Allegations of housing discrimination are at their highest level in 15 years according to the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan.
“Persons with disabilities, followed by race-based or skin-color-based allegations and then discrimination faced by families with children so those are the top three areas of concern,”
Liz Keegan is the Director of Education and Outreach and focuses on getting out information about laws and protections, especially recent changes.
“Something big for Michigan in fair housing is that we now have sexual orientation and gender as protected classes under our state civil rights law.”
Another area of concern are the laws around housing for people with service animals including assistance dogs and emotional support animals.
“We’ve also seen an uptick in national origin discrimination which is unnecessary scrutiny of someone’s citizenship or if they speak with an accent.”
The Fair Housing Center of West Michigan works with clients at no cost to see if laws were violated and explore options. Keegan suggests people gather as much information as possible to detail their housing experience.
“So creating a written timeline or keeping emails, voicemails, text messages.”
Keegan is the keynote speaker for the Tenant/ Landlord Fair Housing Training with the City of Holland Thursday April 11. It’s geared toward advocates and housing professionals and is open to the public.
