About 25 percent of Americans have some kind of criminal record.
The Obama administration released a warning Monday telling the nation’s landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent to those with criminal records.
The Fair Housing Act doesn’t include criminals as a protected class, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says refusing to rent based on a criminal record is a form of racial discrimination, due to racial imbalances in the U.S. justice system.
“The Fair Housing Act prohibits both intentional housing discrimination and housing practices that have an unjustified discriminatory effect because of race, national origin, or other protected characteristics,” say HUD’s newly-released guidelines. “Because of widespread racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system, criminal history-based restrictions on access to housing are likely disproportionately to burden African-Americans and Hispanics. While the Act does not prohibit housing providers from appropriately considering criminal history information when making housing decisions, arbitrary and overbroad criminal history-related bans are likely to lack a legally sufficient justification.”
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11 comments:
John cannon already does.
Laura mitchell can stop sweating.
Well, now Slimsbury can get more register Sex Offenders to come to town.
And get hired by Perdue.
8:56--
Yes, and they'll have the right to work, even when they lie to get hired.
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and a class action suit filing against a local landlord. Of course, that will never happen.
How does being a criminal have anything to do with race? So if a black landlord refuses to rent to a black criminal, he's racist???
Maybe he just knows the guy's history and knows he's not rehabilitated and will continue his meth lab on the landlord's property.
Hey, DOJ, Go to the Library (of Congress) and look up "Racism" in their dictionary!
Oh, wait, they don't have one, either!
Under Obama, previously well-understood laws are now being altered in interpretation. This is what happens when people listen to lawyers and, worse, vote them into public office.
Steve,
The Library of Congress already has one definition of "Racism". It is calling anything "illegal" that is...well, illegal.
John cannon Will be selling his slums to the city for pennies on the $$.
Cannon's father bought it all. For most of it he paid cash and bought for under $10,000. Something like 300 properties.
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