Today, the National Fair Housing Alliance released its 2009 housing trends report. Here’s the graph that breaks down which forms of discrimination are the most prevalent.

The numbers represent the percentage of claims/complaints each group receives for each “protected class.” 

DISCRIMINATION BY PROTECTED CLASS
 NFHA Members HUD FHAP DOJ
Race: 18.5% 31% 36% 39%
Disability: 31.3% 49% 43% 36%
Family Status: 17.5% 17% 16% 21%
National Origin: 9.5% 9% 14% 6%
Sex: 3.9% 9% 11% 9%
Religion: 1.5% 2% 3% 6%
Color: 0.6% 1% 3% n/a
Other*: 17.1% 4% 6% n/a

I couldn’t find any information about how long disability-related complaints have been the most widespread. But the report does note that it is a continuous trend.   

Disability complaints remain high for several reasons. First, many apartment owners make direct comments refusing to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. Second, HUD has an office devoted solely to disability issues. Lastly, builders still continue to design and construct apartment complexes that violate the Accessibility Guidelines in spite of the fact that HUD has spent millions of dollars on the Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST program to educate architects and builders.

Image by Hfabulous, Flickr Creative Commons