Over the past six years, the number of housing-discrimination complaints related to race, national origin and disability has more than tripled. In 2007, disability complaints emerged as the most frequent housing concern raised by Utahns to the state's anti-discrimination and labor division.
Better knowledge of the law and technology may be helping to drive the increase, which reflects the national trend.
"The disability community is becoming more aware of what its rights are," said Levi Webb, the fair-housing advocate at the Disability Law Center in Salt Lake City.
The ability to use keyboards, voice-activated software and other technology has allowed many disabled people to access information more easily and articulate their needs, he said.
Born out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Fair Housing Act protects people from discrimination in a spectrum of categories, among which are race, sex, and disability.
But fair-housing advocates say that too often discrimination complaints are not filed. In Utah and across the nation, employ-ment-discrimination complaints far exceed those on housing.
"I've got to believe that they should be sort of parallel," said Heather Morrison, the director of the Antidiscrimination & Labor Division at the state Labor Commission.
The number of employment complaints are down this fiscal year, while housing complaints have gone up, a pattern that may be explained by Utah's struggling economy, Morrison said.
Rather than risk losing a qualified employee, an employer may try to resolve the worker's frustration. The opposite is true with housing: With a low apartment vacancy rate and more people finding they don't qualify for mortgages, the potential for discrimination looms.
"[Landlords] will discriminate against people because they have a bigger pool of tenants to select from," Morrison said.
A large percentage of the disability complaints in Utah stem from landlords not understanding what the law requires, her office has found. One example: rules allowing companion animals, such as a pet that is medically prescribed to alleviate depression.
Another typical case involves tenants whose disability prevents them from following a landlord's rule to put an issue in writing. That disability must be "accommodated," by giving the tenant another option.
Often an immigrant will allege that a landlord is treating him differently than other residents. In one case, a building manager complained bitterly about the smell of foreign food coming from a tenant's apartment and refused to renew the lease.
More Utah investigations are concluding that discrimination occurred. After receiving a complaint, the state first will attempt to resolve the claim through mediation. If that fails, the state investigator - there's only one for all Utah housing complaints - may interview other tenants and review maintenance logs. An investigation can lead to dismissal or a settlement, or rarely, a lawsuit by the state.
Utah doesn't have a private fair-housing center that focuses on raising awareness and assists with housing complaints, which would likely increase the number of cases, said Shanna Smith, president of the National Fair Housing Alliance. Private groups can send testers out to pose as potential renters, a tactic the state can't use because it is required to maintain its neutrality.
But the national alliance points out the number of federal charges of housing discrimination has been dropping. Advocates see the decrease as a failure.
"It's because there's been a real breakdown of federal enforcement to the Fair Housing Act," Smith said. "If I think I'm not going to get caught or punished, then why not try and get away with it?"
jlyon@sltrib.com
More information
* Year-to-year trends of Utah discrimination complaints. B5.
* For questions or to file a complaint, call the state anti-discrimination and labor division at 801-530-6813.
* Training is available for landlords and tenants. Call 801-530-6801.
* The Disability Law Center is also running fair-housing trainings throughout the state. Call 801-363-1347.
