Fair Housing Policies and Procedures – Are You Covered?

Jonathan: All right, well welcome everybody. Today we are talking about policies and procedures, an important topic. Number one reason, how much it protects you as a company by having things that are well-documented and well-prepared for your staff, for your residents, all of these items are going to be some things that we will cover today, the importance behind it and some best tips and practices. So we're very grateful once again, to have Kathi Williams with us and we're going to dive into some questions. Welcome to the show again, Kathi.

Kathi: Hello, Jonathan. It's good to be with you today. I think this is an important topic. It may be isn't one of the more sexy, fair housing topics we've dealt with, but it's important. And it's basic, I think, we're going to be reminding our community of some points about their policies and procedures that they need to review.

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those items, like you said Kathy, I know myself personally, I hate paperwork. I hate files, even in the digital file world, it is just not my world, but it's very important. The more organized we are, the better we can protect our organization, protect our employees and protect our residents as well. All of that's included. So let's dive into our first question that we get often, you and I, from our community. And that's really the importance behind having policies and procedures. How does policies and procedures relate to fair housing? What are your thoughts?

Kathi: Well, as you know Jonathan, I have been working in the field of fair housing complaints and litigation for over 30 years. And during that time, I've had a lot of cases where the issue was, why did the leasing agent take the action that she did? Was it because she was discriminating or was she following her appropriate policies and procedures? When that is the issue in a case, as it is so much of the time, we absolutely need written policies and procedures that we can use to defend that case.

Jonathan: Right.

Kathi: So one of the reasons, one of the more important reasons, is to make sure that everybody knows what the appropriate policies are and that they were following them and that they documented that they followed them during the time they were taking the action. So because of that I've realized many times, too many times, that my clients really were not prepared with the necessary written policies and procedures that they should have been.

Jonathan: Right. Right. Excellent. So I'm just wondering, we see a lot of news articles that come in about ... Unfortunately, lawsuits happen. We live in a very sue friendly atmosphere overall. It's just the part of business and liability, but it raises the question, there in the newspaper perhaps because they're bigger companies. So is it only big companies that need to have ... Do you have to have 20,000, 30,000 units in your portfolio before you start thinking about a solid policy and procedure program, or does it apply to any management company?

Kathi: It absolutely applies to all housing providers. If you have five units or 5,000 units, you need an established, written policy when it comes to fair housing matters so that you can train your employees, because there's lots of turnover, and then you can use those policies to ensure consistency in behavior. And also defend yourself if you are one of the unlucky housing providers, and there are lots of them, who get challenged on something claiming that there was a fair housing violation.

Jonathan: Very good. Yeah. So I remember one time I was at a class, Kathi, and for instance, the policy about having fair housing training. A very simple policy that everybody should have because of how much it relates to our industry. And there was a gentleman in the audience who that was his comment, I only have, I can't remember, it was small. And he said, I think he had like 50 units or something like that. So, I give them a news article to read about fair housing and everybody in the room, in that classroom, kind of echoed a lot of what you just said. Like, no, that's just a nightmare waiting to happen when you don't have those kinds of things in place. So what would be your tips then for how to get that going? What are some best, if you're small, maybe you don't have a full in-house HR team, what are some options that you think are available or some good tips to kind of get started to make sure that you have a true policies and procedures program?

Kathi: Well, there are a lot of resources to obtain the policies. For one thing, the policies are really not that complicated. For instance, a fair housing policy can be one paragraph long, but it is almost the first thing that is always asked during an investigation of a fair housing complaint is, where is your fair housing policy?

Jonathan: Right.

Kathi: And it's amazing how many companies don't have that. So where do you get those? Luckily, we have the wonderful resource of the internet nowadays. And so if you look around, you'll probably find a very well written fair housing policy. Again, it doesn't have to be complicated or lengthy, that you can find there. The housing associations also usually have those for their members. So if you are, and I hope you are, a member of some type of your industries associations, then that's another source. And of course, I always have to mention that lawyers have these policies that they've written for their clients and they have them available. So you can always check with your attorney to see if they can provide you with that kind of thing.

Jonathan: Very good. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the associations. Yeah. They're just such a wonderful resource. And I know we have some resources available, our blogs and shows like this and other things. So yeah, there's a wealth of information that's out there, that's available to you to kind of get you on the right track overall. So, that leads to another component. We're way past the days of where cultures were passing on things via an oral rendition of here is how our society acts. So let me tell this to you and it's your responsibility to now pass that onto someone else. We can read history books, and that's kind of how some cultures, that's how they passed on from generation to generation. We know that will not work for our industry, so let's touch on that for a minute.

Jonathan: Not only have we talked about having policies, having written policies, now how does that get clearly communicated to the site team, to the corporate stuff?

Kathi: Well, I would certainly hope that there would be a policy notebook where all the policies of all types are located. And in that notebook, there's a section on fair housing policies. And in that area, you have a fair housing policy. You have a reasonable accommodation policy, which includes written procedures for how to address reasonable accommodation requests. And then there's also forms, which are not necessarily policies, but an important part for implementing the reasonable accommodation policies. So all of those are located in one area of that policy notebook.

Kathi: And again, each staff person should be responsible for knowing all of those policies and for reviewing them periodically. And I would hope that supervisors take the opportunity to review those policies with employees to make sure they're aware of what they are. And of course, that they're following them.

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. There has to be some sort of a distribution program. And I think about it from a technology perspective, I've seen many different services that are out there, policies and procedures distribution services, and their sole purpose is to make sure that each employee at the point of new hire, they receive the policies and procedures. And they break it down so that each one has to be signed off on by the new employee. And then they have an annual program that if there's any addendums or if there's any updates, automatically sends that out to the team for their review to get their signature. Learning management systems have has a similar technology.

Jonathan: But the point is, don't bog your HR department down with ineffective ways of tracking it. The importance is making sure that your team gets the content and understands the content. But if your HR team is spending all of their time distributing the policy content, then you're just leaving yourself kind of open for more problems. So definitely think about some solutions that will help optimize your time so that it's being sent out. And I've even seen some companies, Kathi, that I've worked with in the past, they've actually turned their policies and procedures into training modules, short modules. So they're not having to just read the policy, but they make that part of their overall onboarding, part of their e-learning program and things along that line. So there's a lot of ways to kind of get that out there.

Jonathan: So a moment ago, Kathi, you talked about some specific fair housing policies and procedures that every housing provider should have. So just for our audience, let's just make sure, they're probably taking notes. Let's review them one by one, so list them for us. What should every housing provider have for fair housing policies and procedures?

Kathi: Okay. So I think we should begin with a basic fair housing policy. It should be titled that. Like I said earlier, it doesn't need to be that lengthy or involved. Then there should be a reasonable accommodation policy, and that should describe both reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications. The general policy that's involved for handling those and then the procedures that are followed for each request for an accommodation or modification. Along with that, and related to that, I suggest that there is a list of designations of authority for who in the company, in the property, can make the various decisions that need to be made when we are addressing a request for reasonable accommodation. We can talk more about that when we get there.

Jonathan: Right, right. Very good. Very good. That's good, nice succinct list. So I hope everybody took notes on that. And again, lots of resources that are available, but make sure you have those basic items in your policies and procedures manual.

Jonathan: So that kind of bridges into our next topic that we wanted to cover today, you and I, Kathi, which is what are issues that you see? So you see fair housing cases every single day, a variety of items where litigation comes up. So what cases do you see occur most often when it comes to policies and procedures and what are maybe some of the things that you've seen your clients they've just maybe overlooked or didn't cross those T's and dot those I's as well as they could have to help prevent that litigation.

Kathi: I'd say one of the biggest problems I see is when staff people who are, for instance, the manager of the property, is approached by a resident who is asking for a reasonable accommodation, but doing it in such a way that it's not clear, whether it is related to their disability or not. And the manager, instead of finding out whether this is a request for a reasonable accommodation, just shuts it down by saying, "Well, we don't do that. That's not what we do. We have a policy and that's not in accordance with our policy." So, that's a huge issue. And again, in the procedures of how to address a reasonable accommodation, it should be clearly stated that no one discourages a request for a reasonable accommodation. That instead, each and every request, once it's clarified that it is a request, is accepted into the process. That does not mean that it is going to be granted, what that means is it's going to be processed.

Kathi: And the most important the thing is that all requests be processed. And along with that process, comes the documentation at each stage. All of which is going to defend that property if the resident eventually is dissatisfied with the outcome and therefore files a fair housing complaint.

Jonathan: Okay, Kathy. So let's just spin this for a minute and take it from the perspective of someone who's new to the industry. Someone who's just coming out of college, it's their first time having a position maybe as a leasing professional, or maybe now they're new to leadership, maybe they're just taking on the role as an assistant community manager or a community manager. For those who just don't have the experience in fair housing, what would be some of your suggestions for those individuals?

Kathi: Well, we live in a great time to have resources available to us. And I would advise folks who are new to the industry to take advantage of that. There are all kinds of informational videos, like the one we're doing today, that new professionals can take advantage of. There are online training courses. There are all kinds of live training courses that are provided by the housing associations. So I would hope that housing provider provides lots of training for its employees. But for those who are new to the industry who need more than the basic fair housing background, I encourage them to take advantage and to research that on their own and to use as much of it as they possibly can, because what fair housing needs to be is just a way of thinking about how you go about your day to day business.

Kathi: We often say here at FHI, that it is a way to be rather than a thing to do. And for it to become that, you really have to think about the practical day to day interactions that happen with applicants, with prospects, people on the phone, your residents that you're interacting with and how fair housing might be involved with those conversations and what that means for how you should be interacting, what you should be saying, the attitude you should be taking. So there's a lot to learn for the folks who are new.

Jonathan: Yeah. Excellent tips. Boy, that's amazing. Yeah, I love that. And I think of it from my perspective, in order for me to get myself educated in fair housing again, this is years ago when I first started getting into the industry, I used resources like Google alerts and set up fair housing as a Google alert just so I could see what's being talked about, like what's in the news.

Jonathan: And then working with training directors, specifically from a learner's perspective, how important is it to do? Like you mentioned earlier, okay, we have a scenario. What would you do in this scenario? So it takes it to the next level, past just the policy and procedure, but puts it into the minds of ones who are new to the industry. And even for us who've been in it for a bit, that's the best way of training, just get into those roles and act out what possibly could be happening. And you can do that in virtual training, in any scenario, it's just it takes a little bit of preparation on leader's part, training directors part, in order to kind of facilitate that and put that into motion.

Jonathan: So that leads us just to our last point for today. We're going to be sharing with our audience a nice resource. It'll be in the show notes, it'll be on the website as well, of the list of policies and procedures that every company should have. Any highlights from that, Kathi, you'd like to share?

Kathi: Well, I'd like to mention that we're going to be providing a list of procedures to use with reasonable accommodation requests. Those procedures are absolutely essential to ensuring that you consistently process each and every request that you document, how you handled it so that you can defend yourself if necessary later. We hope you don't have to, but just in case you will be prepared to do that.

Kathi: I mentioned earlier that one of the procedures that I get concerned about, because I've seen so many cases involved with that, and that is a housing provider who ignores or discourages a request for a reasonable accommodation. So one of the most important procedures is learning how to hear a request. What does it sound like? What are residents, applicants saying when they're making a request? What kind of language are they using that you're noticing and then responding to? So that's a big one.

Kathi: And then along the other lines is, who decides whether to verify that a resident is indeed disabled and needs the request they're asking for? Who decides when to do that and how do they decide? That is a very important part of the procedures, again, that have to be addressed in each and every request. I would hope those in our community that are listening today, know that you do not verify each request. You only verify a request if the disability and the need for the accommodation is not observable. So we aren't going to be consistent, meaning we aren't going to verify each request and therefore that causes confusion sometimes. So that's an important part of training, an important part of the policy, and an important part of following the procedure.

Jonathan: Right.

Kathi: And I don't want to go over each and every one, because we're just going to provide those for our community to look at and compare with the procedures they use.

Kathi: But another one that is lacking in most company's procedures, and that is if they are thinking they may deny the request, or if they're going to offer an alternative to what the resident has requested, they have to do some type of enter, what they call legally, an interactive meeting. And what that is, is either a sit down or in this time of not sitting down with residents, having a conversation over the phone or via the email, in some manner directly communicating with that resident, explaining what the management issues are with their request, and giving the resident an opportunity to address those. Perhaps by doing a better explanation of why they want or need the request, or answering the questions in the housing providers concern about why they don't want to provide the accommodation.

Kathi: So that, what I'm going to call as a meeting, is absolutely required by the law now. It wasn't 10 years ago, it is now, and that has to be added to the list of procedures. So take a look at that when you get our procedures and if your companies don't have that as a step in the procedures, I suggest you go to whoever it is in your company who's an authority, mention that we talked about that today in this video and suggest that they consider adding it and also then beginning to train on how that works.

Jonathan: Right. Right. Excellent. And I'm sure we'll get into that into in another show episode coming up in the near future and really diving into a reasonable accommodation and modifications and the details that are involved in that because there is. There's a lot of details when it comes to those specific items and a lot of questions that come from our audience with some specific scenarios that they've run into. So definitely we will cover those in a future, so look for that resource, everyone. It'll be in the show notes. We'll have it on our website at the time of this being published for you.

Jonathan: And so take takeaways from today, so what have we learned? What are the key things that we have to go away from this show, talking about policies and procedures? Well, number one, doesn't matter what size of a company you are, you have to have them, got to have them. Have them written, use a third party source if need be, if you don't have someone in-house. Make sure that you train your people on the policies, make sure your policies are in writing and role play. Don't just deliver the policies, but make sure your team understands the potential scenarios that could come about.

Jonathan: Kathi, go to you, a couple of sentences. What's your summary for today?

Kathi: I think it is an absolute best practice and a way of ensuring fair housing compliance to have fair housing policies, to review them, to train on them, to communicate them to your staff and to use them in supervision. So, that's my big takeaway from today.

Jonathan: Excellent. Love it. Love it. So thank you everyone for being here. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel, hit that like button, that thumbs up button if you've appreciated this and feel free to share it with your teammates and your colleagues. We do this so that we can keep all of us in the housing industry safe and well educated when it comes to fair housing topics. So today's topic on policies and procedures, we know it was a great benefit to you. Thank you for being here and we'll see you on our next show.