The Housing Site,
www.thehousingsite.org,
has been developed for the Illinois Association of Realtors under the
guidance of the Partnership for HomeOwnership Foundation. Fair Housing laws
protect the right of each home seeker to equal opportunity in the purchase,
sale, rental, leasing, financing, insuring and advertising of housing. This
site strives to provide a broad range of information on fair housing laws,
as well as other housing information, to real estate professionals, lenders,
renters, landlords, home-buyers, sellers, insurers, and appraisers to assure
everyone plays by the same rules.
Public awareness of Fair Housing Laws is
important to ensuring equal opportunity in housing. However, there is
little documentation of the extent of this knowledge. Surely the more one
knows about any law, the more one is able to comply with it or benefit from
it. Disseminating information about fair housing law to persons who are
unaware that much of their conduct is unlawful, could help to modify
attitudes and provide a stepping stone to reduced discrimination.
The US Civil Rights
Act of 1968 declared a national policy of fair housing throughout the United
States. Title VIII of that federal law, as amended by Congress in 1988,
prohibits discrimination based on the race, color, religion, sex, national
origin, handicap or familial status of those seeking housing. Illinois’s
Human Rights Act is equivalent to federal law with the addition of sexual
orientation, marital status, military status, age and ancestry. Some local
communities have ordinances that support, extend, regulate, or define
behavior.
