- Hi everyone. Welcome to the webinar on Discrimination and Tenant Screening. My name's Michelle Uzeta. I'm the Deputy Legal Director at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund or DREDF. DREDF is a national nonprofit law and policy center focused primarily on the rights of people with disabilities and disability rights as they intersect with other types of marginalized communities. I'm really happy to have Chancela Al-Mansour, who is the executive director of the Southern California Housing Rights Center as a co-presenter today, and we hope you enjoy the webinar. I know that some people joined after the housekeeping announcements were made. Both the chat and the Q&A are open. Please use the Q&A to post questions. If there is time at the end of the webinar and we hope there will be, we can answer some questions live. If you just have information you wanna share with people who are in attendance, go ahead and use the chat for those purposes. Next slide. So the agenda today is quite simple, but there is a lot of information we've packed in. We are going to talk about Section Eight discrimination. We're also gonna talk about other screening protections for tenants, including the use of income and financial requirements. The use of credit history, the use of criminal history, and also we have a slide on AI in tenant screening. And then we'll talk a little bit about strategies and enforcement. Next slide please. So first we're gonna start with source of income discrimination and specifically Section Eight discrimination. Next slide please. So from the outset, it's important to understand why Section Eight is so important to people and there are a few reasons why, and I'll just pause for a second so folks can look at the slide and then we'll go over the information in the slide. So Section Eight is a main source of affordable housing for low-income people. It bridges the gap between low wages and high housing costs. It's estimated that 2.1 million households nationwide are eligible and utilize Section Eight assistance and that 35% of those households include a person with a disability. There are over 300,000 households utilizing Section Eight assistance in California. The Section Eight program increases housing opportunities for low-income people who are disproportionately black, brown, and or disabled. It also makes safe, decent, safe, safe twice, safe, decent and sanitary housing available to people who are low income. It promotes fair housing choice, meaning you get to live where you want, mobility. And it also increases access to housing that's near transportation, schools and employment opportunities. The Section Eight program also reduces segregation and concentration of poverty because again, it allows people to live in neighborhoods they might not otherwise be able to afford. And it also prevents homelessness. Next slide please. So what is the problem? Well, we find that discrimination against Section Eight recipients is widespread. There are unfounded stereotypes and misconceptions about voucher users and the Section Eight program. For example, people have ideas that folks who are on Section Eight don't want to work or are drug users, criminals, et cetera. We've also found that Section Eight is used or Section Eight discrimination has been used as a pretext or other types of discrimination. Because Section Eight is disproportionately used by people who are black, brown and or disabled, discrimination against Section Eight disproportionately impacts those communities. On this slide, I also provide a link to a blog post that DREDF has on its website called Speaking The Truth About Section Eight that kind of pushes back against some of these narratives and stereotypes about the program. Another problem with Section Eight is that it's a use it or lose it type of program. The wait list to get a voucher are very long. In Los Angeles for example, there's been periods of over 10 years when the wait list has been closed and then it'll be open for just a couple of weeks for people to try to get a voucher. And then also if you are one of the lucky ones to get a voucher, they are time limited. Generally people are given about 60 days to find a unit. You can sometimes get an extension from your housing authority, but that's not always going to be available. So if discrimination is widespread and persistent and you only have two months to find a unit, that creates a very critical situation for a lot of people. Next slide. So now I'm going to talk about the law and how it applies to Section Eight discrimination. And again, I'll pause so you can take a look at this slide before we go over it. So under federal law, the Federal Fair Housing Act does not contain an express prohibition on Section Eight discrimination. There are some exceptions for other types of federal programs. For example, the low-income housing tax credit program, which is a program that provides a tax incentive to construct or rehabilitate affordable rental housing for low-income households. In that program, properties are expressly prohibited from discriminating against voucher holders. Owners of housing are required to certify their compliance with that requirement as well as other types of things annually. And state housing agencies are responsible for monitoring owner compliance with this requirement. Some other exceptions include the Home Investment Partnership program or the Home Program, and that's a program that provides federal block grants to state and local governments to create affordable housing for low-income households. Also, the Mark to Market program, which is a program that preserves affordability and availability of low-income rental multifamily properties with federally insured mortgages. Also multiple family units purchased from HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a few others. And also on this slide I provide a resource, a publication from the Department of Housing and Urban Development entitled Source of Income Protections for Housing Choice Vouchers. Next slide please. On state level, and again, I'll just pause for a moment for accessibility purposes to allow people to look at the slide before I move on. Okay. In terms of state law protections 16 states, in addition to the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prohibit, they have prohibiting discrimination against Section Eight voucher holders. They include California, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. In addition, there are five states with limited source of income laws. For example, Delaware. Delaware provides some limited protection for voucher holders. Maine and Minnesota have laws in place, but they've been weakened by court interpretation. In Texas, voucher discrimination is only prohibited by homeowners associations. And Wisconsin has a source of income law, but it does not include housing vouchers. And that data was obtained from the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Their website is linked on this slide. They update their information about source of income laws every couple of months. It's a pretty good resource. Next slide. Many local municipalities also have source of income protections approximately, well over 120 counties or cities nationwide prohibit source-of-income discrimination, including section Eight discrimination. And this includes cities and counties in states that have state law protections. For example, Denver has a source-of-income local law, and Buffalo in New York has a local law even though both of those states also have a state law. It also includes cities and counties and states that do not have state protections. For example, the state of Arizona does not have a state protection, but Tucson does have its own local protection. The same for St. Louis and Albuquerque. And the resource for the information on state protections is also where you can obtain information about local protections. Next slide. This slide, I'll give people a couple of seconds to look at it. This slide contains a list of the 19 municipalities in California, both cities and counties that have local ordinances prohibiting Section Eight discrimination. And I will just read off the list for accessibility purposes. It includes Alameda, Berkeley Corte Madera, East Palo Alto, Fairfax, both the city and the county of Los Angeles. Marin County, Mill Valley, Milpitas, Novato, San, I don't even know how to pronounce this city. I'm sorry San Anselmo. San Diego.

- [Chancela] Anselmo.

- Thank you Chancela.

- [Chancela] Only 'cause I lived up there. Yeah.

- Thank you. San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Rafael, Santa Clara County. The unincorporated parts only. Santa Monica and Woodland. Next slide. So let's look a little deeper at California law. California's Fair Employment and housing law was amended fairly recently by Senate Bill 329, 329. And that was effective January 1st of 2020. Now that bill amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act or FEHA to make it clear that landlords with rental properties in California cannot discriminate based on a person's source of income, and they redefined what source of income means. Next slide please. Like other prohibitions in FEHA, the source-of-income discrimination prohibition applies to a broad range of housing providers. All housing providers who rent residential properties in California. Now this would include rental and leasing agents, management companies, landlords, as well as homeowners associations, condo associations, corporations and housing authorities. And someone just posted in the Q&A is Section Eight considered a source of income? Yes it is. Next slide please. That was exactly what the bill that I just mentioned two slides ago did. It redefined source of income to include specific things. And I'll pause for a moment so people can read the new definition on this slide. So source of income is now defined under FEHA as the following, lawful, verifiable income paid directly to a tenant, a tenant's representative or housing owner on behalf of a tenant including federal, state or local public assistance and federal, state or local housing subsidies. And it specifically includes Section Eight housing choice voucher rental assistance, Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers, financial aid from any program that provides rental assistance, homeless assistance, security deposit assistance, or rapid rehousing. So it's pretty broad definition. And folks who've been doing fair housing work for some time will remember before 2020 the courts defined source-of-income discrimination as excluding Section Eight vouchers and other types of rental assistance. So this change was really important and a lot of folks in particular at the legal aid organizations really pushed for this change to happen. Next slide please. So this slide contains some of the prohibited activities, things that landlords and housing providers can no longer do based on source of income. So I'll pause so people can look at the list and then we'll go over it. So the prohibited activities include, the refusal to rent or renew an agreement for tenancy. So if somebody's applying for housing and using a voucher, you cannot discriminate against them. If someone's an in-place tenant and starts to use a voucher, you cannot terminate their tenancy or tell them they can no longer live in the apartment because their income source has changed. It also prohibits interruption or again, termination of tenancy. Includes falsely representing that a rental unit is not available. Prohibits different terms or conditions. Like I'll accept your Section Eight voucher, but in exchange you have to pay this or do this or you are limited in the benefits of your housing. It also includes refusing to complete forms, sign documents, or make repairs. And this is a way that landlords and housing providers often discriminate without expressly saying they're discriminating. They may refuse to complete the forms required by a public housing authority to complete approval of a unit for use by someone who's using a voucher. They may refuse to execute documents. They may refuse to make simple repairs that are necessary for the unit to qualify and pass inspection. And those can also be types of discrimination prohibited under FEHA now. It also, it includes harassment based on source of income or any otherwise, any other way of making housing unavailable. There's kind of this catchall safety net provision in FEHA that captures other types of discrimination that may not be enumerated. Next slide please. Advertising is something I pulled out for as separate slide. And I'll give folks a second to look at the definition of what's prohibited in terms of advertising. The advertising prohibition is kind of a mouthful. It's unlawful to make, print or publish or cause to be made printed or published, any kind of notice, statement or advertising with respect to the sale or rental of housing that indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination based on source of income or an intention to make that kind of a preference, limitation or discrimination. Next slide. Here are some examples of discriminatory advertisements. I'm sorry if the print is not terribly big. These are all from real-life cases that I've handled or are in the process of handling over just the last year. In the top left corner you'll see that the fourth bullet under minimum rental requirements says no Section Eight as well as other things, that is discriminatory. That's a clear express ban on Section Eight tenants. Any ordinary person reading that ad will think, who uses a voucher will think I don't qualify, I cannot apply for that unit. That's a discriminatory advertisement. Right below there, this was from an email exchange between a potential tenant and a landlord. And he said to her, "Frankly, you are better off after properties that are already registered for Section Eight." As I mentioned earlier, completing a Section Eight application is not going to be our top priority, so it will take some time on our end. That type of response may not be explicit, but that is a deterrent and it indicates an intent to discriminate by not completing paperwork in a timely way. And this particular housing provider also told the prospective tenant, we can only hold a unit for a week and it will take multiple months to get approved for Section Eight. So you're better off going somewhere else. That's discriminatory. In the upper right corner. This is from a text exchange between a prospective tenant and a landlord. He asks, "Hi, is this one bedroom still available?" And they respond "Yes." And he says, "Okay great. Is Section Eight accepted?" "No, sorry." That's discrimination. And then below that, "No Section Eight accepted. Don't even ask," that's clear discrimination. And these again are things that happened recently within the last year or so in California in a municipality with a local ordinance, both of which have been in effect since 2020. So you'll see these types of discrimination continue to happen on a pretty wide basis. Next slide. Okay, I'm going to pass it to Chancela now to talk about other screening protections.

- Hello everybody, I'm Chancela Al-Monsour, the executive director of the Housing Rights Center. We're located in Los Angeles, California. We're the nation's largest and oldest fair housing council. And we also provide eviction defense and homeless prevention legal services. Next slide please. So I'm gonna get into a little bit more detail in terms of some of the ways in which housing providers use methods to discriminate against tenants against perspective applicants for their housing. So I'm gonna give a second for people to read this slide. So what this slide represents is the California Government code. So there's always been a California government code that prohibits discrimination and housing. It's part of the FEHA the Fair Employment and Housing Act or it's what codifies it as well. But it was recently amended under SB-267 to provide even greater protection to tenants who rely on a government rental subsidy for their housing. And so in particular what it did is it expanded it saying that if there is a government subsidy involved, then it is illegal to base the rental amount on anything other than the tenant's portion of the rent. So I'm just gonna read exactly what it says 'cause it's a little bit confusing. "When dealing with a government rent subsidy such as Section Eight, financial or income standards must be based on the tenant share of the rent, not the total rent." Next slide please. So under SB-627, which as I said would just became effective this in January of this year. It prohibits the use of Section Eight applicant's credit history as part of the application process. And I'm gonna give people a moment to read this slide. So specifically what the amendment does is it says that the, when a housing provider is going to use the credit history of a person who wants to use a government subsidy, they have to provide them with the opportunity to provide a lawful, verifiable alternative evidence of another way in which they can afford to pay rent. So these are some examples, this is not all inclusive, but some examples of what a tenant can provide is that they're receiving other government benefit payments. They can provide their pay records or their bank statements or other pieces of evidence to show basically that they are credit worthy and able to pay again, based on what their portion of the rent should be, not based on what the entire rent should be and what the government agency would be paying. In addition, a housing provider must give the applicant additional time to provide that alternative evidence. I just wanna say on a side note that's very important. We are seeing a lot of housing providers that basically are telling tenants, we will take your Section Eight voucher and they will say we're beginning the paperwork and the process, but they will delay it and they, and then they will say, well, it was costing me too much to keep the unit available so I had to rent it to somebody else. I'll keep your application open for another unit. Trying to avoid being found to be discriminatory but clearly avoiding this law. So this law is very important, this is that they have to give the tenant additional time to provide evidence. Next slide please. So this is a list that we kind of put together of some of the ways in which unlawful screening of tenants can take place. Some of the ways in which it takes place. This isn't just for Section Eight or government subsidized, this is for all tenant applicants. And I'm going to pause for a moment so people can review the slide. So, and I'm gonna read the list. The first is refusing to complete paperwork or delaying paperwork. I just spoke of how that is happening. Or the other thing is losing paperwork saying that they sent it to the housing authority case manager when maybe they didn't or sending incomplete paperwork. Or that they some how delaying that that process. Saying that the building is not registered as Section Eight, when it is, and I'm sorry, these things do obviously do pertain just to Section Eight tenants, but saying that the building is not registered as Section Eight when technically unless this project based Section Eight, it doesn't have to be registered as Section Eight. So that's just a pre-textual excuse. Another thing they may do is only consider employment income like verifiable employment income. A lot of tenants, especially low-income tenants, tenants of color rely on other forms of income and housing providers should consider those other forms of income if they're legal forms of income. Saying that the credit, their credit is too low and particular without providing an exact eligibility standard about what that credit rating should be. And, that's in general a problem overall for tenant applicants is that there's a lack of transparency about what the eligibility standards are for that housing. Going back to the list, saying the process takes months and units can only be held for a brief time. So that's often used to discourage the applicant from even applying for the unit. Raising the rent after the household with the voucher applies. A lot of tenants with Section Eight vouchers, they are savvy and they will not disclose that they have Section Eight or try to wait until they are as far in the rental application process as they can. Unfortunately there have been cases of landlords who've tried to sue tenants, prospective tenants for fraud in that situation saying that they should have disclosed it. I'm not aware of any law that says that they have to disclose that fact, but there are some landlords that are pushing back on that. But the bottom line is that is a way in which it is used where all of a sudden the landlord will then change the rules of the game in some way or another after the tenant discloses that they are going to use a Section Eight voucher. Another thing that a landlord may do is accuse the household of fraud. And, I'm sorry that kind of leaped ahead for not disclosing that they had a voucher. Another thing that the potential housing provider may do is use the criminal history and eviction records of that prospective tenant without mitigation. And I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail about that in another slide. Another thing a housing provider may do is improperly use eviction records. And I will go into that a little bit more. And overall lack of transparency of the whole process and denial. And a lot of tenant applicants will say that especially once they've been denied that they had no idea why they were denied, they weren't told during the process, what exactly it was. And clearly there could be a discriminatory illegal reason for doing so, but oftentimes the tenants don't know and why. And so that can be a problem. Next slide please. Criminal history. Next slide please. So yes, housing providers and I'm sorry, I'm gonna give a second for people to review this slide. So in general, yes, housing providers sometimes do look at a person's criminal history. We do know that. And in general all housing providers, screen tenants and there are legitimate interests into screening potential tenants. As an agency that represents tenants there are definitely some legitimate interest in terms of screening, but the problem is that oftentimes the screening is used in a discriminatory way to prevent people, especially people who are black, Latinx, maybe LGBTQIA from getting that housing because of discriminatory reasons. Because it's based on their membership in one of those protected categories. And so even if a person doesn't have a criminal history, oftentimes persons in those who are for those demographics and those demographic categories only, they will be asked for their criminal records or they will be screened for criminal history, which clearly is a violation of state and Federal Fair Housing Act. Not so much well Federal Fair Housing Act, quite not so much criminal fair housing laws are protected a little bit more so under a California law. Not unfortunately it's not codified under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. There are, and we did provide here the fact that there are regulations however that became effective in 2020 that do clarify when and how a housing provider can consider information about a person's criminal history. But I do wanna take a side note that this is a law that is evolving and there's a lot of advocacy around limiting the use of criminal history when considering rental applicants. Next slide please. And so what exactly is criminal history? I'm gonna give a second, a moment to pause to review this slide. And I'm going to read it. It's any record that contains individually identifiable information and describes any aspect of an individual's criminal history or contact with any law enforcement agency. And that includes information about arrests, criminal charges or indictments. Having been questioned, apprehended, taken into custody or detained or held for investigation regardless of whether it resulted in a criminal conviction. And this includes records from any jurisdiction. Records that are not prepared strictly for law enforcement purposes, that's an and records that are not prepared strictly for law enforcement purposes. And again, this is in codified in the California Code of Regulations at section 12264. And that's two California Code of Regulations. Next slide please. And a little bit more detail about the prohibited uses of criminal history information. I'm going to pause for a minute for the review of this slide. And I'm going to read it. A housing provider's policy or practice regarding criminal history will violate California law when it has an unjustified discriminatory effect on members of a protected class, even when the provider had no intent to discriminate, is used to intentionally exclude members of a protected class. In other words, or for example, only running criminal history screening on black applicants or it could violate California law if it constitutes discriminatory statement. In other words, an advertisement, a blanket ban on anyone with an arrest. And I'll just say exactly what that means is that one cannot post, that one will not rent to people with a criminal background check and an advertisement or a sign on a front lawn or something like that, even though it may be intentional to do so. Later to some degree they can't post it in an advertisement. They can't put it in a published statement. Next slide please. This slide is about specific prohibited uses of criminal history information. I'm gonna give a moment, pause a moment for the review of the slide. And this slide goes into further detail of the same regulation that says that a housing provider cannot seek out or consider information about arrest that did not lead to a conviction, about being questioned, apprehended, taken into custody, detained or held for investigation by law enforcement, or for just infractions of the law. Next slide please. This is a continuation of specific prohibited use of criminal history information. I'm going to pause for the review of the slide. So again, a continuation of what a housing provider cannot do. They cannot seek out or consider information about a referral to or participation in a pretrial or post-trial diversion program or a deferred entry of judgment program. They cannot seek information about criminal convictions that have been sealed, dismissed, or expunged or matters processed in the juvenile justice system unless pursuant to a court order that specifically says that. Unless offered as mitigating information, information to show that the person does not pose a current risk to the health and safety of others to the property or to other substantial, legitimate and non-discriminatory interest of the housing provider. Next slide please. So there is a permitted use of criminal history information. I will pause a moment to review this slide. The housing provider can otherwise check the criminal history of an applicant. They're allowed to deny housing or take adverse action based on a directly related conviction. They are allowed to direct and specific negative relevance to... I'm sorry, the conviction has to be about direct and specific negative relevance to a substantial and legitimate and non-discriminatory interests of the housing provider, which is generally kind of the requirement of the housing provider when they refuse a number of things under the Fair Housing Act is the landlord is allowed to provide a legitimate non-discriminatory reason in some circumstances for their policy. And the things that they can consider or should consider must consider would be the nature and severity of the crime, and how long ago the crime happened, to when they're now applying for this rental unit. Next slide please. So we're gonna get into strategies and enforcement of Section Eight discrimination. Next slide please. So these are some options in terms of enforcement. I'm gonna pause for a moment for people to review this slide. So under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, when one files a claim and one can seek injunctive relief to get the policy to suspend or to terminate the policy altogether or some other injunctive relief, maybe how education or hiring decisions in terms of managers being retrained or something like that.

- So your options in terms of enforcement. Chancela just mentioned that under FEHA you can seek injunctive relief, monetary damages including punitive damages if the housing provider is found to have act in a particularly egregious fashion. And also the right to attorneys fees and costs. Some of the local ordinances, and I highlighted a Los Angeles and San Diego here. They also provide for injunctive relief but as well for three times actual damages. So if there was some actual out-of-pocket loss that the prospective tenant or tenant experience, they can get up to three times that amount or damages equal to three times the monthly rent at the time of the violation. So for example, if I applied for a unit and used Section Eight and the rent was $1,000 and I was discriminated against, under the local ordinance in Los Angeles, I could claim damages in the amount of $3,000, three times that rent at the time of the violation. You also would have the option of an administrative complaint to the California Civil Rights Department. I don't know if that would be my first option to be honest, just because they are severely underfunded and have not been, they don't have the resources to take on the number of cases that we might want. So I'll just say that. Next slide.

- [Chancela] I'm sorry, the one reason why it would be good is for reporting purposes. So at least we can keep the data to follow.

- Great. Do you wanna go back to Chancela then since she--

- I dunno, Zoom kicked me out so I apologize for that. But that is one point I did want to raise before we changed slides is that even though CRD the Civil Rights Department has some challenges with enforcing all the complaints that are being filed. I think we should still file complaints because if nothing else, the data is used and is reported to HUD and to the federal government in terms of just the sheer number and the prevalence of discrimination that's happening. 'Cause we're still trying to get this codified on a federal level as well. Thank you. I think we're going, moving on to you for the next slide, Michelle. I'm sorry, let's go to the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. This last slide is mine. And yes, discrimination against Section Eight vouchers is still very widespread. I just wanna give an example in the housing rights center and like a lot of agencies we've been testing doing tests and I'm sorry, let me give a pause a second for people to read this slide. It's pretty short. So I'll just say that even in some right here, this refers to a study we did in 2021 through 2022 where we found that nearly half of the properties tested show discrimination. We've since tested three, four times as many properties and still find about half of them show evidence of discrimination. And just, I want to say of about half of those that show evidence of discrimination, about half of those are blatant denials where the housing provider says no to the persons who receiving Section Eight. So enforcement is definitely still needed. Thank you.

- All right, I have the next two slides. Next slide please. I just wanted to jump in to talk about some public record act requests that we did. So I'll give people a second to take a look at this slide before talking about it. All right, in June of 2023, I did a public record request to the Civil Rights Department of California to ask for information regarding the number of source of income complaints received and their disposition, 'cause we just wanted to get that data. And so it took a while to be honest, to get the information from the Civil Rights Department. But once we did, this was kind of the basic breakdown. They had received over 600 source of income complaints from the period of January 1st, 2020, which is when the state prohibition went into effect through June 26th of 2023 in that time. So 635 complaints. Over half of them were no cause determinations. 25 were closed due to agency discretion. 82 of them were conciliated, which is resolved without the need for any kind of litigation. 73 were recorded as withdrawn, which I think includes ones that they closed because people didn't respond to follow up kind of communications, 'cause sometimes your investigator through CRD will ask you for additional information, medical records and things like that. Some that they don't need, some that they do. But if people don't respond, they, I think record those as withdrawn. 13 were settled by enforcement. And I understand from people at CRD that to mean that they sent out letters advising landlords, what you're doing is discriminatory, please agree to change this. And then in terms of lawsuits, there's believed to only have been one filed, and that was in January of 2023. I provide a link to the press release there. I believe also that one was settled. In recent advocates and many of you on this webinar have engaged in quarterly meetings with CRD to talk about Fair Housing Enforcement and I know that they would like to prioritize more pieces of litigation. Again, it's a resource issue, but it's one of those things that we can all press for the state to fund the department more. And Chancela had mentioned the importance of filing complaints, even if they aren't investigated or accepted for investigation. There's really no harm in filing a complaint with CRD even if they decide to no cause it, it doesn't have any kind of effect on your ability to file a lawsuit. It doesn't ban you or bar you from filing a lawsuit based on the same facts and law later on. I guess that's all I'll say about that except to say if you do file a complaint with the Civil Rights Department and they come back and no cause it, you do have the right to appeal. If you disagree and you have information or even new information that you wanna present, you can follow their appeal process and that is documented on their website. So don't feel like you have no other option at that point because you can appeal and they do frequently decide to open things after you appeal and you can also still file a lawsuit. Again, it has no value, doesn't ban you from a lawsuit later on. Next slide please. We also did public record request to all the 19 California municipalities that have source of income ordinances. Not included on this slide is East Palo Alto, which I recently adopted an ordinance and I sent a public record request to them. They haven't responded yet, but I assume the response will probably be similar to the rest of the municipalities here. Only one of the cities or counties that have source-of-income prohibitions via ordinance or local law has done affirmative enforcement. And that is the city of Santa Monica. And that is largely due to the personnel that were there who have good relationships with the legal aid organization, and they teamed to do some enforcement activity. Some of these cities do contract with fair housing providers and rely on the fair housing providers to participate in enforcement. But in general, I think advocates would like cities to get more involved in enforcing the law, or at least helping get the word out that in our city, in our county source-of-income discrimination is illegal and we would like for landlords to comply. Not many of these cities provide information on their websites, on their housing websites. Not many of these cities conduct training or highlight the fact that source of income is prohibited. And again, with the exception of Santa Monica, none of them are doing affirmative enforcement work. So as an advocate out there, engage with your cities about doing more in terms of helping fight the widespread Section Eight discrimination that's still occurring. I think the next slide is Chancelas. Thank you.

- So some strategies for addressing voucher discrimination, discrimination against Section Eight vouchers. One, to educate and train voucher holders and their advocates. And I'm sorry, I'm gonna pause a moment for so people to kind of review this slide. So some of the strategies include to educate and train voucher holders and advocates about their rights. To do testing or investigations. There's a lot of testing. There's even some national programs and other parts of the country that are doing telephone tests in California to determine whether or not there is discrimination. There is also a lot of housing providers that will post things either on their websites and so forth. So there's could also review of anything that they post that says whether or not they will accept a voucher or Section Eight or a government subsidy. There's private enforcement, which is basically filing a lawsuit and hopefully getting a large award or a settlement and promoting it on media so that it would discourage other housing providers from engaging in the same illegal activity if nothing else because they know it will hit them in their pocketbook. Another strategy is to advocate for improvements in technology that addresses delays in communication with public housing authority agencies and with submitting documents. Pushing for state and local funding of enforcement efforts. Push for federal legislation to protect discrimination against government subsidy vouchers, increase for voucher payment standards, which lemme just kind of say HUD has allowed for cities and jurisdictions to increase their farm market rates. And so I know some cities like Los Angeles have done so, that they can do smaller areas. And so that will help tenants because if that area has a higher fair market rental rate, then the tenant has more money basically to use for potential housing. So that's something else. Another would be to expand the time in which a tenant can look for and process and get their application and their rental assistance done. And the last is remanding Section Eight. Next slide please. And so just quickly, this is a kind of, I think the last substance of slide we have and that is the use of the artificial intelligence. It is because of the time limitation, and I'll just kind of summarize here, but there are some links on this slide to articles and to some recent cases that relied upon. Well one that basically said that the housing providers use of artificial intelligence was actually itself discriminatory. So there's a link to an article here on Fortune in which it says, it talks about that AI is already screening rental applications and there's almost no oversight of this right now. This is unfortunately still a very new kind of a territory. There's also a link to a case that was filed last year at a Massachusetts, two black women's Section Eight tenants who in that part of the country when you apply, you like call a number and you need to be called back. And that's where the discrimination happened. They weren't called back. The Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in July of 2023 in the case because it was that egregious and just last month in March of it settled for $2.2 million. There's also a press release here about another settlement of another Section Eight voucher discrimination case in Evanston, Illinois. And I think, but this is a really good resource that the National Consumer Law Center put out on digital denials and tenant application where they go into a lot more detail about, and particularly like the use of criminal history and other, and credit, which we didn't really get into, but how credit is used in a discriminatory way to screen tenants. And then lastly, the one federal thing that was, that has been done is there's was a White House executive order on the use of AI and Lisa Rice of the National Fair Housing Alliance has also testified before the House committee on the use of AI and how it impacts discrimination in housing. Thank you.

- So that brings us to the end. We have about three minutes and there's one question in the Q&A that I was wondering if Chancela had thoughts about, 'cause I am really at a loss. Other people may have thoughts as well and if you do, please drop those in the chat. But the question is what are the landlord's options? For example, and this is when we're talking about the delays in getting paperwork done and inspections done when you want to consider a Section Eight tenant. So Helen asks, "What are the landlord's options?" For example, rent the unit, but promise an available unit when the paperwork is done, have another tenant moving out, et cetera. Or keep the unit vacant during the one to two months, that it takes to process and get the inspection done. And Chancela do you have thoughts on that? Like if people are advocating with landlords, what could we suggest if it really would be a hardship for the landlord to wait two months to rent a unit?

- As I know there's no set answer to this. It's really trying to get the housing provider to try to think outside the box if they can or in terms of really what would create a financial hardship for them. If there's any way at all, they can mitigate that. But it really is a case-by-case basis and really kind of hoping that the housing provider is being as transparent as possible in terms of their need to do so. But yeah, that's a hard question.

- And I'm just grabbing that link again. I will be sending around the PowerPoint and the video. The recording of this webinar will be posted on DREDFs website probably in a week, week and a half, along with the PowerPoint as well. I wanna thank Chancela and also thank our captioner and ASL providers for today's webinar. And thank you all for attending. Have a great weekend.

- Thank you.