2-11 Required Data and Record-Keeping

• A. Required Data

  1. Owners must collect and maintain various types of information regarding prospective and current tenants to help establish compliance with program requirements. (See Chapter 4.)

  2. For subsidized multifamily housing, HUD requires owners to gather data about the race and ethnicity of applicants and tenants so that HUD can easily spot possible discrimination, track racial or ethnic concentrations, and focus enforcement actions on owners with racially or ethnically identifiable properties. For example, the Department might investigate a situation in which there is a sizable eligible population of a given race or ethnicity in the area, but a particular property does not house any members of that population. Ethnicity and Race of applicants and tenants is determined by self certification rather than an observation of the owner. The Department also requires that owners report the numbers of persons with disabilities served by their programs.

  3. To avoid the risk of violating civil rights and nondiscrimination requirements when seeking to gather such data, owners should consistently ask the same questions of all prospective and current tenants. Also, owners should avoid asking for information only from certain populations and not others. For example, instead of asking only some applicants about their race, owners should have a means of seeking this information from all applicants.

• B. Record-Keeping

  1. Records. Owners must keep civil rights related records in accordance with 24 CFR 1.6, 8.55(b), and 107.30. The civil rights related records include race and ethnicity data, compliance with 504, and compliance with Executive Order 11063.

  2. Access to Records. Owners are required to allow HUD staff and Contract Administrators access to the relevant records for their properties and

HUD Occupancy Handbook Chapter 2: Civil Rights and Nondiscrimination Requirements

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Section 2: Nondiscrimination Requirements Under the Fair Housing Act other sources of information, as necessary, for determining compliance with civil rights and nondiscrimination requirements.

• a. In the following situations, HUD or the Contract Administrator may request information from owners: when an individual complains to HUD that he/she has been the subject of discrimination; when HUD FHEO staff performs a review of an owner’s overall compliance with civil rights and nondiscrimination requirements; or when HUD Multifamily Housing staff looks for indicators of noncompliance on behalf of FHEO as part of a management review. (See Handbook 4350.1, Multifamily Asset Management and Project Servicing for more information.)

• b. When performing limited reviews of civil rights and nondiscrimination requirements as part of a management review, HUD Multifamily Housing staff should use the checklists and operating procedures developed between the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity and the Office of Multifamily Housing to determine the relevant information needed from the owner to conduct the review. (See paragraph 1-7 for information about technical resources such as websites for FHEO checklists and guidance for HUD staff.)