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| WA State FAIR HOUSING UPDATE: October 2001 |
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By Barbara Osinski, Seattle Office for Civil Rights Imagine that you were badly beaten by your significant other, who lives with you and your child. Your significant other is arrested, and you get a court order to prevent him or her from coming near you. Two days later, you receive an eviction notice from the apartment management asking you to move within 24 hours, stating that "you, someone in your control, or your pet, has seriously threatened immediately to inflict personal injury, or has inflicted substantial personal injury upon the landlord or other tenants." The notice was based on the assault you just suffered, and the fact that the police were called in. Does this notice violate the Federal Fair Housing Act? The answer may depend on whether you are male or female. In July, 2001 the NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund, Legal Aid Services of Oregon, Advocates for Victims of Domestic Violence and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) joined in a lawsuit brought in Federal District Court in Oregon to challenge a landlord's policy of "zero-tolerance" of violent conduct. The suit was brought on behalf of Tiffanie Alvera, a victim of domestic violence who faced eviction after she obtained a restraining order against her husband. Ms. Alvera asked the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to investigate the matter and determine whether the zero-tolerance policy was discriminatory. She believed that it was wrong to evict her for her husband's actions after she had done what was in her power to prevent further violence. On April 13, 2001 HUD issued a determination that there was reasonable cause to believe the policy violates the Federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. "Because domestic violence affects women disproportionately, this kind of zero-tolerance policy hurts women far more than men," said a representative from the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in a New York Times article on July 11, 2001. HUD's April 13, 2001 Determination cited national statistics showing that women are 5 to 8 times more likely than males to be victimized by an intimate, and that 90% to 95% of victims of domestic violence are women. Oregon's statistics are comparable. HUD noted that the apartment management may have neutral reasons for their zero-tolerance policy. In this case, however, there was no evidence to support an assumption that persons living near a household that has incidents of domestic violence will themselves become victims of that violence. HUD's Determination pointed out that apartment managers need to take into account the individual circumstances of each case, as well as the actions a victim of domestic violence has taken to prevent a recurrence. HUD found that sex discrimination had occurred, finding that the "policy of evicting innocent victims of domestic violence because of that violence has a disproportionate adverse impact on women and is not supported by a valid business or health or safety reason by the [apartment management]." The Federal Court litigation of this case will be monitored and the outcome will be reported in this publication when it becomes known. |
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