Local internet advertising company called me and told me they had “modified” 4 of my ads. When iasked why he responded that they violated new HUD requirements.
One of the ads had the phrase, “homes are located in a family park in Ocklawaha” WRONG! This was deleted.
Another said, " Close to licensed day care for the young familes" Changed this one too.
According to Michael (the editor) anything describing the occupents is illegal. Only the property can be described.
He is mailing the statute…probably 56 pages long. Will update this soon.
You never know, like Dr. B said, it might just be an over reaction. We always advertise “Section 8 Welcome” in our ads. I called up one time and the lady said I could not do this as it was “reverse descrimination.” ??? I explained that not only did this welcome people of all walks of life who just happen to have low income, their paper currently had 6 other ads printed with the same wording.
She then explained that she had just recently been hired.
In other words, she was making it all up under the color of some authority bestowed upon her by the magic of answering the telephone.
I’ve had the same problem here in Ohio. When we have bought a home in a senior park. We have tried to use the words “55 and over” and they do not allow it in two of our local papers.
They said it was age discrimination. I explained that the home was in a senior park, and they said it didn’t matter. Because the park was in a desirable neighborhood, we got scores of phone calls and had to tell them on the phone that it was a senior park. Luckily for us, we have other homes to sell so we were able to bounce younger folks to different parks, and we were still able to fill the homes we had in the senior parks as well.
For a Single family home I had for rent, I tried to say “Quiet tree-lined street” and was told I could not use the word quiet because it discriminated against those people with kids!"
I think the whole discrimination thing has been taken a bit far in these cases.
that as newspapers are fast losing market share to the internet they allow such decisions to be poorly made by their phone clerks. As they continue to tick off the nation, they will eventually have no one left to restrict.
Get used to it as it’s a Federal thing. We’ve dealt with this for decades in CA. It sucks but that’s just the way things are. Even Craigslist will come down hard on you over your ad wording.