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PRRAC Update: Illinois SOID amicus brief; HUD demographic data comment letter (August 20, 2026)

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PRRAC Joins with Partners on Illinois Appellate Court Amicus Brief in Defense of Illinois’s Source of Income Discrimination Protections: On August 13, 2026, PRRAC joined an amicus brief filed by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Legal Action Chicago in the Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth Judicial District in support of the appellant in Cole v. Timberbrook Realty, LLC. The case raises the question of whether Illinois’s source of income discrimination protections meaningfully prohibit discrimination against households using Housing Choice Vouchers to afford the rent. In addition to counsel and PRRAC, an array of allies including Access Living, the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance, HOPE Fair Housing, Housing Action Illinois, Land of Lincoln Legal Aid, the National Housing Law Project, The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence, Northside Community Resources, Open Communities, and the South Suburban Housing Center joined the brief. In Cole, the trial court wrongly held that Illinois’s source of income discrimination protections, which explicitly prohibit discrimination against voucher holders, do not require landlords to comply with the basic conditions for participation in the voucher program, such as execution of the Housing Assistance Payments contract. The amicus brief highlights the importance of the voucher program in addressing Illinois’s housing crisis, how the Illinois General Assembly enacted the state’s source of income protections in order to effectuate the broader purposes of the federal Fair Housing Act, and how landlords have resorted to surreptitious and pretextual means of excluding voucher holders in the aftermath of passage of the law. PRRAC is proud to stand with all of these great partners and allies in defense of Illinois’s critically needed fair housing protections.

PRRAC Submits Comment Letter in Support of Renewal of HUD Demographic Data Collection Form: On August 11, 2026, PRRAC submitted a comment letter in support of a Paperwork Reduction Act notice for the renewal of a standard form that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has long required its grantees to use to collect racial and ethnic demographic data. Although HUD did not indicate that it was considering declining to renew the form, we felt that it was important to re-assert that demographic data collection is both lawful and necessary in light of the broader climate of attacks on racial equity measures. PRRAC thanks our outstanding 2026 summer legal intern Aislinn McGrory for her work on this letter!

Other news and resources

PRRAC Board Member on the Need to Enforce Accessibility Requirements in Assisted Housing: PRRAC Board member and partner at Relman Colfax PLLCMichael Allen has an excellent piece in Shelterforce about the need for robust enforcement of accessibility requirements in federally assisted housing.

How Colorado Has Achieved Lower Affordable Housing Development Costs:
Solomon Greene, friend of PRRAC and Executive Director of the new Center for Housing Research and Innovative Solutions at the University of Denver, has a great op-ed in The Conversation about how Colorado has achieved lower per-unit affordable housing development costs than many other states.

On the Property-Finance Nexus: Researcher Chenab Navalkha has a can’t-miss guest post at The Rent Roll adapted from her dissertation, Grounding Financialization: Property, Finance, and Tenant Politics in the United States. The piece explores how the financialization of multi-family properties has affected tenant organizing fights.

A Break from the Parade of Horribles – Support Local News: Over recent decades, the trendline for local journalism has been depressing to say the least. Pointing that out may not seem like a true break from the parade of horribles, but the “break” is that, at least in PRRAC’s backyard in the DMV, we are seeing some green shoots with the advent of new nonprofit newsrooms that are committed to providing high quality local coverage. Whether it is The Banner’s expansion from Baltimore to Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties or The 51st’s footprint in D.C., color us encouraged. If you have similar institutions that are trying to fill the gap in your communities or legacy newspapers that have yet to be gobbled up by private equity, show them some love, both with your eyeballs (or fingers if reading braille or ears if listening to an audio version of a story) and with your wallets. This search tool is a great resource from the Institute for Nonprofit News for finding outlets in your area.