Housing discrimination is against the law and the issue still faces challenges. More than 200 guests learned about enforcing fair housing laws at the Thurs., April 27 Fair Housing training session and luncheon at the Waterford at Fair Oaks.

“Each year Realtors® recognize the significance of [April as Fair Housing Month] and reconfirm our commitment to upholding fair housing laws,” said NVAR Chairman Bob Adamson, who greeted the audience.
“This April marks the 49th anniversary of the 1968 landmark Fair Housing Act,” Adamson said. “But it is not that we honor this law only in April; we must uphold this law 24/7/365.”

“If you’re discriminated against, you remember that,” said Marvin Turner, Washington, D.C., field-office director with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). “It has a destabilizing effect.” He pointed out that housing discrimination hurts people’s ability to find a success track for “quality jobs, schools and economic opportunity.”

Brian McKenzie, the Equal Rights Center’s senior coordinator, provided the training with HUD’s Steven Paikin. McKenzie noted that federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, familial and marital status, disability and skin color. Virginia also prohibits discrimination on the basis of “elderliness,” which is 55 years or older.

Keynote speaker Michael Allen, partner in the law firm Relman, Dane & Colfax, gained prominence by serving on the legal team that helped win the landmark desegregation agreement in Westchester County, New York in 2009. “Integration is the primary objective,” Allen said. “We should be able to live together.”

The Fairfax County Office of Human Rights and Equity Programs hosts this program each year along with co-sponsors NVAR and the Equal Rights Center. NVAR provided checks to the 2017 Fairfax County student winners of the annual fair housing contest.