High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the United States, the fair housing (also open housing) policies date largely from the 1960s. Originally, the terms fair housing and open housing came from a political movement of the time to outlaw discrimination in the rental or purchase of homes and a broad range of other housing-related transactions, such as advertising, mortgage lending, homeowner`s insurance and zoning. Later, the same language was used in laws. In April 1968, at the urging of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act (codified at 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, penalties for violation at 42 U.S.C. 3631), Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, only one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.