Update, 8/11/20: The D.C. Attorney General’s office has resolved its lawsuit against the local real estate company Evolve, LLC. On Tuesday, the attorney general’s office announced that Evolve had agreed to pay a penalty of up to $250,000, implement anti-discrimination training for its employees, change the language on its advertisements for rentals, and implement new anti-discrimination policies. In February, a judge ruled that Evolve had refused to rent or show apartments to tenants who planned to use housing vouchers, which violates D.C. law.

“This victory reaffirms that landlords will face consequences for discriminating against vulnerable District residents who use housing assistance to pay their rent,” said Attorney General Karl Racine in a press release.

Original: D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is suing two affiliated D.C. real estate companies for allegedly refusing to rent to people using housing vouchers, Racine’s office announced on Thursday.

The lawsuit makes the case that Evolve and Evolve Property Management explicitly stated in online advertisements that they did not accept housing vouchers, and also declined to schedule apartment viewings for people who indicated in their rental applications that they planned to pay rent with the help of vouchers.

It’s illegal to discriminate against renters based on their “source of income,” according to the D.C. Human Rights Act. D.C. is asking for a court to issue an injunction ordering Evolve to stop discriminating against people using housing vouchers, and also to pay restitution for past instances of discrimination.

Evolve has its headquarters in the H street corridor, and offers “multiple” properties for rent, several of which are in Capitol Hill, according to the Attorney General’s office. Listed phone numbers for both Evolve and Evolve Property Management were disconnected.

Evolve has been accused before of discriminating against renters who use Section 8 housing vouchers. In April 2017, the National Fair Housing Alliance opened an investigation into the company after seeing an ad that explicitly stated “No Section 8,” according to Curbed. The NFHA ended up filing a fair housing complaint against the company with the Washington D.C. Office of Human Rights. That complaint tipped off the D.C. Attorney General’s office.

Evolve advertised properties on its website and on Craigslist, and reportedly explicitly stated in its ads that it didn’t accept vouchers. Staff members from Evolve also allegedly told prospective renters verbally that the company didn’t accept vouchers, according to Racine’s lawsuit. Applicants were required to disclose whether they planned to use housing vouchers, or Section 8, in Evolve’s online scheduling system to set up an apartment viewing, the lawsuit holds. When an applicant answered yes, they were not allowed to schedule a viewing—the website automatically led them to a screen reading “We’re sorry, but you do not meet one or more of the requirements for the listing.”

The lawsuit alleges that changing that one answer allowed those same applicants to schedule a viewing: “The response to the Section 8 Question is dispositive—by simply switching that response to “no” and holding all other responses constant in resubmitting the showing request, Defendants’ scheduling website schedules and confirms a showing for the desired date. This discriminatory practice on Defendants’ website has been in effect since at least April 2018.”

Around 10,500 families in the District depend on housing vouchers to pay their rent. An Urban Institute study from August of this year found that, despite the law, landlords in the District routinely refuse to accept housing vouchers as a form of rent payment.