FEASTERVILLE, PA–Brotman Enterprise real estate has reached a conciliation agreement with the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and will pay $25,000 to resolve allegations that its agents discriminated against African-American prospective renters.
Employees of the company allegedly steered white testers posing as rental applicants to neighborhoods they described as safer, while directing black testers to areas agents considered “rough,” according to a statement from HUD.
The Fair Housing Act prohibits racial discrimination in the sale or rental of a dwelling, including steering potential renters or homebuyers to different neighborhoods.
“Testing remains one of our most effective tools for exposing unlawful housing discrimination,” said Bryan Greene, HUD's acting assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “HUD will continue to enforce the Fair Housing Act to ensure that no family has their housing options limited because of their race.”
The case came to HUD's attention when the National Fair Housing Alliance, a nonprofit organization that receives HUD funds to combat housing discrimination, filed a complaint about Brotman. Specifically, NFHA alleged that agents from the company, based in Feasterville-Trevose, northeast of Philadelphia, steered black testers to one of its properties in a high-crime, less desirable neighborhood, while telling white testers about a different property in an area they considered to be safer.
Under the terms of the conciliation agreement, Brotman will pay the NFHA $25,000 in damages, get fair housing training for all of its leasing agents and managers, and establish a non-discrimination rental policy.
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