April marks the time of year when the nation celebrates the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in the rental, sale or financing of any lodging based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability and family status. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act on April 11, 1968 during the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee) has worked tirelessly to realize Dr. King’s dream by advocating for equal housing opportunity in communities across the country through its Fair Housing and Community Development Project. As part of its national advocacy, the Fair Housing and Community Development Project recently launched an initiative designed to create a stronger fair housing infrastructure and provide direct fair housing legal services to households and tenants in Arkansas.
Arkansas is notorious for having the most draconian landlord-tenant laws in the country. It is the only state in the country which does not recognize an implied warranty of habitability. As a result, tenants are often forced to reside in units unfit for human habitation. Arkansas has also gained infamy for its “criminal eviction statute,” which empowers landlords to have tenants charged with a misdemeanor for failing to pay the rent on time while remaining in the rental property. Although the statute has been invalidated in several counties, such convictions still occur on a regular basis in many municipalities across Arkansas.
Because Arkansas renters are afforded so few rights, it is imperative that enforcement of the Fair Housing Act within the state be as strong and robust as possible. Indeed, many of the protections tenants in Arkansas are afforded stem from both federal and state fair housings laws. In 2001, Arkansas enacted the Arkansas Fair Housing Act, which is “substantially equivalent” to the federal Fair Housing Act. The Arkansas Fair Housing Commission was established shortly thereafter to enforce fair housing and fair lending laws within the state.
Despite the significant progress made within the past 15 years, more needs to be done to ensure that households and tenants in Arkansas are provided stronger enforcement mechanisms to assist in asserting their rights. Arkansas is one of a handful of states that currently lack a private fair housing program. Private fair housing groups are the cornerstone of fair housing enforcement in the United States and provide tenants with legal representation in state or federal administrative hearings or in court proceedings. This means that many of the low-income tenants in Arkansas attempting to assert their fair housing rights must proceed on a pro se basis.
In addition, presently there is no local organization that has the resources to establish a fair housing testing program. Fair housing testing is an invaluable tool used to uncover evidence of housing discrimination. Indeed, testing programs coordinated in the late 1990s by Arkansas ACORN Fair Housing and the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods revealed systemic housing discrimination in Central Arkansas and convinced local officials to enact the Arkansas Fair Housing Act. More recently, the National Fair Housing Alliance conducted similar tests which revealed that apartment owners in Little Rock subjected Latino applicants to discrimination in violation of the Act. In order to ensure that tenants and homebuyers in Arkansas are treated fairly, the creation of a local fair housing testing program to continue these efforts is of the utmost importance.
In order to address these shortcomings, the Lawyers’ Committee currently offers a variety of fair housing resources in Arkansas including direct legal assistance to households and tenants who have encountered discrimination in housing or lending, technical assistance to advocates currently involved in fair housing litigation, and fair housing trainings targeted toward low-income and historically underserved communities. In addition, the Lawyers’ Committee is currently collaborating with local legal services agencies to create a permanent fair housing testing program in Arkansas.
Through this important initiative, the Lawyers’ Committee aims to ensure that Arkansans are afforded the meaningful fair housing choice that they deserve.
