An Iowa Civil Rights Commission review of thousands of advertisements for the sale and rental of housing found most complies with the federal fair housing act. The director of the commission, Ralph Rosenberg, says he’s happy with the results.
Rosenberg says they reviewed almost 10,000 advertisements, and found only 76 that had some type of discrimination. He says those results show the state is making progress in getting rid of discrimination. Rosenberg says those who placed the ads on-line or in papers sometimes didn’t know the requirements.
He says they had pretty good results when they worked with people to change their ads or remedy the situations. Rosenberg says family status was one of the biggest areas where they saw problems. Rosenberg says that’s discrimination against people who had kids, and he says part of that could be that people didn’t realize they couldn’t discriminate against people because of family status. Rosenberg says the run the checks periodically.
Rosenberg says they are doing this to catch people doing something wrong, they’re trying to educated people about the proper way to do things. He says publicity about the issue raises awareness and most people who place the ads will look at what they are doing and make changes. Rosenberg says anyone who feels they may’ve been discriminated against in the rental or sale of property should contact the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
