(ambient music) [Narrator 1] This is a Nebraska Public Media Connects Production.

In partnership with a Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.

No matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from, you should have a fair and equal opportunity to live, to work, and to succeed.

In 2015, US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch said this about the importance of the Fair Housing Act, but Americans have been struggling for fair rights for decades.

In the 1930s, the United States was gripped by the Great Depression.

Roosevelt's New Deal programs gave jobs to unemployed builders and helped millions of families buy homes through low cost mortgages and affordable housing.

But for the most part, black families didn't benefit from these programs, because both private and federal lenders refused to ensure their loans.

When neighborhoods were appraised, they The most rundown neighborhoods were coded red.

Because they weren't afforded loans or insurance, non-white families were crowded into these red areas, leading to the term "redlining".

In the 1960s, Americans like Martin Luther King Jr. fought for civil rights such as fair housing.

This movement led to the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Nebraska's Equal Opportunity Commission in 1965.

Three years later, as a nation mourned the assassination of King, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed.

It included the Fair Housing Act, which officially prohibited discrimination based on race among other things for people buying, renting, and borrowing money to buy a home.

Even today, the cycle of housing discrimination remains a problem.

In this program, we'll talk about the housing problems Nebraskans struggle with and discuss your rights, whether you're a renter, a home buyer, or a housing provider.

(ambient music) Hi, I'm your host Tut Kailech.

As we just saw, we've come a long way in the effort toward fair housing, but even though laws exist today to provide equal opportunities, housing laws can be confusing and many people aren't aware of their rights.

So let's talk about it.

Here with me now is Ben Watson from the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.

Thanks for coming here, Ben.

Well, thank you for having me.

I am happy to be here to talk about such an important topic to all Nebraskans.

Okay, it is an important topic, but let's start with the basics.

What is the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission, and what does it do?

Well, the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission or NEOC for Short, is a state agency.

At the head of the agency are seven commissioners who are appointed by the governor.

We also have an executive director.

And our job very simply is to investigate and enforce civil rights laws.

Okay, tell me about the types of things that the commission does.

Yeah, so the three areas we focus on are employment, housing, and public accommodations.

For example, equal pay, fair hiring, non-discriminatory services in places open to the public.

Really dozens of subcategories under those three broader areas of housing, employment, and public accommodations.

And of course, today we're talking about housing discrimination.

Who is protected against it?

Well, under federal and Nebraska law, there are seven protected classes, which means when it comes to residential housing, it's illegal to treat people differently based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.

It's also illegal to treat someone differently in retaliation for them having filed a complaint or otherwise raised their fair housing rights under the law.

Okay.

Let's clarify a couple of those.

What does familial status mean?

Well, that refers to households that include a minor child, so a child under 18.

That can include a lot of situations, including when someone gets pregnant and is living in housing, or is in the process of adopting or situation involving a foster child, for instance.

For instance if a landlord doesn't allow children in one building, but does allow children in another building on a property, that could be discrimination.

Or if a landlord charges more rent based on family size, like charging a family of five more than a family of four, versus charging for a three bedroom more than a two bedroom, which is perfectly legal.

All right.

So with one of the protected classes being sex, is sex gender?

Yeah, yeah.

So sex is a protected class that actually covers both gender identity and sexual orientation.

[Tut] Okay.

So same sex couples and male and female and transgender individuals can't be treated differently for renting a home, for trying to get a loan, for any of those things, for instance.

Okay.

So what types of housing discriminations are you guys seeing in Nebraska?

Well, all types, but I'd say by far the type of complaint that gets filed most often is people filing because they were denied a reasonable accommodation for their disability in housing.

And I think that's because it can be a very confusing process for people, both tenants and housing providers.

And a lot of times, having providers haven't been provided training on that topic.

[Tut] So if you think you're being illegally discriminated against, what should you do?

What should a person do?

[Ben] Well, as a first step, I can recommend checking out our website at neoc.nebraska.gov, or HUD's website at hud.gov/fairhousing.

You can also contact us directly and talk to an investigator at the NEOC.

And we not only take complaints, but we provide what we call technical assistance where you can call up and ask questions.

[Tut] Okay.

[Ben] Our investigators can just answer your questions about the law or can help guide you to other resources that might be helpful.

We certainly can help people file a complaint if that's what they decide they want to do as a next step.

Why should people file a complaint then?

Well, our agency can't really take any affirmative action to do anything until the complaint is filed.

And so it's important to note that you only have one year from what we call the last date of harm to file a complaint.

So if whatever your landlord has done to you allegedly, that's discriminatory, you only have one year from that date to file your complaints.

Otherwise, you're out of time.

Additionally, we can only go back and investigate things within the past year.

So it's important to file before those things have happened more than a year ago, otherwise we may not be able to investigate them.

Okay.

So you mentioned that the NEOC conducts like a neutral investigation.

What does that mean exactly?

As a state agency, we can't take sides in an investigation.

Okay.

And so if somebody contacts us and needs help beyond what our investigative team can do and wants someone who isn't neutral, we do have some partners out in the community that we can refer them to that can act in a less neutral capacity.

Okay.

One of those community agencies is Disability Rights Nebraska.

Disability Rights Nebraska is a non-profit private organization.

Our main purpose is to advocate for people with disabilities, investigate abuse and neglect.

It's not fair if you see a place for rent and you're not able to access that housing just based on the fact that you have a disability.

And some people may think, oh, that never happens, but it happens all the time.

We receive a lot of calls, people trying to get assistance, and we see that with all types of disabilities.

And that certainly involves individuals with a mental illness and individuals with the intellectual disability.

We understand that everybody wants disability rights in Nebraska to take on their case and have an attorney, but because of the limited resources, we think it's extremely important to teach people with disabilities how to advocate on their own behalf.

That's really important to us, so we really try hard to teach those self-advocacy skills.

And then we also are involved in doing some short-term assistance for people facing housing discrimination.

And that could look like one of our attorneys who will write a letter to the landlord explaining the law and why the landlord needs to provide that accommodation for that person with a disability.

Joining me now is Madison Wurtele, an attorney for Disability Rights Nebraska.

Thanks for joining me.

I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Let's do that.

Okay, so what types of housing discriminations are common for Nebraskans with disabilities?

Yeah, so we see a wide variety of issues at my agency, but some of the most in common involve reasonable accommodations.

[Tut] Okay.

Now, that's kind of a confusing term, but what that means, it's an exception to a policy or procedure so that an individual with a disability can have full and equal enjoyment of their housing.

[Tut] Okay.

So we see those a wide variety of reasonable accommodation issues.

One of the big ones though is reasonable accommodations involving parking.

So what are landlords required to provide for parking?

Yeah, landlords in a place like a parking building, an apartment complex, I'm sorry, an apartment complex, are required to provide a specific number of parking, a specific percentage.

But they're also required to consider requests for reasonable accommodations involving parking, like a designated accessible space or an additional accessible space next to an entrance that someone uses a lot.

So do you have any tips for renters with limited mobility who are looking for apartments?

What are the type of things that they should be looking for and what questions should they be asking?

Well, if you're touring an apartment, for an example, look for things that will allow you to fully enjoy your home and the surroundings.

So look for things like curb cuts, accessible spaces, accessible spaces near the entrance you might be using, accessibility in the leasing office.

[Tut] Ben, what about you?

Well, if you're looking for an apartment and you're thinking about asking for an accommodation, I do know that HUD has a lot of really good guidance documents on their website.

They have two specific ones.

One on reasonable accommodations.

The one on reasonable modifications that people could download and refer to that will kind of help you communicate with your landlord and ask for an accommodation.

And you could even print it off and give it to your landlord.

Let's take a look at a hypothetical scenario dealing with this issue.

Emily uses a wheelchair.

Her apartment building has accessible parking spaces, but all of the parking spaces are unassigned.

The accessible parking spaces near her entrance are typically filled.

Emily asked that an accessible parking space be specifically assigned to her.

Her landlord denied her request.

Is this legal?

[Madison] Generally, a request like this should be granted.

[Tut] Okay.

Now if an individual would like a reasonable accommodation, they do have to specifically request that.

[Tut] Okay.

It does not have to be in writing, but I recommend it is in writing.

But here in this example, she did specifically request a reasonable accommodation.

The landlord may ask for some documentation verifying the need.

So this might be something like a letter from a medical professional just stating that there is a need for an additional accessible space.

But generally, in a scenario like this, that would be considered a reasonable accommodation and should be granted.

Okay.

And Madison, you deal with a lot of cases with service animals, right?

Yes, definitely.

A lot of service animal issues, a lot of emotional support animal issues.

Okay, so there's a lot of confusion around service animals and emotional support animals.

Can you please explain what the difference are and what they are?

Absolutely.

There is a ton of confusion around what's generally termed assistance animals, right?

These are emotional support animals and service animals.

Now, the definition of the two vary slightly among the different laws, but generally what's an accepted definition for service animals is it's a dog, in very limited circumstances, a miniature horse, usually a dog.

[Tut] Okay.

But usually a dog that's specifically trained to perform a task on behalf of an individual with a disability.

[Tut] Okay.

Whereas an emotional support animal is an animal that provides emotional or mental psychiatric support for an individual with a disability.

[Tut] So what is protected under law then?

[Madison] So both service animals and emotional support animals are protected under a wide variety of state federal law and local ordinances.

[Tut] Okay.

But two distinctions between that is an emotional support animal and a service animal are both protected in housing.

[Tut] In housing, okay.

Whereas a service animal is also protected in what's called places of public accommodation.

So that's a restaurant, a store.

Things like that.

[Ben] HUD has an excellence guidance document from 2020 about assistance animals covering both service and emotional support animals that you can download from the website, that is very helpful specifically for who want to know how to walk through this process, because actually walks through step by step on what to do when your tenant asks you for a reasonable accommodation for an animal.

So we got a couple scenarios with service animals.

I want you to take a look at.

Mary has been diagnosed with depression.

She has an emotional support animal that is a dog.

Mary provided her landlord with a letter from her counselor stating her need for the dog.

Te landlord told Mary that she must pay a $30 monthly fee in order to keep her emotional support animal in her apartment.

Is this illegal?

A landlord cannot require that a tenants pay a monthly fee for their emotional support animal.

Like I said earlier, emotional support animals are not pets.

So things like pet fees do not apply to them.

And if people are at home watching and they need help, how can they contact you guys?

Yeah, they can contact Disability Rights Nebraska at 402-413-2016.

Or they can visit our website.

That's disabilityrightsnebraska.org, and Disability Rights Nebraska is spelled out.

And if they're not sure if it's housing discrimination or not, Ben, they can reach out to the NEOC, right?

Right, right.

They can call the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission at (402) 471-4895, or they can visit our website at neoc.nebraska.gov, or they can visit one of our offices in Lincoln, Omaha or Scottsbluff.

We can walk through options, provide resources, and help you start the complaint process if that's the path you wants to take.

All right.

While complaints regarding disability are the most common in Nebraska, disability isn't the only reason people face housing discrimination.

Let's hear from another partner agency.

I'm Abby Swatsworth, the executive director of OutNebraska.

We are a statewide education and advocacy organization working to celebrate and empower LGBTQ+ Nebraskans all across the state.

There are approximately 60,000 LGBTQ+ Nebraskans.

If we all lived in one city, we'd be the third largest city in Nebraska.

And that means that there's a wide variety of landlord-tenant relationships happening.

Folks who are experiencing ongoing harassment in their housing or outright discrimination where they are told that they won't be rented, that they can't rent that location.

A lesbian couple, middle-aged women, both with secure jobs, good incomes, had been living in an apartment for a number of years.

The building sold.

The new landlord who purchased the building came, met them, and that same evening told them they had 30 days to get out, that he wouldn't rent to them.

They had lived in that same house in that same neighborhood for more than 10 years and had never had any problems, so it really rattled them to experience that.

I've had people who have landlords who have called them derogatory names, come to their apartments without giving notice.

I don't know that people know that there's recourse, right?

I don't know that they understand that it's illegal.

I think the other part of it is sort of a fear of being labeled as a troubled tenant, just feeling like if they speak out against one landlord, that landlord is gonna sort of blacklist them with other landlords, and they won't find anywhere that they can afford.

I think that's partly what retaliation is, is sort of talking with the other landlords.

But I think it's also things like not fixing or repairing issues in the apartment or house.

Like if there's plumbing issues or other things that make a house inhabitable, I feel like retaliation takes that form as well, making your house really not a comfortable safe place.

The more people that come forward, the more opportunity we have to really educate the landlords that are discriminating.

Or maybe if they're not even quite raising to that level, they could get a little bit of education about we're human beings.

We're just people.

We're just people and we just want safe housing.

Thank you to Abby Swatsworth and to OutNebraska for talking with us.

Ben, we've got another example complaint based on this protected class.

Let's take a look.

Omar moved into an apartment a year ago.

He never had any issues until his landlord saw his boyfriend leaving the apartment.

Now his landlord raised the rent.

Is this legal?

Well, anytime a person is treated differently because of their protected class status, that is discrimination.

Here in this scenario, we have a person charged a lower rent at first, but around the same time it says housing provider finds out he is gay, he is charged more rent.

If after an investigation, we found it was true that the reason behind the rent raise was because of the landlord's discovery of that boyfriend, that's pretty clear different treatment based on protected class sex, because sexual orientation is covered under sex.

Many times people fall into several protected classes.

Nebraska's large immigrant and refugee population is one example.

Take a look at this.

The Refugee Empowerment Center is a resettlement agency.

We help clients, refugees come into the United States particularly in the first 90 days of their arrival.

My role consists of the housing coordinator.

So I'm working with landlords to secure housing before they arrive.

When I am working with landlords, I do encounter discrimination more often than I would like.

I've had landlords not want to rent to them because they don't speak English.

They want to be able to communicate with their tenant even though we provide an interpreter for them.

I particularly run into discrimination A typical application process for a US citizen, when you apply for a rental unit, you need a social security number.

You need a background check, credit history, rental history, income verifications, sometimes three times the rent.

I mean, these are all things that refugees don't have.

Not their fault that they don't have them, but they're often turned away because of that.

A lot of these people are just super grateful to be here and they're grateful to just have anything, a roof over their head.

So they're not often willing to speak up and say, "Hey, my sink is clogged," or something like that.

So I'm often acting as that person in between the client and the landlord and bridging that communication gap.

When they come here, they're often coming from really dire circumstances, like war or violence, poverty.

They're hoping to have a safe place to land, and I think housing is kind of that foundation.

And so I'm really trying to find housing that's not only affordable, but is safe and inhabitable.

So I'm a refugee myself.

We came to the states in 1994 when I was two.

We moved around a lot coast to coast, but we settled in Lincoln because there was entry level jobs, good school.

So I know how hard it could be for refugees to find a place to live.

So we talked about protected classes earlier, and, Ben, it sounds like several of them apply here.

Yeah.

So that's right.

Obviously national origin for refugees, race and color, but religion could also apply if refugees are being treated differently due to religious practices.

If they come from a culture where they have large families in common, they may have a lot of kids.

And so familial status could also apply.

Based on what we talked about, Here's a hypothetical scenario.

Diane manages an apartment complex.

She's had many complaints from her tenants about a certain ethnicity because their food smells very strongly throughout the building.

She's also concerned that since they're not familiar with using an oven and range, they could pose a fire hazard.

She prefers not to rent to that ethnicity anymore.

Is this legal?

So here we have a situation where the housing provider is generalizing based on a past situation with one tenant or one family, and a blanket provision where the landlord refuses to rent to a whole protected class is going to be illegal and discriminatory if they're just basing it on that.

That's not going to fly.

Okay.

Here's another scenario.

Brian and Stacy have two kids and are expecting a third.

While touring an open house, the realtor tells them, "This two bedroom isn't big enough for your family."

Is this legal?

Well, first, it's important to note that occupancy standards alone aren't illegal, but applied incorrectly, they can result in family status discrimination.

This particular situation does sound troublesome because logically there's no reason the two adults, two children and a new baby couldn't fit into a two-bedroom apartment.

[Tut] Yeah.

We need to know more about the particular situation or the sizes of the rooms involved, the bedrooms and the living room, take all kinds of other things into account to fully analyze the situation.

These types of situations involving these occupancy standards are one of the more difficult and kind of complicated situations our So if your family out there is dealing with this sort of situation, definitely give the NEOC a call so we can talk it through.

Okay.

There may be other similar but different situations where a landlord doesn't want children either.

We've had situations in the past where a landlord didn't want to rent a children near a busy highway, or when there were hazards in the apartment, like potentially hazardous paint or something, but it's not the landlord's choice to not rent to families with children, that's the family's choice to take on those burdens or dangers.

So if that can... That will always be a situation that involves family status discrimination if the landlord or housing provider is choosing to not rent to families with children.

What are some common complaints that come in that are not protected by law?

Well, right now source of income is not covered under our law.

Also being rejected from having bad credit or having a bad wage history.

I know many refugees have trouble finding a place to live without a pay stub, but that is not currently protected.

Housing providers can refuse to rent to people based on their criminal history if the housing provider can justify it as necessary to protect the community.

[Tut] Okay.

But some policies that are overly broad about that and disallow all former felons could be potentially discriminatory.

Many of these areas of laws can be confusing but that's why we are here.

You can call the NEOC and ask us questions.

We'll provide guidance documents and information and resources, and hopefully make it slightly less confusing.

[Tut] What do you want people to take away from this?

Well, whether you're buying, applying for a loan, or renting, you have a right to fair housing.

If you think you're being discriminated against, please report it.

We can't help you with a problem unless we know it's happening, and the only way we know is if you call us.

Again, while the NEOC can't represent you, we will conduct a full and complete investigation into your allegations if you file with us to determine if discrimination did occur or not.

We talked about a few agencies which you work with, but there are even more places available to help, right?

Absolutely.

Nebraska has several great organizations that work for equitable, inclusive neighborhoods First off, we are not actually the only agency that investigates discrimination here in Nebraska.

Both Omaha and Lincoln have their own municipal or city agencies that enforce city anti-discrimination ordinances.

Lincoln has the Lincoln Commission on Human Rights.

Omaha has the Omaha Human Rights and Relations Department, and our federal partners at HUD enforce the Federal Fair Housing Act.

For organizations here in Nebraska outside of those, the Fair Housing Center of Nebraska and Iowa is a good example.

They offer workshops on future home ownership.

They also have a program where they can represent you if you're having difficulty with your landlord, whether it's about fair housing or another issue, and they can help you out communicating.

NeighborWorks is another organization that does this, and in some cases you can even qualify for lending through these types of programs.

[Tut] Okay.

Legal Aid of Nebraska has a great handbook for landlords and tenants, and can provide legal assistance for those who qualify.

Both law schools in the state.

They have legal clinics who can help people with low income and provide legal representation in certain circumstances.

Ben, thanks for being here, man.

It was a pleasure.

Okay.

Thanks to all of our guests and the partner agencies who have helped with this program.

A copy of this program and the links to all the agencies we mentioned are all available at nebraskapublicmedia.org/welcomeh omes.

I'm your host to Tut Kailech, wishing you a welcome home.

Thanks for joining us.

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