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Prepared by: Community Development Department, City Of Decatur, Alabama. For more information on Fair Housing or on how to file a complaint, contact Fair Housing Center of Northern Alabama, Birmingham, AL, at 866-740-1040 or www.fhcna.com. Sources: Fair Housing Advertising Regulations
The HUD Advertising Regulations
EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY SYMBOLS
• Since 1972, the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) has had in place Fair
Housing Advertising regulations (24 C.F.R. Part 109).
The HUD regulations provide that all advertising for the sale, rental or financing of housing
• In 1989, HUD issued general regulations interpreting
the Fair Housing Act, which contain further
discussion of the Act’s advertising provisions.
should contain an equal housing opportunity (“EHO”) logotype, statement or slogan.
• The purpose of these HUD regulations is to assist all
advertising media, advertising agencies, and other
HUMAN MODEL ADVERTISING
persons who use real estate advertising to comply
• If human models are depicted in advertising
with the Fair Housing Act.
campaigns, they must be generally reflective of the
makeup of the metropolitan area in which the ads
are published.
Standards Addressed by the Regulations
• Businesses involved in real estate advertising have
SELECTIVE PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENT
an obligation to take steps to ensure that the
HUD regulations warn against selective advertising
advertising they publish, as read by an ordinary
campaigns, such as a campaign that primarily uses
reader, does not convey a message of preference
media catering to one racial or national origin segment
for or against any protected group, whether
of the population without complementary advertising
through pictures or words.
directed at other groups.
THE PUBLISHER’S FAIR HOUSING NOTICE All publishers should publish at the beginning of their real estate advertising section a notice including language that captures this message: All real estate advertised herein is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination.”