Rolling Meadows` new Human Relations Commission is embarking on its first project: recommending a new fair-housing code to the City Council.
Commissioners are set to review a proposal which would consolidate existing laws forbidding housing bias and empower commission members to rule on local housing complaints.
Under current law, residents who believe they have been discriminated against have no local sounding board to hear their complaints, but must seek redress from state or federal housing officials.
”If this is adopted, it would set a hearing board at the local level that would have the ability to make a determination whether the practice is discriminatory,” said City Manager Robert Beezat.
The proposed ordinance, which would bring Rolling Meadows in step with Arlington Heights and Mt. Prospect, is the first undertaking of the commission, whose members have been appointed by the council during the last year to better address the concerns of the city`s growing minority population. Hispanics, who now represent 11 percent of the Rolling Meadows population, are among several minority groups in the city.
Drafted by City Atty. Donald Rose, the proposed ordinance would bar discrimination against persons seeking either apartments or houses on the basis of ”race, color, religion, creed, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, marital status or handicap.” It will be sent soon to all seven members of the commission, who will revise the document to better reflect the current needs of the city, Beezat said.
”We`re happy that the issue (of fair housing) is being addressed by the City Council,” said Betty Ginger, a commission member.
Ginger added that the City Council in the 1970s refused a request from a citizens group, of which she was a member, to enact a fair housing ordinance, saying that state and federal housing law sufficiently covered the city.
Beezat said the council now is interested in adopting a fair housing ordinance because of a federal requirement for communities to have such a law to qualify for future housing grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The commission will meet next month to review the proposal. The council has not given the commission a deadline for returning the revised ordinance.
