A brief introduction to fair housing:

The origin of the phrase fair housing dates back to 1960's in the United States. The term refers to the political movements of those times that was made to outlaw discrimination in the rental or purchase of homes including a broad range of the other aspects related to transactions of houses like advertising, mortgage lending, home owners insurance and zoning. Fair housing also refers to an act that was passed in April 1968 just after one week after the assassination of the former U.S. president Martin Luther King junior at the urging of the then U.S. president Lyndon Baines Johnson. The fair housing act was first enacted in order to prohibit discrimination on the basis race, color, religion and national origin. Later on other discriminative basis such as sex, disability and family status were added to it. Those individuals who believe that they have experienced housing discrimination on any of the above-mentioned basis are allowed to file a complaint with the fair housing and equal opportunity at no charge. The Fair housing and Equal opportunity has been funding and working in collaboration with many of the state as well as the local government agencies in order to enforce the fair housing laws properly.

How does it operates:

Whenever there is a case of discrimination filed fair housing and equal opportunities refers to the complaints to the state or the locality of the place of occurrence of alleged incident and the authorities investigate and process the case. The organization has also a lot of subsidiary bodies that are private and non-profit in order to practice advocacy throughout the country. The fair housing initiatives program funds most of these private bodies of the government and a few other operates with the private donations and grants from other sources. It is not compulsory for the victims of discrimination to go through the housing and urban development in order to pursue their rights if they approach the Fair housing programs. The jurisdiction and hearing of the various cases of discrimination are held in the federal district courts. The fair housing act is also applicable to the landlords who rent or lease their property in their residences.