Intro to providers and communities category

This area will be of most interest to housing providers and local communities, or those entities that make the built environment, programs, services or activities available to a tenant, client or constituent. These stakeholders should also check out our information on Limited English Proficiency, or LEP<>.

For purposes of this site, ‘housing provider’ primarily refers to property owners and managers, or any individual or entity that rents, leases, sells, represents, manages, or offers any type of housing to a tenant. Housing providers may also be those who design, engineer, and/or build residential structures for occupancy. Housing providers must understand the responsibilities and limitations imposed on them by the Fair Housing Act and other federal laws.

The term ‘community’ is used broadly to refer to local city or county government. The task of permitting and regulating development and construction falls to local government entities. In some cases, local government owns and manages shelters or transitional/affordable housing.

This section is provided to help share the perspective of housing providers with respect to fair housing law. Numerous web sites, including www.hud.gov focus exclusively on tenant rights and how to file complaints, but few resources exist to let providers know their rights and responsibilities, how to promote compliance or the resources available to them should they receive a complaint.