Senate Passes Landmark Fair Housing Bill

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a landmark housing bill today putting teeth in federal housing laws and giving families and the handicapped protections for the first time in a move to end a pervasive form of discrimination.

Approved on a 94-3 vote, the measure is similar to one adopted 376 to 23 by the House in late June. A conference committee must resolve minor differences before the measure goes to President Reagan, who has said he is eager to sign it.

Sens. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.) and Steve Symms (R-Ida.) voted against the bill. Absent were Sens. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.), Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“This moment has been many years in coming, and what a beautiful moment it is,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill’s floor leader. “The 20-year logjam on fair housing is finally breaking, and the promise of fair housing is about to become a reality.

‘Most Important’

“It is safe to say,” he added, “that this is the most important expansion of civil rights in terms of protecting individual Americans against discrimination that we will have successfully passed in the last 20 years.”

Symms said the bill should be called the “unfair housing bill. It’s a real interference with private sector development. I know the cause is noble (but) . . . it’s an unprecedented nationwide federal building code on private sector housing.. . . It’s going to increase the cost of housing” nationwide.

Under a chief feature of the Senate housing bill, an individual who has been discriminated against by a rental or sales agent may have the government investigate and prosecute the case. The 1968 housing law left single prosecutions to the individual, while letting the Justice Department build cumbersome cases where a pattern of discrimination emerged.

Discrimination Penalties

The bill also levies stiff penalties against those who discriminate against residents: a $10,000 fine for a first violation; a $25,000 fine for a second conviction in five years; and a $50,000 fine for a third violation in seven years. It retains Justice Department jurisdiction on cases of patterns of discrimination, with fines of up to $50,000 for a first violation and $100,000 for subsequent violations.

Passage came after the Senate rejected two efforts to weaken the provisions requiring minimal access standards for the handicapped in new multifamily housing. Humphrey wanted the bill to allow builders to skip the improvements if it raised the cost of the housing.