Portland Housing Audit Finds Discrimination in 64 Percent of Tests; City Has Yet to Act Against Landlords
Document Actions
By Nikole Hannah-Jones; The Oregonian
In its first-ever audit to test whether black and Latino
renters face barriers in the housing market, Portland found that
landlords and leasing agents discriminated in 64 percent of 50 tests
across the city.
But Portland, which released the results last month, has not
gone after the landlords who discriminated or even notified them they
were tested, though such discrimination violates local, state and
federal fair-housing laws.
City
Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees the Portland Housing Bureau,
said he was "outraged by the results." But he emphasized that stopping
discrimination must include education and cooperation with landlords,
not just enforcement.
Asked last week whether the city will go after the landlords
found in violation, he said: "That's not the right question. The intent
is to do a balanced approach. I have concluded that the best approach
is to look at changes to the system and not just individual remedies."
Monday night, responding to inquiries for clarification, he
said in a memo: "We have always intended to pursue enforcement actions
against select landlords tested in the audit process." He provided no
details or timeline, though the city's time to build cases is running
low.
Margaret Van Vliet, Housing Bureau director, acknowledged
that her agency did not ask the Fair
Housing Council of Oregon, which conducted the testing, to seek
enforcement against discriminatory landlords. That "wasn't part of the
contract scope," she said, but added that punishment remains a
possibility.
"We take this seriously, and we are working it (the results)
through the process," Van Vliet said. "I am not opposed to going after
the ones that were blatantly breaking the law."
The idea of doing anything less angers a national housing
advocate.
"There should be consequences when you violate a federal or
state law," said Shanna Smith, president of the National Fair Housing
Alliance in
Washington, D.C. "I find it unconscionable for a city to supply the
money for the audit and then not enforce the law."
The city paid the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, a
nonprofit, $19,000 to conduct the testing last summer. It is part of an
analysis Portland must complete every five years to show it's trying to
reduce housing discrimination and to keep $9 million to $11 million in
annual federal grants.
Van Vliet said the agency decided to include audit testing
for the first time after seeing the results of audits elsewhere in the
state. Audits in 2009 found that landlords discriminated against
African Americans in two-thirds of the tests in Ashland and 78 percent
of tests in Beaverton.
To read the rest of the article click here.
Flabby City, Fit City