by Jeroslyn JoVonn
January 17, 2025
‘No resident must be subjected to housing discrimination primarily based on their race and colour or face hostile motion for asserting their authorized rights.’
A householders affiliation in Windfall Village, a brand new city in Denton County, Texas, faces housing discrimination costs for allegedly focusing on and displacing Black residents who depend on housing alternative vouchers.
On Thursday, the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement (HUD) introduced costs in opposition to the householders affiliation, accusing it of implementing guidelines to take away residents primarily based on race and colour. HUD alleges that the HOA used authorized ways to intimidate Black residents who exercised their honest housing rights and uncared for to deal with rising racial tensions that left complainants feeling unsafe.
Among the many incidents outlined within the submitting, embrace incidents involving a number of unofficial Windfall Village social media teams, which regularly characteristic explicitly racist and threatening posts. PHOA Board members allegedly participated and engaged with the content material.
“No resident must be subjected to housing discrimination primarily based on their race and colour or face hostile motion for asserting their authorized rights,” mentioned Diane M. Shelley, HUD’s principal deputy assistant secretary for honest housing and equal alternative.
In response to the submitting, racial tensions escalated in 2021 following an altercation between a Black teenager and a white teenager. Residents started attributing crime and different points in Windfall Village to voucher holders, usually utilizing racially charged phrases like “ghetto.” On the time, solely 4% of households in Windfall Village used Housing Selection Vouchers, with 93% of these households being Black.
The PHOA is accused of collaborating to create the Rental and Leasing Guidelines (dubbed the “Guidelines”), which banned property house owners from renting to Housing Selection Voucher (HCV) tenants and imposed further rental restrictions, equivalent to limiting house owners to a single rental property.
The board moved ahead with these actions regardless of receiving warnings from the mayor and others that these restrictions might violate honest housing legal guidelines.
The Truthful Housing Act forbids discrimination primarily based on race or colour. It prohibits any motion that intimidates or threatens people for taking part in protected actions, equivalent to submitting a good housing criticism with HUD.
“The Truthful Housing Act bars householders associations, similar to landlords, from denying housing alternatives primarily based on race,” mentioned Benjamin B. Klubes, HUD’s performing Common Counsel. “HUD is not going to tolerate householders associations instituting discriminatory insurance policies.”
A U.S. Administrative Regulation Choose will evaluate HUD’s cost to find out if discrimination has occurred after a listening to. Primarily based on the findings, a choose could award damages to the complainants for any losses incurred and impose injunctive aid and different measures to forestall additional discrimination.
Moreover, civil penalties could also be utilized to uphold the general public curiosity. If the case is heard in federal court docket, the choose may grant punitive damages to the complainants.
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