Housing Discrimination Against People with Disabilities

Ms. Ram,
Attached, please find a letter acknowledging the Department of Housing and Urban Development's receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, 18-FI-HQ-02029.
Thank you for your interest in the Department's programs and policies.
Best,
Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
Office of the Executive Secretariat

Ms. Ram,

Thank you for reaching out with regard to your FOIA request, 18-FI-HQ-02029. This request is currently on assignment with the program office that houses responsive records. Once their search has been completed, the team in that office will forward any responsive records to me for review. I will then work diligently to prepare a package for release to you as quickly as possible. If you have any specific questions or concerns during this time, please do not hesitate to give me a call at 202-402-3450.
Best,

Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of the Executive Secretariat
FOIA Branch, Room 10139
(202) 402-3450 | ethan.g.bodell@hud.gov

Ms. Ram,

Thank you for reaching out with regard to your FOIA request, 18-FI-HQ-02029. This request is currently on assignment with the program office that houses responsive records. I have made an inquiry with our FOIA liaison on that office, to determine where they are in the process. Once I hear back from them, I'd be happy to provide you with a more detailed update.
Best,

Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of the Executive Secretariat
FOIA Branch, Room 10139
(202) 402-3450 | ethan.g.bodell@hud.gov

Ms. Ram,

This request is still being worked on by the program office. Once they have collected everything and provided it to me for review, I will begin the process of preparing this for closure.
Best,

Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of the Executive Secretariat
FOIA Branch, Room 10139
(202) 402-3450 | ethan.g.bodell@hud.gov

Ms. Ram,

I have an update, and a question, regarding your FOIA request 18-FI-HQ-02029. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity provided its response to me today, with a list of all fair housing complaints filed in 2018 with any of the terms provided in your request. The spreadsheet contains a list of over 4,100 complaints, current as of November 22, 2018. In order to get copies of the complaints themselves, we would need to use this spreadsheet as a reference and assign the request to field offices around the country, asking them to collect copies of the complaint for each reference number listed in the spreadsheet. Those complaints would then all be sent back to Headquarters, and we would then have to go through and review each of them individually. Due to the significance of such an undertaking, and the amount of time it would inherently take to collect and review over four thousand complaints, I'd first like to ask whether you would accept this spreadsheet as a response to your request. I.e. would a list of all such cases suffice, in lieu of the individual complaints themselves? The spreadsheet contains the following columns:

1. Region
2. Case Number
3. Case Name
4. Violation State and County
5. Violation City
6. Violation Zip Code
7. Filing Date
8. Base(s) for Complaint

At your earliest convenience, please let me know how you'd like us to proceed. I can be reached via email, or at 202-402-3450.
Best,

Ethan

Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of the Executive Secretariat
FOIA Branch, Room 10139
(202) 402-3450 | ethan.g.bodell@hud.gov

Ms. Ram,

If you have a specific week in January in mind, just let me know. I have the full spreadsheet of complaints, and can isolate that week and see what kind of a number we'd then be dealing with. I'm happy to work with you to see how we can most effectively and efficiently get you the information you need.
Best,

Ethan

Ms. Ram,

Your original request had the start date of January 1, 2018, so everything I have in this spreadsheet is between 1/1/18 and 11/22/18. Do you want me to limit it to January 2 - January 9, 2018?
Best,

Ethan G. Bodell, Esq.
Government Information Specialist
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of the Executive Secretariat
FOIA Branch, Room 10139
(202) 402-3450 | ethan.g.bodell@hud.gov

Ms. Ram,

My apologies for the delayed response. Your previous email on December 21 came just after I left the office for the day, and we were then furloughed until the end of January. Getting back to your question of how many individual complaints are dated between 1/2/19 and 1/9/19 that include the criteria you suggested, there are 77 individual complaints that fall within that date range.
Best,

Ethan