[music] 00:08 Jackie Strohm: Welcome to PA Centered, a podcast designed to help listeners be a part of the solution to end sexual harassment, abuse and assault. Each episode, we will take on a topic or current event to help spark conversation and break down barriers to building communities free from sexual violence. [music] 00:32 JS: Hi, I'm Jackie Strohm, the Prevention and Resource Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. I'll be your host today as we're joined by attorneys Lisa Matukaitis and Konrad Jarzyna to talk about housing discrimination. Lisa joined PCAR in 2020 after over a decade operating her employment and civil rights practice based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she represented individuals at the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the US EEOC, state agencies and in Federal courts. For several years, Lisa has been named to the Super Lawyers and Super Lawyers Rising Stars in the areas of plaintiff's employment discrimination. Prior to attending law school, Lisa earned her BA in Women's Studies. 01:20 JS: Konrad has 16 years of experience in civil litigation, family law, criminal law, real estate and immigration. In private practice, he represented many survivors of domestic and sexual violence. He joined PCAR Sexual Violence Legal Assistance Project in February 2020. The SVLAP provides free holistic legal advice and counsel, and short-term representation to victims of rape and sexual harassment, abuse and assault throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The project is designed to fill existing gaps where local community legal services are unavailable, and gives priority to victims of non-intimate partner sexual assault. The services provided include landlord, tenant and housing issues, sexual violence protection orders, Title IX and other campus sexual assault issues, employment matters, criminal justice advocacy, privacy issues and general legal advocacy. Welcome, Lisa and Konrad. 02:21 Konrad Jarzyna: Good morning, Jackie. 02:23 Lisa Matukaitis: Good morning, Jackie. 02:26 JS: So can you start by telling us what housing discrimination is, and what are some common examples? 02:34 LM: Federal and state laws provide protections and remedies for those who experienced discrimination. Protected classes can be a person's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, disability, age over the age of 40, ancestry and pregnancy under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which is a state law in Pennsylvania that prohibits discrimination. Today, we really wanted to focus on a particularly vulnerable class of people, that is survivors of sexual harassment, abuse and assault in the areas of housing discrimination. Sexual violence can jeopardize a person's housing, and lack of housing or inadequate shelter can increase the risk of sexual violence. So one of the reasons why we wanted to do this podcast is to provide some information about the various laws that are in Pennsylvania, and also Federal laws that can provide remedies for survivors of sexual harassment, abuse and assault. In Pennsylvania, if a person is discriminated against because of a protected class, they can bring a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which is a state agency in Pennsylvania that would investigate complaints of discrimination. 04:06 KJ: And the Federal protections are very similar to what we have in Pennsylvania. The source of those protections is different. They come from the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was really an expansion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and similar to the state, and also prohibits discrimination in housing or in other areas based... Although these are particular, these are with housing only, based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender, familial status and disability. 04:41 JS: So what are some examples of what housing discrimination looks like? 04:45 LM: Housing discrimination can take effect in many different forms. One could be when you apply for a rental property, you could be denied, denied housing based on some protected class like for example, a landlord may not want to rent to a single mom with children. A landlord may not want to rent to a person because they're black or brown. And another way that it can take effect is in not providing repairs to somebody because of their protected class or treating them differently. Also not providing accommodations for a person with a disability. 05:32 KJ: To just be more specific, here are some examples of discrimination we wanna make sure that the audience is aware of. So for example, quid pro quo when a landlord would demand sexual favors to get something like to get into an apartment or a house, to get repairs made, or to just in lieu of rent payments or other payments. Not allowing emotional support to animal or a service animal in the house or an apartment or apartment complex would be another one. Discrimination during the home appraisal process. Not many people may be aware of, but it does take place more often than we want to. Steering buyers or renters away from or to a particular neighborhood based on their race, ethnicity or other characteristics. 06:29 KJ: Delaying or ignoring maintenance or repair requests just for... Sometimes, it's done as a retaliation. So maybe someone already complained about discrimination and then their request for repairs is being ignored. And making housing unavailable or setting different terms, conditions, or privileges to rent units just as a method of keeping certain people out and certain other people in. And then advertisement practices that basically target particular groups or exclude other groups would be another example of discrimination. 07:11 JS: So how do you know if it's discrimination? 07:15 KJ: It's not always clear, but once actions are discriminatory in nature, those acts by landlords or property managers act, and our missions can be... Typically, we would divide them into two categories. So you have overt discrimination and covert discrimination. So overt discrimination will be basically, say you have evidence of landlord or property manager making a direct statement, for example, "I'm not renting to black people." We'd like to say it's rare, but now with the technology and cell phones and people recording, it's more common that probably we would have wanted to or would've thought. Even in my short experience with SVLAP PCAR, had a client few months ago, who basically went first to a property management or a real estate agency and applied for or a place for her and her grandchildren. And first, everything was perfect. She had a great reference from her previous landlord, did all background checks, everything, credit score, everything, came back perfectly. Until that agency connected her with the actual landlord, who, all of a sudden, just called her out of nowhere and said that, "I'm not renting to you." 08:47 KJ: She actually, she asks, "Is it because I'm black?" And his response was, "Yeah, something like that." At that point, her lease was already signed, so she basically said, "I don't care. I have a moving date. I've already gave notice to my previous landlord. I'm going there." And when she did arrive with her young grandchildren, teenagers, young, pre-teens, the landlord's daughter just became belligerent. Talking about recording and technology, she actually was able to record it and just the language they used toward her was just despicable, just horrible. So that's an example of overt discrimination, where you just have direct evidence and people are not trying to cover it up. They're just basically blatantly tell you that, "We're not going to rent to you because of your race," in this case. 09:45 LM: And more often than not, we see discrimination that is based on what we call indirect evidence of discrimination and/or more covert discrimination. This might happen in a situation where a realtor or a realtor steering renters or buyers into a particular neighborhood and away from, let's say, a white neighborhood. It also may happen where there are in position of different rental rates, based on your protected class. And in advertising as well, we might see things that say, "This rental unit is available for a couple without children or for a single professional," things like that, where it's not directly saying that we will not rent to people with children, but it could have the effect of denying housing to people who are outside of the protected class or in the protected class, that would be covered under federal and state law. 11:08 LM: And with housing discrimination can also be in the form of sexual harassment or sex discrimination. And in particular, for survivors of sexual violence, the anti-discrimination laws can come into play, because somebody is treated differently because of their sex. That discrimination could include protections against sexual harassment by landlords. Sexual harassment can be a quid pro quo, meaning that the landlord would demand sex or sexual acts in exchange for renting or buying a home. It also includes unwelcomed sexual comments and conduct. 11:51 KJ: And just to expand a little bit on the advertising issue because now, with new ways of advertising, with social media being used for advertising and other platforms, just an example, Facebook here. I think it was just as recently as last year when Facebook was accused by federal agency of allowing advertisers to restrict who was able to see ads on the platform and that was based on the characteristics we mentioned, race, religion, national origin. And so those advertisers, mostly housing companies that have money to advertise on Facebook, would pretty much use the tools available or provided by Facebook to pick and choose the demographic of renters they just prefer. So Facebook, in response to those accusations, changed its practices, but it's something to keep in mind, because the same tools are used through other platforms or websites. So that's something to also keep an eye on going forward, because that's probably not going to just disappear. It's probably just going to get more sophisticated and more covert. 13:05 JS: So are there any legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for imposing restrictions on a tenant? 13:12 LM: Sure. As long as a landlord isn't discriminating against somebody because of a protected class or a protected reason, the landlord is free, typically, to place restrictions on tenants and to hold tenants to their leases and... Some examples might be, there could be an occupancy limit that a landlord places on a unit, and that occupancy limit could be in place because of a municipal ordinance or something like that. So that would be a legitimate non-discriminatory reason, an occupancy limit would be a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for, let's say, refusing to rent to somebody with four children. If the unit is limited to occupancy of two, you couldn't have more than two people in that unit. That would be a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for declining someone for a particular unit. There are other reasons as well. If somebody has a service dog or an emotional support animal, that animal can't be a vicious animal or an animal that would be dangerous to other tenants. So there are certainly restrictions that landlords can place on people, and landlords are able to deny people housing, but it needs to be not based on a protected class. 14:49 KJ: And if I may add, just such policy has to be applied broadly basically to everyone, so you cannot just pick and choose this unit, because then it just becomes suspicious even if your intention is legitimate, but that just all these policies have to be applied throughout, by one landlord, throughout all the units. 15:11 JS: So when we're thinking about housing discrimination, can one of you talk about how it impacts survivors of harassment, abuse, and assault? 15:21 KJ: Sure. Survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault are oftentimes mostly women, and they often face housing discrimination because of the violence committed against them. Examples of such kinds of discrimination can include being denied admission to or being evicted from housing due to the acts of violence committed against the survivor or because of the landlord's zero-tolerance crime policy in a lease agreement. It can also include denial of housing because the survivor requires an emotional support animal and the landlord uses a no-pets policy as an excuse for the denial. Another example might be where a survivor is seeking housing with the help of a local domestic or sexual violence organization, and the landlord refuses to rent based on a false stereotype that survivors always go back to their abusers. 16:16 JS: So does the landlord have any liability concerns that they need to figure out ahead of time? 16:23 KJ: Yes. The landlord has a duty to protect from known dangers, so basically let's say if someone has a situation that... Let's say you've got a PFA or you're just thinking of getting one, or a sexual violence protective order, it's probably a really good idea to immediately notify your landlord or the building manager or whoever is in charge. I would go as far as making sure that they have a copy if you do have a temporary protection order or you have final protection order, just to make sure that they have a copy on file, just because, first of all, they'll take it probably more seriously. They'll know the name of the individual, so they also have to be informed in order to be able to protect. So they definitely have a duty to keep those people away. And the landlord's also not allowed to share any private information with third parties without a written authorization, so. 17:32 KJ: Whenever a person signs the lease, it's always strongly recommended to make sure you read through it, you understand what you just signed, if there are any forms that come with the lease that you need to sign, again, read through them. I know people tend to just sign and move on, but you don't want to regret it later. Also, make sure to keep the copy of the lease, and just as a side note, I would usually ask the landlord to just put the initials on each page, because I've seen landlords basically then change pages and have a last page or signature page and then in the middle all of a sudden it turns out that something changed and you lost the copy of your lease, you cannot really confront the landlord then, and then you have problems. So a paper trail is huge, that's why if you're making any... If you have any communication whatsoever with the landlord, just I would recommend just keeping... Whether it's a text message, email, keep it in writing, keep a copy of it, have a separate file, just almost approach it... Just think about it as if you're going to court even if you don't even expect it to happen, because typically that's how you prevent yourself from ending up in court when you have solid evidence. 18:49 KJ: The same with just keeping the... Let's say someone moves out of the house or an apartment. Even if the landlord does not care, make sure landlord is aware of it so the person cannot return to the place and... And again, if the landlord doesn't know, they will not be able to help you, so I would just keep that up to date at all times and make sure that the office, or if it's an individual landlord, just know about what's going on. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania does not have a law that allows someone to terminate the lease agreement because of domestic violence or sexual violence, but that also doesn't mean that the lease cannot be terminated there, there may be other ways. So for example, sexual violence protective order. When you're in court and you're asking for the protection, there are also other remedies, and we can ask the courts to basically, as part of this order, state that your lease is terminated. 19:52 KJ: And when you run into something like this, it's basically advisable to just contact an attorney, or here, SBOP, as we're available and happy to help, 'cause sometimes something simple that is preventable could turn into a complicated issue that makes your case more complicated down the road. 20:11 JS: So I know that there are lots of different groups who can be affected by housing discrimination, but could you talk a little bit about how folks with disabilities can request accommodations and what their landlords are required to provide them with? 20:28 LM: Sure. Under federal and state law, a person has a disability and they need a reasonable accommodation in their housing, they can request it from the landlord or the owner of the unit. The request should be in writing. And sometimes, the landlord is gonna wanna see what the disability is, how it affects your major life activities and what kinds of accommodations you might need. So it may be a situation where the landlord is asking for medical documentation. That landlord may also want something from a doctor saying that this person has a medical condition, for example, and needs a closer parking spot. That may be an example of a reasonable accommodation that the landlord could give. 21:24 LM: But basically, what I, as a lawyer would wanna know is, is the person's disability, how long if they have its disability. Do they still have it and how much longer are they expected to have it? Is it expected to be a lifelong disability? There are questions that I would ask are what kind of major life activities are affected by your disability? Is your ability to see, to hear, to walk, to talk to other people, to care for yourself, relate to others, is that affected by your disability? And how is it affected? I'd also wanna know is did you inform your landlord or the property owner of the disability? Was the property owner aware of your disability? When did you tell the property owner or the landlord about your disability? And how did you tell them? So that's why I really... Usually encourage people to put their requests for reasonable accommodations in writing, and then document whether or not the landlord provided the requested accommodation or modification. And if they did not, I would wanna know what reason the landlord gave to you for not making the reasonable accommodation. Sometimes, landlords will say, "Well, it's just too expensive. It's too expensive to make that accommodation." But you really wanna have some kind of dialogue with the landlord to see if there are other ways of making the accommodation that you need. 23:12 JS: So how are some other groups affected by housing discrimination? 23:18 KJ: There are many, many, many different statistics, but just to highlight a few of them. For example, trans-Black women have the highest rate of homelessness into multiple levels of discrimination. So it's not only housing discrimination, but it's also sex discrimination, race discrimination, etcetera. LGBTQ youth faces more than twice the homelessness risk of heterosexual cisgender youth, their counterparts, which is also a very upsetting statistic. Roughly, 5% of the nation's housing stock is accessible to people with moderate mobility- related disabilities, and less than 1% is accessible to people who use a wheelchair full-time, so that's the one that really shocked me. To be honest, I expected the number to be a little higher. 24:16 KJ: There was a study by Saf University and the Boston Foundation. Basically, what they did, they used a black and white "testers" participants in the study and they were asked to run departments or contact the potential landlords. And the study found that the discrimination based on race was present 51% of the test. So the same study, they also found that the housing providers cut off contact with 42% of the testers, if they said that they had a voucher for Section 8 housing, as opposed to 10% for those who did not mention the vouchers. Again, these are just a few statistics. None of them are good. 25:06 JS: So it sounds like it would be helpful for our listeners to know what they should do if they wanted to file a discrimination complaint. So could you talk a little about where and how to file a complaint? 25:17 LM: Sure. Complaints for housing discrimination can be filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which is an agency of the State of Pennsylvania, or also, with the Housing and Urban Development HUD, if the actions complained are protected under federal law. There's a short amount of time to file a complaint of discrimination with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which is 180 days. So I would suggest that if a person believes that they were discriminated against in housing, they should contact the lawyers as soon as possible. Like you had said earlier, our attorneys are available during Monday through Friday, during working hours. We do provide free legal assistance to survivors of sexual harassment, abuse and assault, and that can be in the areas of housing discrimination as well. 26:15 LM: But basically, if the person wants to file a complaint of discrimination with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, they have a website that has forms on their website that can help you. And sometimes, there is an intake person at the PHRC that can take down your information. But basically, the complaint is gonna need to be in writing and signed and dated and filed within the 180 days, typically. Some of the information that you're gonna need to know to file a discrimination complaint is obviously your contact information, and then information regarding the landlord or the entity that you believe discriminated against you, and that would be the person's name and address, phone number and the county where the business or the individual is located. You're gonna wanna have information on how you were discriminated against like how were you harmed by the discriminatory event. That could be that you were denied a rental, you were evicted. 27:24 LM: You were denied financing or you were treated differently, or unequally. You were harassed or you were denied a reasonable accommodation or a modification for a disability. So you wanna have the information available to be able to give as much detail as you can. The PHRC is gonna wanna know how you were treated differently. Was it because of your sex, pregnancy, was it because of your age, over 40? You're gonna need to provide your date of birth, if you think it was because of your age. Was it because of your race, or color, religion or ancestry, or national origin? Sometimes it's gonna be helpful to have information that you were treated differently than somebody outside your protected class. So for example, if you could have information about a different tenant that was provided with, let's say, a closer parking spot, for example, and that person didn't have a disability, but you were denied a closer parking spot and you do have a disability, you might wanna have that information on hand, to give to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission or the lawyer that you're working with. 28:43 LM: But a lot of times you're not gonna have that information available. Yeah, there may also be another category for retaliation. So for example, if you complain to your management company or to your landlord or the owner of the building that you believed you were discriminated against or treated differently because of your protected class, and then let's say the landlord did something adverse to you as a result of your complaint, we would call that retaliation. So if you were retaliated against because of complaining or asserting your rights, you could bring those issues to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission as well. You would wanna have information on the date that you complained and what you were complaining about or assisting somebody else who was complaining about. So the more details that you have the better, but sometimes people don't have all the information. Like we said earlier, with covert discrimination, a lot of times, not gonna have direct evidence of discrimination or that you're being treated differently because of your protected class. 30:05 JS: So I thought it could be helpful if we go over some hypotheticals to see if it is discrimination. So I'll read one of these and then you all can let us know if it is in fact discrimination. So Jane has a developmental disability that affects her capacity to manage her own finances. Jane tells her building manager that her mother will be paying her rent for this reason, and asks if all notices relating to her rent can be sent to her mother. The building manager tells Jane, that the management company has a policy of only sending notices to residents, no exceptions. Several months later, Jane receives an eviction notice because her mother had not known that Jane's rent been increased. So is this an example of discrimination? 30:55 KJ: This is an example of... Yes, it is an example of discrimination. It's basically denying a reasonable accommodation to a tenant, so basically discriminating against her because of her disability. So typically with the reasonable accommodation, you have to prove that there is a link between your disability and the accommodation you're requesting. So in this case, there is a clear link, since she has a developmental disability, she needs her mom's help. And for a landlord under this example, to comply it's not really overly burdensome or expensive, really no excuse not to accommodate her. So I would say yeah, this would be a pretty clear case of discrimination. 31:47 JS: Alright, let's try another one. So Jane has a housing choice voucher through Section 8, but one month she falls behind on her portion of the rent. When Jane asks her landlord if he will give her a few more days, her landlord says yes, but only if she will go out with him. Feeling she has no choice, Jane says yes. And over the next few days, Jane's landlord sends her sexually explicit text messages, even though Jane tells him to stop. Jane's landlord tells her that if she does not go out with him again, he is going to evict her and she will lose her voucher. 32:24 LM: Jackie, this would be an example of sex discrimination or sexual harassment in the form of sex discrimination. A person in this situations would be called quid pro quo sexual harassment, where the landlord is trying to base somebody's housing situation or rent in exchange for some kind of sexual favor. And again, in this situation, Jane had said that it was unwanted, she asked the landlord to stop and that the landlord, I believe, continued to escalate. There may be several other remedies as well, but that does seem like a complaint for housing discrimination could be brought under that scenario. 33:16 JS: Okay. Let's do one last example. John has three teenage children. John's building has a patio with picnic tables, and one day John's children decide to have lunch there with some of their friends. The next day John receives a notice from the homeowners association informing him that the building rules say that the patio is for adult use only, and that he needs to make sure his children do not violate the building rules. 33:44 KJ: This is an example of discrimination against children based on their familial status, so you cannot have such policy. I mean, there may be circumstances that there is a legitimate reason for it, in this example, we don't have that, it just seems like a broad policy that just basically targets children for no good reason. You know, if there is an issue with John's particular children and that there was something else in the lease, so let's say they damage something and the landlord wants to take action because of that. But discriminating against the kids or having policies, is not the way to deal with it. And a notice, remedies under the lease or in the contract, so is definitely wouldn't be something advisable for landlords to do. 34:35 LM: But you could have a situation where the landlord says, let's say there's a community swimming pool in the housing complex, you know, the landlord could say that there can't be any kind of unaccompanied minors in the swimming pool, and that would be a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for kind of keeping kids out of a certain area without an adult. 34:58 JS: Thanks for explaining all of that. The last question that I wanted to ask right now, so as we're going through this pandemic, are there any COVID-19-related housing protections that folks should be aware of? 35:14 KJ: Yeah. So many maybe already aware, that Governor Ralph issued a ban on evictions and foreclosures because of the pandemic. Fortunately that expired just in August 31st, but more recently, September 4th, the Center for Disease Control, the federal agency, CDC issued the federal ban. So that one is right now set to expire at the end of the year, so December 31st, 2020, unless it will be extended, we'll see what happens. But what that means is basically that the landlords cannot file actions for eviction. That doesn't mean that you don't have to pay rent. I mean, if you don't, they cannot evict you, but basically, when this ban expires all the back rent will be due. And then let's say, if there's no extension on January 1st the landlord will be able to file and start the eviction process. So I think it's important to know that to be protected, qualified tenants that are facing eviction should immediately provide a signed declaration to their landlords. 36:31 KJ: So you cannot expect your landlord to just know, you know, you lost your job or you're in a difficult financial situation. Plus again, it goes back to the paper trail, just so you have some proof that you gave a notice to your landlord. And if you do, provide such notice make sure, you also have a copy for yourself and just keep one for your records. So the declaration... You can find the declaration, it's actually a form in multiple languages and it can be found on the website, it's www.nlihc.org. Again, nlihc.org, and I'll probably ask our communication team to also maybe post the link on our social media just for quicker access. And again, as we said earlier, if anyone has any questions, feel free to contact us SVLAP. The number is 717-901-6784. It's directly to SVLAP, we'll do an intake, consultation. Even if you have some questions, it's better to ask them now than for us to have to maybe undo things later. So we're here and we're happy to help. 37:53 JS: Thank you so much, Lisa and Conrad for joining us to talk about housing discrimination. That's all the time we have today, but we'll make sure to link to all the resources that we talked about today in the notes. And again, if you need more information about the Sexual Violence Legal Assistance Project, you can visit pcar.org or call 717-901-6784. 38:18 JS: This podcast is for informational purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. [music] 38:40 JS: If you or a loved one needs help, a local sexual assault center is available 24/7. Call 1888-772-7227 for more information, or find your local center online at pcar.org. Together we can end sexual violence. Any views or opinions expressed on PA Centered by staff or their guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of PCAR or PCAR's funders.