhood. Discriminatory residential lending, appraisals, and access to multiple-listing services are also prohibited. Threatening someone for exercising or helping another exercise fair housing rights is unlawful.

Disability protection includes reasonable policy accommodations and permission for necessary reasonable physical modifications at the person's expense under this Act. Reasonable restoration of rental interiors may be required. Covered newer multifamily housing has accessibility design duties. A direct threat to others' health or safety or substantial physical damage to others' property is a distinct statutory limitation; disability alone does not establish it.

Exemptions have boundaries

The private single-family exemption requires an individual owning no more than three such houses, no brokerage services, and compliance with advertising restrictions. A qualifying sale by an owner outside the residence condition is limited to one in twenty-four months. The small-building exemption requires the owner to live in a building with no more than four independently occupied family quarters. Neither exemption removes the discriminatory-advertising prohibition. New York's Human Rights Law is stricter and has neither exemption: its rental exemption covers an owner-occupied building with no more than two family units, and it protects more classes, including lawful source of income.

Qualifying religious organizations may prefer their religion in noncommercial housing, unless religious membership is restricted by race, color, or national origin. A genuinely private club may prefer members in noncommercial incidental lodgings. Housing for older persons exempts familial-status restrictions, not the other protected categories: qualifying government programs, housing solely occupied by people sixty-two or older, or qualifying fifty-five-plus housing. The last requires at least eighty percent of occupied units to have at least one person fifty-five or older, published and followed policies, and occupancy verification. Federal exemptions do not erase separate civil-rights obligations.