HUD Handbook 4350.3 § 2-11

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
6/07                                               2-10                         HUD Occupancy Handbook
                                                                                Chapter 2: Civil Rights and
                                                                            Nondiscrimination Requirements

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.)