Hello and thank you for joining us for today's Tuesday Tip. I'm Pam and today we're going to be talking about one of those issues that comes up at our properties that you don't find a lot of clear guidance and handbooks and notices for. So we're going to talk a little bit about how to address bullying on property and some ways that you can establish some guidelines for your residence on what is and is not tolerated at your property.

It's important to remember that bullying has a specific definition. So your resident who feels bullied may not be experiencing bullying per se. They may certainly have an issue that it's important to address, but bullying has a definition. Bullying is unwanted, repeated aggressive behavior. It involves a real or perceived power imbalance and

The actions in bullying are designed to intentionally hurt, intimidate, or harm a person or group. When it comes to fair housing, not all bullying comes under the umbrella of fair housing. If you have bullying that's based on someone's membership or perceived membership in a protected class, or if you have an issue that's directly related to VAWA status, that is absolutely under the fair housing umbrella.

But not all bullying is. Sometimes people are just mean to each other and that's not necessarily a fair housing issue. However, it could be covered by some state or local harassment ordinances or laws and it certainly may be covered by your policies and house rules. If somebody is making someone unable to enjoy the property that they're living on, that is potentially also a lease violation.

The ideal way to handle bullying is prevention. Establish an environment that does not tolerate bullying and make that clear to residents and visitors. You can address it in your house rules. You can address it in addendums if those have been approved by HUD. You can address it in attachments and you can address it in policies and have residents sign those policies. It's important to remember that

Any sort of addendum or attachment that contains any language that states this is being made part of the lease or anything similar to that must be approved by HUD in HUD housing. You can also create some educational materials that you post around the site. Put up posters that indicate that bullying is not tolerated. You can put those right next to your fair housing posters. And you want to always be aware of groups that

target others as well as groups that may be a target. If you see bullying, it's important that you address it immediately, but also discreetly so that your victim isn't put more on the spot and you don't want to call out people in front of others and embarrass them. But make sure you're meeting with the identified victim and talking to them. Make sure you find out what was said, is this going on all the time? Is your resident okay?

Do they need maybe support from your resident services coordinator? Is there a family member that they would like you to call? All of those things are part of a compassionate response to somebody that you see being bullied. You also want to meet with those that are bullying others. If it's a first incident and you haven't seen this happen a lot, it may be sufficient to just issue them a reminder notice of the expectations on such and such a date.

we met to discuss this, this notice comes to remind you that this is not conduct that is permissible in this housing and reference the house rules or whatever it is that you have that indicates that the behavior is not acceptable. If it is persistent or depending on what the severity is of the incident, it may indeed be a lease violation. It could be criminal harassment, which is going to involve the police.

If it is a lease violation, you want to talk to your attorney about what the appropriate action is to take. That varies according to your state law. And you also want to work with your RSC, if they are available at your property, to support the residents who may feel bullied. You can also do some educational presentations for your resident or bring in community agencies to do those to talk about bullying, the impact of bullying,


conduct that isn't acceptable and how victims can contact someone for help. With lease enforcement, many cases, identified bullying is going to rise to the level of a lease violation. It interferes with the quiet enjoyment of the premises by your tenants. So you are always going to want to look at is this a lease violation and then consult with your attorney to confirm the best course of action.

You're also going to want to follow those policies that are unique to your property or your company. You may need board approval, for instance, before you enforce the lease, or there may be another person at your company at a supervisory level or a compliance level that needs to be looped in.

Additional concerns, we have talked about this a couple of times, but if bullying is based on a protected class, this is a fair housing issue and it needs to be addressed. If it is based on a relationship applicable to VAWA, that must be addressed and the resident could potentially be transferred to get them away from the bully.

You can involve law enforcement and should involve law enforcement where that's appropriate as well. Remember, based on your policies, you may have the discretion to offer a transfer to the victim to assist them with resolving the issue, but you cannot make someone move. You can't make the bully move. You can't make the victim move. We can offer it, but we can't insist.

If it is mutual, both parties should be addressed equally. If they're both engaging in inappropriate behavior, they should both be addressed. We cannot make individuals get along, much as I would love to be able to do that. So it's important to remember if they just don't get along, that's fine. We just expect them to follow appropriate conduct guidelines in the building. And what can sometimes be hard is we're not healthcare providers, we're not counselors.

So we do have a limit as to how much we can mediate conflicts that revolve around personalities. There are some great resources for addressing bullying. There is StopBullying.gov, the Fair Housing Institute. You can just do a search on that site for bullying and they have some great resources. And HUD also has a training session regarding preventing harassment, which also addresses bullying.

That's going to be in the HUD exchange site and you can look for bullying there. That is going to do it for today. We would love to hear from you in terms of what you would like to see on the next Tuesday tip. You can email those suggestions right to me and my email is my first initial last name. It is on your screen there. Let us know what you would like to hear and we'll see you on the next Tuesday tip.