Of an ongoing

discussion, which we're hoping to culminate uh here shortly in the next few weeks.

Uh

so why don't we start uh with Ms.

McCartney Green on Bill 3826?

Uh

good afternoon, Chair Fried State and Council President Annie Gonzalez.

Uh happy to be here to talk about uh Bill 3826.

Um the bill seeks to do uh two things, two things.

One to expand the county's fair housing law to um expand the classes of protection to include citizenship and immigration status, and then it also seeks to amend another part of the county code as it relates to authorizing a tenant to terminate at least early if there are active immigration proceedings.

With that, just a little bit of background, federal and um law does not explicitly uh protect citizenship as a protected class.

However, it's generally does protect against discrimination based on natural origin, uh, which include where a person's um ancestors were born, their accent and native language.

Um similar, Maryland state law also protects against national origin but doesn't specifically um protect against citizenship.

So

of course it begs the question so can the county expand its fair housing law to accommodate um the additional uh protected classes.

Um

and state law is pretty clear that from a local jurisdiction, we have the authority under our police powers to take the necessary measures

to

protect for health, morals, and welfare of the people.

Uh

with that being said, um our own public housing authority, the housing opportunity commission does have a uh fair housing and discrimination policy that expressly prohibits discrimination based on citizenship.

And while looking at other jurisdictions, Prince George's County also does the same, and so does um Anna Rondo County.

Uh, summary of our impact statements, and that's on page five of your packet four and five.

Uh, there's no fiscal impact.

Um that would be that as uh stated by uh the Office of Management and Budget, as terms of economic impact, it's indeterminate.

Um maybe there might be a little bit

of a

negative impact on landlords just because there's higher operating expensive in terms of administrative costs.

Um racial equity um was a positive, and climate assessment um had no impact.

Summary of public hearing was well supported by different um residents and organizations.

Uh

there were a couple of suggested amendments that were made by um CASA in terms of removing a 30-day notice requirement, and we'll talk about that in one of our amendments.

Um

then AOBA had questions about um informational questions about um just application of the law, but did not uh express a support.

With that long introduction, um,

uh

page six of your staff report as there's two um items for discussion.

Happy to jump into that unless there's a question.

Let's jump in.

Okay.

So on the bottom of page six, um,

the

first thing that uh is being recommended is to prohibit rental inquiries and requests for documentation due to immigration or citizenship status.

So right now the bill talks about um more on the decision piece if that's being asked, but what the bill um doesn't talk about is the the introductory part of a rental application in terms of what can be asked.

Council staff um uh also had an opportunity to speak with the Minx office, who are supportive of these, um, but just with timing wasn't able to actually put it in here, um, but uh very supportive of three different amendments.

One would be prohibit rental application inquiries asking about legal status, two, prohibit requests by a housing provider for documentation to prove legal status, and three, create a legal exception for mortgage lending because the county does not have the authority to regulate mortgage transactions.

So with that, the amendments are on page 24, and I'll just read them into the record so that we're clear on the on the language on them.

Council staff also did speak with the Office of Human Rights, Director Stowe, and did get a chance to speak with the uh DHCA doc uh director um Burton as well, concerning the amendments, who were also uh supportive of them as well.

Um, just for the record purposes, on the bottom of page 24, the amendment would look as follows.

Unless it's specified by federal, state, or court order, a person must not in connection with the sale lease, rental, assignment, or financing, or transfer of any housing request or require that an applicant or tenant disclose citizenship or immigration status.

What does that mean?

Rental application if it has like a box that says citizenship status check yes or no, you're not allowed to access that.

And it was important to have that that was clear, that that's not allowed on a rental application.

However, there are some federal programs that do require you to do that.

And so that was um the language there that explains that on the bottom of page 24.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about that.

So does a federal order, that sounds like a court order, but does that also include a federally funded program that has a requirement?

Right.

And so um right now was this federal law or state law.

I mean, and and there's options to put federal program as well to make sure that's clear because sometimes there's some programming requirements, and so um