While harassment has been formally recognized for some time in employment law, it has lacked formal standards and processes in fair housing law. HUD has now published a final rule to remedy that situation. The rule sets forth standardized methods for evaluating claims of quid pro quo (“this for that”) harassment as well as hostile environment harassment in the context of housing. The rule also gives examples to illustrate the types of prohibited conduct.
Several of these cases have made headlines recently, including a case in Baltimore where female public housing tenants were asked by maintenance workers for sexual favors in exchange for requested repairs.
