Fair Housing Complaints

Persons who believe they have experienced discrimination in housing-rental, sales, or financing- because of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, handicap, or familial status can contact any of the following:

 Fair Housing Hub
U.S. Department of HUD
The Wannamaker Building
100 Penn Square East
Philadelphia, PA 10278-3380
(212) 264-1290 Ext. 3519
1-888-799-2085
TTY (404) 656-3450            

Md. Commission on Human Relations
The William Donald Schaefer Tower
6 Saint Paul Street
9^th Floor-Suite 900
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
(410) 767-8600
1-800-637 -MCHR
TTY/TDD (410) 333-1737 

County of Frederick Human Relations Department
Winchester Hall
12 East Church Street
Frederick, Maryland 21701
301-600-1109
Voice /TDD 301 600-1672  

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

Congress has mandated that HUD programs be administered in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing and also requires that grantees, such as The City of Frederick, certify annually to HUD that our actions do affirmatively further fair housing. HUD regulations call for three basic actions in this regard:

-Complete an Analysis of Impediments.
-Undertake actions t eliminate impediments.
-Maintain records of actions to affirmatively further fair housing with these 
 three actions.

Absent evidence to the contrary, HUD will presume that a grantee is eeting its obligations under the certifications.

Frederick's Analysis of Impediments (AI) was prepared in 1996 by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments under contract to the City. It was prepared at the same time as a region-wide AI for Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia suburban jurisdictions. That region-wide AI identified a number of impediments to fair housing choices in real extate sales, renting, lending, and insurance. Some of these were also identified as local impediments in The City of Frederick AI.

The City of Frederick Fair Housing Analysis of Impediments identified seven impediments to fair housing choices:

Lack of Information about Housing Discrimination

Disparate Treatment of Group Homes

Communities Underserved by Lending Institutions

Limited Number of Protected Classes

Lack of Substantial Equivalency with Federal Fair Housing Laws

Inadequate Outreach to Hispanic Community

Lack of Affordable Housing

The City of Frederick affirmatively furthers fair housing in various ways and these efforts should be continued and intensified. But we need to do more to address the Impediments to Fair Housing that have been identified for us and also for the Metropolitan Washington Region- to the extent that they apply to Frederick.

Towards that end the City of Frederick has developed a Fair Housing Strategy dated April 26, 2001, which will serve as a guide to action to address identified impediments. Some of the actions recommended in the Strategy can be done by existing staff and should be part of our work program for the remainder of this year and for years to come. A Fair Housing working group has been formed to monitor and report on progress. As of June 2001 the City has solicited for consulting services and will soon contract with a firm to undertake a number of initiatives.