Highwood. Five paired rental tests were conducted to test for race and national origin
discrimination. In all cases, no discrimination was found.
Five sales tests were conducted for race, familial status, and disability discrimination. In
two of the five cases, possible discrimination was found. In the first case, the control
tester was shown the property and given information about additional listings. The
protected tester (female, African American) was shown the property but not given
information about additional listings. In the second case, when circumstances prevented
a unit from being shown by a particular agent, the control tester was given a referral to a
new sales agent but, the protected tester (female, African American) was not given a
referral to a new sales agent, although she asked for a different agent.
Deerfield. Six paired rental tests were conducted for race, familial status and disability
discrimination in Deerfield. Neither race nor familial status discrimination was found, but
in the disability discrimination testing, a landlord mentioned an additional security
deposit for a service animal, which is discriminatory. A letter was sent by Open
Communities to the management company to clarify the fair housing requirements. In
one test for familial status discrimination, national origin discrimination was found and
will be tested in a follow-up test.
Four paired sales tests were conducted for race, disability and national origin
discrimination. These types of discrimination were not found, but potential familial
status discrimination was found when a family with children was warned away from a
townhome in a predominately elderly community that did not have any formal age
restrictions. Further testing is planned.
Prairie State Legal Services
HUD provides direct funding for PSLS testing, and its coverage expands beyond Lake
County. A matched pair of testers, one matching the variable being tested and the other
as the control, are assigned to visit an available property. The testers are matched in
relation to age, income, dress, employment background, and housing needs. The
testers are assigned “profiles,” or identities.
Since its in-house testing program started in January 2013, PSLS has trained 27 fair
housing testers for Lake County.36 PSLS’s training for fair housing testers consists of an
overview of the history of fair housing laws, methodology of testing, and reinforcement
of the qualities needed in a tester. Practice tests and role playing are a part of tester
training.
In June 2013, PSLS received a HUD Fair Housing Initiatives Program grant to complete
15 fair housing tests in Lake County. The PSLS Fair Housing Project executed a mix of
complaint-based and audit testing. The basis of the tests were disability (two), familial
36
Funded by the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development to augment the CDBG-funded fair housing enforcement project in Lake County.
APPLIED REAL ESTATE ANALYSIS, INC.
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LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS