Cook County Human Rights Ordinance

County Releases Additional Information on Just Housing Amendment

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Better than Nothing

Well, we had heard rumors that the County was going to release some additional guidance on the application of the Just Housing Amendment in practice.  Earlier this week, they did just that.  The materials do not clear up many of the questions plaguing those of us “on the ground” and some of the information in the materials is contrary to the actual verbiage in the rules (so landlords need to carefully evaluate these materials).  We will try to discuss some of this in the coming days.  In the meantime, here is a link to the Cook County Human Rights Commission’s

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Cook County Issues Yet Another Set of Just Housing Rules

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Cook County Landlord Rules for Criminal Background Checks

The Cook County Board of Commissioners released a new set of rules on October 23, 2019 to implement the Just Housing Amendment to the Cook County Housing Ordinance.  This set of rules is basically a rejection of a number of landlord suggested modifications.  The County went with a pro-tenant version.  Distilled down to its essence, under the Just Housing Amendment, a landlord cannot run a criminal background check until after following a number of procedural steps. 

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Prediction for 2014: Illinois landlords better learn the fair housing laws!

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bigtroubleYesterday’s Chicago Tribune contained a story about complaints from fair housing advocates to the Cook County Board concerned with recent events whereby Glenview, Illinois has attempted to exempt itself from application of Cook County’s recent amendment to the fair housing portion if its human rights ordinance making it illegal to refuse to rent to Section 8 voucher holders.

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NEW LAW: Cook County landlords cannot discriminate based on Section 8 participation

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In a vote being celebrated by Tenant’s rights advocates, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted yesterday to amend the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance to prohibit landlords from discriminating against tenants who are participating in Section 8 housing choice programs.  Like landlords in Chicago before them, Cook County landlords governed by the Human Rights … Read more

UPDATE: Cook County Section 8 amendment

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On May 8, 2013, the Cook County Board will once again take up the topic of amending the Human Right’s Ordinance to make it a fair housing violation (for source of income discrimination) for a Cook County landlord to refuse to participate in the Section 8 housing choice voucher program.  The Illinois Rental Property Owners … Read more

Meeting on Cook County fair housing amendments tomorrow

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See update Tomorrow, July 24, 2012, the Human Relations Committee of the Cook County Board will have a meeting  on the proposal to make it a violation of the Cook County human rights ordinance (fair housing) if a landlord denies a tenant based on participation in the Section 8 housing choice voucher program.  The meeting … Read more

Cook County proposes adding “Section 8” participants to Fair Housing protected classes

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See update

The housing provisions of the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance (Ordinance No. 93-0-13) are the county equivalent to the federal Fair Housing law.  Currently, the Cook County law prohibits discrimination in housing transactions (for those landlords covered by the law) for sixteen protected classes.  These are the fourteen protected classes from the Illinois Human Rights Act (race, color, sex, age, religion, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, military discharge status, source of income, housing status) plus two additional classes (housing status and source of income).  Although the Cook County ordinance includes source of income, it expressly excludes participation in a housing choice program (ie. Section 8).  Therefore, as of today, Cook County landlords may discriminate based upon a prospective tenant’s participation in Section 8.

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