Real estate group AIR Communities agreed not to unlawfully discriminate against housing voucher recipients and will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees as part of a settlement agreement announced this week.

The real estate group settled a lawsuit sparked by an investigation by the Equal Rights Center that alleges applicants were unlawfully denied rental housing because they paid their rent with government subsidies. AIR Communities agreed to pay $235,000 in legal fees and damages to settle the case. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs represented the Equal Rights Center in the case. The ERC is a nonprofit organization that focuses on enforcing fair housing laws in D.C.

The suit against AIR Communities, referred to as AIR Property Management in the settlement, filed in D.C. Superior Court in January, alleges that the real estate group illegally denied housing to applicants using housing vouchers at the Latrobe Apartment Homes in Ward 2 and Vaughan Place in Ward 3. ERC also alleges that AIR Communities implemented an unlawful application process that imposed minimum credit scores and income requirements for voucher holders. AIR Communities additionally checked eviction and criminal records beyond what D.C. law allows, according to court records.

D.C. law prohibits discrimination based on an applicant’s source of income, prohibits requiring voucher holders to meet certain credit and income requirements, and protects prospective tenants from overbroad screening of criminal records. The suit also is among the first to enforce a 2022 D.C. law that seals eviction records that are more than three years old.

Kate Scott, executive director of the Equal Rights Center, says she has seen a rise in the use of technology that makes it easier for housing providers to screen potential tenants, which violates the law.

“D.C. law is really saying … you’re not allowed to do that in the same way that you have been doing it,” Scott says. “As a landlord, you need to apply the basic requirements of the law, but also engage in a more individualized view of tenants, to make sure that you’re not continuing to replicate patterns of various forms of discrimination that have been harmful to the city.”

In its complaint, ERC describes how it investigated AIR Communities’ leasing procedures with fair housing tests. The nonprofit would have its investigators call the rental offices using aliases and ask if those with vouchers—who have evictions on their records or who have had contact with the criminal legal system—were eligible to apply. 

The AIR Communities representative advised ERC’s covert investigator not to apply outright because they would probably be denied, or said that the company’s screening system would automatically disqualify them, according to the court documents.

In one case, a representative told the caller that Vaughan Place did not have “Section 8 units.” The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, once referred to as “Section 8,” is a reference to the Housing Act of 1937.

The program is aimed at assisting low-income, disabled, and elderly tenants afford suitable housing and, in theory, allows participants to choose from almost any unit in the rental market as long as it doesn’t exceed rental limit amounts. About 11,500 low-income families in D.C. use HCVP, which aims to eliminate barriers for families to get secure housing in areas with significant access to public transportation, grocery stores, and well-performing schools.

ERC’s investigation began after the organization noticed discriminatory statements on AIR Communities websites. “We screen for criminal background, and applicants may be disqualified based on history,” one statement said, according to the court records. “We do not allow renters with felony convictions to live at our community … Renters may not have had previous evictions.” 

“Initially, I think it was fairly easy for people to recognize when it was happening to them. For example, a landlord would just say, ‘We don’t accept vouchers,’ and that was very easily recognized as illegal voucher discrimination in the District,” says Joanna Wasik, deputy legal director for economic justice for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “Over time, the way that the discrimination plays out has become much more subtle in nature and more difficult for people to recognize when it’s happening to them as a result.”

According to the cooperation agreement, AIR Communities’ D.C. properties—including Latrobe Apartment Homes, Vaughan Place, and Upton Place East—must now request all prospective applicants to disclose their voucher status prior to income and credit checks and may not consider eviction history beyond three months and criminal history beyond seven years. Disclosing the use of a housing voucher prevents applicants from being rejected for failing to meet an income or credit requirement.

AIR Communities staff must also undergo annual training on fair housing laws and designate a voucher advocate, and ERC will conduct 30 compliance tests on the various properties.

“We are committed to complying with all fair housing laws and regulations, and we regularly review our standards and processes and train our team to ensure compliance,” Stephanie Joslin, AIR Communities’ communications manager, says in an emailed statement. “While a review by the Equal Rights Center (ERC) identified some shortcomings in our processes, we want to emphasize that these were not errors of intentional commission but rather unintentional omission.

“Upon our own review, we addressed the identified issues promptly, many of them before the ERC filed its complaint,” Joslin adds. “We are pleased to cooperate with the ERC going forward to deliver training and processes that the ERC provides and has sanctioned.” 

The settlement makes headway in enforcing D.C.’s laws on voucher discrimination, which Scott says is an ongoing issue since source-of-income protections were enacted in 2005. 

“When you look at the data, voucher discrimination is tantamount to race discrimination in D.C. because the vast majority of voucher holders in D.C. are Black,” Scott says. “And so that’s been a really important focus of what we’ve been doing in regards to source-of-income discrimination or voucher discrimination overall.”

About 95 percent of those who receive housing vouchers in D.C. are Black, despite Black households comprising less than half of the District’s total population, according to 2023 Census data.

“We’re really hopeful that by entering into cooperation agreements … we’re chipping away at issues of noncompliance in the District and making it easier for individual tenants to be able to find the housing that they need,” Scott says.

This story originally misattributed a quote from Kate Scott. This version has been corrected.