Houston voters will have the option to vote on the fate of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) during the upcoming Nov. 3 election. HERO, which was enacted last year after an 11-6 vote in the Houston City Council, promised to prohibit discrimination in the city, including housing. Opponents successfully challenged the ordinance’s passage last year, putting it back on the ballot in 2015.

The ordinance – now being called “Proposition 1” – is particularly important for Houston, because the absence of such equal rights policies separates the city from hundreds of the nation’s largest metros, including Texas cities like Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio, which already have similar laws on the books.

The approval of HERO would mean more concrete guidelines for identifying and handling instances of discrimination, not only in housing, but also employment, city contracts and public accommodations, among others.

In the ordinance’s later sections, it clearly dictates what the legislation would aim to achieve in regard to discrimination in housing. Its purposes are simple:

• Provide fair housing practices in the city.
• Create procedures for investigating and settling discriminatory housing practices and any residential transactions.
• Provide rights and remedies substantially equivalent to those granted under the Federal Fair Housing Act.

Building for the Disabled

It is in HERO’s minutia that the city further explained the finer details of what the ordinance would mean for housing in Houston, including provisions designed to stop real estate agents and property owners from refusing to negotiate or deny the sale or rental of an accommodation to a person on the basis of “sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity of pregnancy” –otherwise known as “protected characteristics.” Other offenses listed include denying persons of protected characteristics entry into a “multiple listing service, real estate broker’s organization or other business relating to selling or renting housing accommodations.” It would also bar professionals from making any oral or written statements indicating a preference or policy of discrimination.

HERO will also pertain to the city’s builders, who will need to understand the specifics of the ordinance, as it requires them to the accommodate the disabled. The document reads:

“A person commits an offense if he or she…refuses to permit, at the expense of a person with a disability, reasonable modifications of existing premises occupied or to be occupied by the person with a disability, if the modifications may be necessary to afford the person with a disability full use of the premises…”

Discrimination against the disabled is of particular concern for Houston, as it is a problem the city has faced in recent history. Last year, the Houston Chronicle reported that in a 2013 investigation of large Houston rental firms, one in four “displayed differential treatment toward deaf and hearing apartment seekers with matching qualifications.”

Howard Rosenblum, the chief executive of the National Association of the Deaf, told the news source: “The extent of discrimination found in this investigation is disturbing.”

Drawing the Battle Lines

The city’s ordinance has a long list of prominent supporters, from the ACLU of Texas to Houston’s NAACP branch and the city’s mayor Anita Parker, as well as the Houston Association of Realtors.

“The Houston Association of Realtors sees HERO as an extension of the Code of Ethics to which licensed Realtors must adhere each day to ensure the fair and ethical treatment of all real estate consumers,” said HAR Chair Nancy Furst in a late-September statement. “Our 31,000-member association respects and celebrates Houston’s diverse population, and we believe HERO complements the Realtor commitment to conduct business without discrimination of any kind.”

HERO’s chief opponent is the Houston branch of the U.S. Pastor Council, which helped form the group Campaign for Houston, urging citizens to reject the ordinance. But while the group is lobbying against HERO’s passage, its qualm does not stem from the document’s fair housing guidelines, but rather a small section allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their identified genders.

In a press release from Campaign for Houston, the group’s spokesman, Jared Woodfill, claimed the ordinance would allow “troubled men, or men who want to start trouble” to use “women’s” facilities, which, he added, “endangers women and girls and places them in harm’s way.”

Houston citizens will vote whether to approve Proposition 1 in the city’s upcoming Nov. 3 election.