Equal Rights Center Offers “Know Your Housing Rights” Presentations
By Nick Adjami
January 8, 2021
Fair housing knowledge is helpful when advocating for clients who might experience housing discrimination, or for yourself and your community. Housing discrimination happens all too frequently, so it’s a good idea to be prepared. Plus, it’s important to keep your fair housing knowledge up-to-date: both Virginia and Maryland enacted new housing protections in 2020.
The Equal Rights Center can help. We offer free presentations to organizations and community groups in the Greater Washington, DC area. We can provide a general overview of fair housing laws or a more tailored presentation to meet your group’s needs. We can, and currently will only, conduct these presentations virtually, but look forward to offering the option of in-person presentations once it is safe to do so.
Examples of presentations the ERC offers include:
- An Introduction to Fair Housing: A 20 minute to hour-long presentation that covers the federal Fair Housing Act and local fair housing laws, protected classes and prohibited activities, and examples of housing discrimination along with a discussion about how to respond.
- Fair Housing Rights for People with Disabilities: A 45 minute to hour-long presentation about fair housing rights for people with disabilities, including reasonable accommodation and modification requests. We will also discuss the rights of individuals that use assistance and service animals under the Fair Housing Act & Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Assistance and Service Animals: An hour-long presentation that covers the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act definitions of service and assistance animals, the rights and responsibilities of people with disabilities who have such animals, and the rights and responsibilities of housing providers and businesses with regard to such animals.
- Fair Housing Rights for Survivors of Domestic Violence: A 1.5 to 2 hour presentation that covers the federal Fair Housing Act and local fair housing laws, local fair housing trends, and how federal and local statutes can protect survivors of domestic violence.
- Shorter modules that can be added on to other presentation include:
- Fair Housing Rights for Housing Voucher Holders: A 15 to 20 minute presentation about source of income protections, which make it illegal to refuse to rent to housing voucher holders, including Rapid Rehousing and Section 8/Housing Choice Voucher Program participants. The presentation covers complex topics like how minimum income requirements should be applied to voucher holders and common examples of source of income discrimination.
- Fair Housing Rights for People with Criminal Records: A 15 to 20 minute presentation about fair housing protections that may be available to people with criminal records.
If you have another fair housing related topic in mind that would be useful for your group, let us know! We may be able to develop a presentation tailored to your concerns.
To schedule a presentation, please contact Nick Adjami, the ERC’s Outreach and Engagement Coordinator, by email at nadjami@equalrightscenter.org. We look forward to hearing from you!
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If you believe you may have experienced discrimination in housing, you can contact the Equal Rights Center. To report your experience, please call 202-234-3062 or email info@equalrightscenter.org.
