Martin Luther King Day: Laws Protect Association Owners from Discrimination

Today – Martin Luther King Day – is a good day to celebrate the laws protecting association homeowners from discrimination. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 after Dr. King was assassinated.

Getting those laws and regulations in place hasn’t been easy but they DO exist now.  California law – the Unruh Civil Rights Act (California Civil Code Section 51) – offers even broader protections than do federal Civil Rights laws.

California law prohibits discrimination in housing based on age, ancestry, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation, source of income or criminal history.

Visit the CCHAL website pages on Fair Housing for examples of cases brought to the Center for resolution, for example: the case of hate mail sent to a gay board president in Placer County.  https://calhomelaw.org/fair-housing-disability-issues-discrimination/

CCHAL also organized the campaign to get published by the California Appellate Courts the Auburn Woods case establishing the “companion animal” principle, namely that companion animals are as vital to mental health as service animals are to physical health and that HOAs cannot establish unreasonable rules prohibiting them. California was the first atate to establish this principle.

See the DFEH bulletin posted on the CCHAL website here: https://calhomelaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/DFEH-Auburn-Woods-I-Bulletin-on-companion-animals.pdf

To file a discrimination complaint with the California Dept of Civil Rights, go here: https://calcivilrights.ca.gov/complaintprocess/

But first, do read about how the process works when you file a complaint with a state agency.  See details on the CCHAL website here: https://calhomelaw.org/resolving-disputes/filing-complaints/

Filing a complaint is an alternative to going to court but you have to prepare your facts and evidence as though you were taking your complaint to a judge.