Housing Rights Initiative v. 160+ Housing Providers

In January 2025, following a sweeping undercover investigation by housing watchdog group Housing Rights Initiative (HRI), DRA filed the largest housing discrimination case in Illinois history against 165 real estate agents, brokerage firms, and landlords alleging they illegally discriminated against low-income families who sought to use Housing Choice Vouchers (“Section 8”).

The 176 complaints against 165 defendants were submitted in a massive series of filings with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. The defendants include some of the largest real estate companies in the country, including Coldwell Banker, Christie’s International Real Estate, Keller Williams, and Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago.

HRI is represented in these complaints by Disability Rights Advocates and two public interest law firms, Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC and Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC.

In 2022, Governor Pritzker signed HB 2775, which made it illegal for landlords, brokers, and agents to discriminate against housing applicants who seek to use housing vouchers to pay their rent. This historic filing builds upon that foundation by holding discriminatory real estate companies accountable and sending a message that landlords can’t slam the door in the face of low-income families in Illinois. Housing voucher holders are disproportionately families, people of color, and people with disabilities.

Over the course of the past year, HRI trained, equipped, and deployed a team of undercover investigators, who posed as prospective tenants with Section 8 vouchers. These investigators contacted hundreds of brokers and landlords by text message to determine whether they were complying with the Illinois Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against voucher holders. For completed tests (in which HRI’s investigators were able to determine whether a real estate company accepted vouchers), HRI found that voucher holders were explicitly discriminated against approximately 36% the time. View the full list of alleged violators and screenshots of the discriminatory and illegal conduct.

The goal of these filings is to get the real estate companies to stop their discriminatory housing practices that are exacerbating Chicago’s homelessness and affordable housing crisis.