HUD Issues Guidance on Fair Housing Act Protections for People with Limited English Skills. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued guidance on how the FHAct applies to claims of discrimination by people who either lack or have poor English communication skills. The guidance is significant because more than 25 million people in the United States do not speak, read or write in English very well, said HUD in a statement issued with the guidance. Nearly 9 percent of the U.S. population is limited in English proficiency. The majority of these people speak Spanish, while the rest are comprised of speakers of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Tagalog (the main dialect spoken by Filipinos). The FHAct prohibits any overt act of discrimination in the rental or ...