Sun editorial:

Agency needs more clout

Nevada Equal Rights Commission cannot now enforce federal housing act

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Owners of a 240-unit Las Vegas apartment complex were assessed penalties recently when a federal agency discovered that tenants there were not allowed to have children living with them.

Such arbitrary discrimination violates the 40-year-old federal Fair Housing Act. Authorities with the San Francisco-based office of the Housing and Urban Development Department acted appropriately in investigating the policies in place at this apartment complex on 28th Street.

A settlement was reached with the owners that included paying one woman $30,000. In October 2007 the manager there told her she could not move in with her infant son.

This case, which was settled last month, was the third of its kind in the Las Vegas Valley in the past two years. Chuck Hauptman, a housing official who works out of HUD’s San Francisco offfice, told Las Vegas Sun reporter Timothy Pratt the three cases prove “there definitely is discrimination against families with children” in Southern Nevada.

That being the case, the state Legislature should make it easier for housing discrimination complaints to be filed. Most complaints from Nevadans are now filed in San Francisco.

This is because the Nevada Equal Rights Commission can only implore housing managers to comply with federal law when it receives complaints, while HUD officials in San Francisco have the clout to order an end to discrimination and issue penalties.

A draft bill for the 2009 Legislature has been submitted by the state commission. If passed, it would give state housing authorities, working with HUD and the Nevada attorney general’s office, the power to enforce the Fair Housing Act.

We hope the Legislature passes this bill, which would be similar to laws on the books in 37 other states. People who suspect their rights are being violated in Nevada should not be forced to seek help from an out-of-state federal office.

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By KDR81

Nov. 26, 2008

7:41 a.m.

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It needs to go away. The Fair Housing Act is nothing more than a sham. It won't let people live together who want to live together.

For example. If a homosexual male wanted another homosexual male roommate, if he advertised that or even suggested that it would be guilty under Fair Housing Act laws.

FOr gods sake we're grown ups. Don't you realize that SUN editors?
By redferret

Nov. 26, 2008

11:02 a.m.

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They were talking about children dude. Pay attention. In any case if you are renting and you would like to sublet privately, that's your issue. In any case again there was no mention of those things. It was about a complex prohibiting children from living there.