BOLI Picks Up $101k from HUD for Fair Housing LGBT Testing/Education.

National HUD PR is HERE.  Link to HUD's new LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] related regulation is HERE.

Description of individual grants is HERE; Oregon grants are described as:

1. BOLI will partner with the National Center for Lesbian Rights to conduct a one-day training this spring to publicize HUD's LGBT rule. The event will target the LGBT community, fair housing advocates, and housing providers.
2. BOLI will partner with the Fair Housing Center of Oregon to conduct LGBT fair housing testing in the State of Oregon. Ninety fair housing tests will be conducted.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Correction: Oregonian Story Says Fair Housing Council/City of Portland Missed Deadline for Complaints on 6 Fair Housing Audit Testing Cases and BOLI Had to File Subpoena to Get Full Audit.

Correction: Upon reading story again, looks like only 6 cases have passed 1 year deadline, and that one complaint has been filed by FHCO. Headline and text is corrected and expanded below
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Story went up Friday evening on Oregonlive HERE, assume it will be in weekend paper. Story says: 

The Fair Housing Council, which did the testing, filed just one complaint from the seven incidents of possible discrimination found during audits in June 2010. It still has time to file complaints for 25 other tests, conducted through December 2010, that found possible discrimination. And it has a year to file lawsuits in all 32 [emphasis added]. The Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries, the civil rights agency that enforces fair housing law, also found that it already had complaints, including six open investigations, involving several of the landlords targeted in the audit. But it had to use a subpoena last week [emphasis added] to get the Fair Housing Council to forward the audit information to help build those cases.

Story also says:

• City of Portland does not yet have the complete FHCO conducted audit.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Update: Friday Fair Housing Bill Signing Postponed

I have confirmed with BOLI the previously scheduled Friday signing ceremony with the Governor for the Fair Housing equivalency legislation has been postponed with no new date yet set.
(While the ceremony has been postponed, my take is that the bill has become law -- I count that the 30 days required has passed without any veto of the legislation by the Governor).

Friday July 27th Housing Bill Signing Event in Governors Office

Governor to Sign Fair Housing Substantial Equivalency Legislation, Steps to Follow Could Lead to State Federal Fair Housing Complaint Processing, for First Time in 20 Years

At a signing ceremony Friday July 27th at 2:30 PM Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski is scheduled to sign into law SB 725, approved this legislative session and designed to bring Oregon law into substantial equivalency with federal fair housing law. Signing of the bill is the culmination of a four year effort in two legislative sessions to update Oregon's fair housing laws. The bill was sponsored by Portland area Senator Margaret Carter and the Fair Housing Council of Oregon and the legislation will be administered by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries [BOLI]. Commissioner Dan Gardner and Senator Carter are expected to attend Friday’s bill signing event. (A weekly BOLI web update alerted me to this signing ceremony).

Following the bill signing, BOLI will need to submit the approved legislation and other referenced Oregon statutes to HUD in Washington D. C. for their determination of whether the bill as passed is actually substantially equivalent to federal fair housing law. If HUD’s review confirms equivalency, the next step will be negotiation and signing of an operating agreement with HUD (which will include funding for training and complaint processing reimbursement rates).

Because of these additional steps, BOLI likely will not actually assume processing for fair housing complaints for many months (My personal guess is that state complaint processing would not begin until sometime during mid to late 2008).

Nonetheless, if and when these additional steps are successfully completed, for the first time in 20 years (since 1988) Oregonians will have state laws legally equivalent to federal fair housing law, and state BOLI staff will be investigating fair housing complaints.

My congratulations to the Governor, the Legislature, Senator Carter, Commissioner Gardner, the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, HUD, and other supportive individuals and organizations for moving forward on this long overdue legislative update.