Eugene weekly., June 21, 2018, Page 11, Image 11

“You might be quoted one rent and the person behind
you might be quoted a different rent or a vacancy or told
about specials. Generally, what we’re looking at is much
more subtle differential treatment than would have been in
the long ago past,” he says.
Lazo says FHCO does this type of testing constantly,
for various entities — local, state and federal jurisdictions.
FHCO also provides education and outreach.
“We do trainings of housing consumers, advocates,
social service agency folks, jurisdictions, housing providers,
all up and down the line in the housing transaction and
throughout the state,” Lazo says. “And then we also do
outreach to make sure that folks in all those communities
understand what their rights and or responsibilities are
around fair housing.”
Lazo says FHCO also advocates for public policy,
like House Bills 4134 and 4010 that passed in the Oregon
Legislature a few months ago. Both bills help deal
specifically with racial housing discrimination.
HB 4134 establishes an easier procedure to petition
to remove racially discriminatory language from home
deeds. HB 4010 establishes a task force to address racial
housing discrimination — to figure out ways to level the
playing field for people of color who have been historically
discriminated against.
Rep. Julie Fahey and Sen. James Manning Jr. sponsored
both bills.
Fahey says a big motivator behind these bills is the
history of racial housing discrimination still affecting us
today.
“When you look at the data behind levels of
homeownership in Oregon, there are significant differences
based on race,” she says. “So communities of color own
homes at lower levels and when we look at the history of
housing discrimination not just in Oregon, but around the
country, we systematically blocked out millions of families
from the most common way to accumulate wealth in this
country in the 20th century,” Fahey adds.
“The past discrimination with redlining and restrictive
covenants that blocked people from buying homes in
particular neighborhoods, that still reverberates today. The
impact of that past discrimination is still felt today.”
Such history is felt today in the discriminatory language
still present in some Oregon home deeds.
“There were a couple things that came up,” Manning
says about motivation for passing these bills. “One was
the exclusionary rule that’s been on the books for years. It
started back during the Hoover administration to exclude
African-Americans and people of color from purchasing
homes, which started redlining to move people to the urban
centers.”
He continues: “So Oregon fully embraced that early
on and in order for a lot of these developers to get loans
and in order to build this new housing they had to, by law,
dealing with the federal housing administration, they had
to include the exclusionary rule, which prohibited African-
Americans and people of color from purchasing homes.
Oregon has never taken that language out.”
Though this language is obviously no longer legally
binding thanks to the Fair Housing Act, it’s still present in
some older house deeds. HB 4134 streamlines the process
to get that language removed.
“It used to be very expensive to take that language out of
the documentation,” Manning says. “Now we’ve reversed
it so there is no expense, or a very limited expense to do
that. So that’s one step forward.”
Fahey says the other bill, HB 4010, not only addresses
the history of discrimination but will try to uncover
current issues. “It’s also to try and identify whether
there are currently either intentionally or unintentionally
discriminatory practices that are currently existing as well,
particularly in the mortgage industry,” she says.
The task force for HB 4010 formed officially June 12
of this year. It consists of Reps. Mark Meek and Richard
Vial, and Sens. Manning and Cliff Bentz. Fahey says it also
includes people in the real estate industry, organizations
that serve communities of color and members of the public.
“The task force has until September 2019 to submit
its specific recommendations, so they’ll be a fairly long
process of discussing data and collecting data and coming
up with recommended solutions,” Fahey says.
Those on the property-owner side of things are also
striving to stop housing discrimination.
Tia Politi is president of the Lane County Rental
Owners Association (ROA). She’s also a property manager
with Homes for Good, “the largest provider of low-income
housing in Lane County,” she says. She says that, in her
role with ROA, she works with the association’s board
of directors to “educate rental owners on how to run an
ethical and profitable business.”
Politi says that, from her viewpoint, she doesn’t know
the full scope of housing discrimination, but acknowledges
that it can happen anywhere.
“In my experience, discrimination is present everywhere
and Lane County is no exception, but more often results
from a lack of education as opposed to a legitimate attempt
to discriminate against a member of a protected class,” she
says.
Politi says the ROA offers classes and instruction
to landlords and property managers, and membership
includes access to a “telephone helpline that allows rental
owners to call for guidance if they’re unsure about some
area of law or procedure.”
“Our classes, programs, helpline and educational
materials have made us the largest association of private
landlords in the state under the umbrella of the Oregon
Rental Housing Association,” Politi says.
Regardless of all the parties attempting to quell the
impact of housing discrimination in Eugene and throughout
the state, as these complaints and court cases come trickling
in every year, it’s clearly difficult to stop something that
might be as difficult to prove as a feeling — the slight
inkling that you may be getting treated differently due
to your skin color, mental illness, income level or sexual
orientation — rather than as rock-hard evidence.
And rarely can something invisible to the naked eye be
proven in a courtroom.
Cannabis Synergistic Healing
Dr. Liz McNeill
Liz@CSHealing.org ∙ 541-790-2309 ∙ CSHealing.org
132 E. Broadway, Suite 323
Eugene, OR 97401
eugeneweekly.com • June 21, 2018
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