Portage County Legal News

Proposed fair housing bill targeted by housing groups

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: August 27, 2014

A coalition of housing associations have soundly opposed a bill that would amend the state’s fair housing standards.

Senate Bill 349 would exempt certain landlords from the housing provisions of the Ohio Civil Rights Law.

The bill would make actual damages and attorney’s fees permissive, limit certain punitive damages, allow respondents to recover attorney’s fees in some instances and prohibit actual or punitive damages from being awarded to a fair housing agency.

Describing the proposed legislation as “flawed,” “an attack on civil rights” and “fundamentally un-American,” organizations such as the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, Central Ohio Fair Housing Association and Ohio Poverty Law Center have banded together to urge lawmakers to reject the bill.

The coalition has launched a website, fight349.org, to detail its position on the bill.

Among other “regressive” measures, members of the coalition have said the bill would damage important safeguards provided by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and result in the state no longer being “substantially equivalent” to federal law, which would impact HUD funding.

“SB 349 would rob Ohio of its substantial equivalent status and its ability to investigate and adjudicate housing discrimination claims on the state level,” said Jim McCarthy, president and CEO of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center.

“Proponents of SB 349 are just plain wrong if they believe that they will have an easier time complying with civil rights laws administered from the federal level as opposed to at the state level.”

Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said the bill would take Ohio in the wrong direction.

“It removes critical disincentives for landlords who would discriminate against people with disabilities, families with children, people of color or veterans,” he said. “It denies the state federal funding to investigate discrimination complaints and lets discriminators go untouched.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, has defended the proposal’s aims.

The lawmaker has said SB 349 mirrors federal fair housing laws in terms of the relief allowed to fair housing organizations under state standards.

“The (Ohio) Legislative Service Commission advises that under current federal law no one is entitled to punitive damages in administrative hearings under the Federal Fair Housing Act,” he said.

“Under current federal law, punitive damages are permitted in civil actions. Under current Ohio law, punitive damages are permitted in administrative hearings. And under current Ohio law, punitive damages may be awarded in civil actions.”

Under SB 349, punitive damages, capped as to a maximum amount, would still be allowed in administrative hearings, except as to fair housing agencies.

“This makes Ohio law consonant with federal law on that point. Also under the bill punitive damages remain available to any plaintiff including fair housing agencies if the court deems it appropriate in civil actions,” he said.

“Therefore, any claim that the bill substantially deviates from federal law is inexplicably meritless.”

Coalition members have said the measure “superficially mirrors some portions of federal law while gutting Ohio’s current protections from housing discrimination.”

Seitz said the bill would better balance the relationship between government, fair housing advocates and housing providers.

“Insofar as the bill denies actual damages to a fair housing agency in administrative hearings such actual damages remain available to a fair housing agency in a civil action. However, I am willing to amend the bill to allow fair housing agencies to collect actual damages in administrative hearings if they are provable,” he said.

“Moreover, the Legislative Service Commission has advised us that the other provisions in SB 349, if enacted, would continue to be more generous to discrimination plaintiffs than federal law currently allows.”

In contrast to Seitz’s “better balance” viewpoint, coalition members have said the bill would diminish the consequences of discrimination by lowering and capping the punitive damages that landlords found guilty of flagrant discrimination would have to pay.

The coalition went on to say the bill’s provision that would allow respondents to recover attorney’s fees would likely discourage victims of housing discrimination from filing complaints.

“SB 349 would significantly undercut the work of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and force housing discrimination complaints to the federal level,” said Elizabeth Brown, executive director of Housing Opportunities Made Equal in Cincinnati.

“Why would Ohio want to give up its control of civil rights issues? Does the real estate industry really think it is better off facing federal investigators and federal attorneys? This is not the time for the state of Ohio to gut its civil rights laws.”

SB 349 is awaiting a committee assignment.

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