I'm Moving - What are My Rights?

Renting or buying, how to look up fair housing laws and report discrimination

Hi everyone,

Thank you to all who participated in the referral special over the past month. We welcomed a lot of new subscribers! I’ll announce the winner at the end of today’s post.

Last week, we talked about resources to use for research on protest movements, namely those found on the Library of Congress and FBI websites.

Today, we’re going over how to look up federal-level fair housing laws. I’ll also feature resources on recognizing housing discrimination and how to report it to the government.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) oversees housing policies and laws. Within HUD, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) is responsible for programming related to federal fair housing initiatives.

How to Look Up Federal Fair Housing Laws

There are a few ways to access information about fair housing through HUD’s website. I prefer the strategy I’m showing today because it takes you to resources that synthesize housing laws and provide supplemental information to help you understand your rights. That being said, you’ll probably notice in your perusings that there are other pathways you can take on the website to arrive at the same thing (see footnote for my commentary on HUD’s website structure).¹

Let’s get started.

Step 1

Go to https://www.hud.gov/.

HUD website homepage, emphasis is my own. Accessed 5/18/24.

Step 2

Click “Program Offices” on the header (circled in red in the above screenshot).

HUD program offices, emphasis is my own. Accessed 5/18/24.

Step 3

Click on the “Fair Housing/Equal Opportunity” link. This takes you to FHEO’s landing page.

Step 4

Scroll down on this page to the “Find Resources” section. All these links are worth exploring but start by selecting “Rights & Obligations”.

FHEO homepage, emphasis is my own. Accessed 5/18/24.

Step 5

Read through the information provided as needed. The first section introduces the Fair Housing Act and related civil rights laws. Each link under the “Learn More About…” section leads to a plain-language overview of the named topic.

Clicking on the link to the “Fair Housing Act” provides an overview that explains what the law itself does, who is protected, and which kinds of discrimination are prohibited. It also links to a list of federal fair housing and related laws and provides examples of housing discrimination.

The other sections of the Fair Housing Rights and Obligations page cover protected groups and topics under the Fair Housing Act in more detail. In addition to providing overviews, some sections list additional resources at the bottom. People advocating for fair housing or doing community outreach might find them particularly useful.

For example, the “Rights of Persons with Limited English Proficiency” section provides translated HUD brochures in several languages (Bengali, Hindi, Chinese, Farsi, Spanish, to name a few). These include FHEO publications about fair housing and housing discrimination.

Reporting Housing Discrimination to FHEO

If you believe your rights have been violated, you can report this to the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Starting from the FHEO homepage, here’s how to access reporting resources:

Scroll down until you get to the “popular resources” section:²

FHEO homepage, emphasis is my own. Accessed 5/18/24.

This takes you to FHEO’s section on reporting housing discrimination, which includes instructions on using HUD’s online portal to submit a complaint (plus phone & mail options). The page also covers accessibility resources and supplemental information for public housing programs.

Conclusion

Today’s newsletter should give you somewhere to start researching federal-level fair housing laws. Your state and local laws may outline additional rights and obligations related to housing, so look into those policies as well (see footnote for research suggestions).³

Now, for the WINNER of the referral competition! The highest referrer on the leadership board deferred their win. The next highest referrer was Hugh G. Hugh G., you win a year’s access to all free and paid newsletter content. Thanks for your support!

Until next time - June 2.

1. A warning about HUD’s website: its structure is confusing because you can’t easily access every page it has using the navigation bars. When browsing, I recommend using the A-Z site index link in the footer at the bottom of the homepage.

2. You could click on the “housing discrimination” link in the same section we used to access the “rights & obligations” resources. However, it forces you to click through an extra page rather than take you directly to the reporting section.

3. A quick word of caution: if you browse HUD’s site, you might notice that it has a state information page and a tenant rights page where you can select your state to see information about its fair housing policies. In theory, these are great resources. However, as I dug through them while I prepared this newsletter issue, I noticed that the way information is presented is inconsistent across states, and the links provided may not be up-to-date. It could be a good place to start, but I recommend going directly to your state government’s website to cross-check (if you don’t know what yours is, you can look it up here).