A settlement agreement has been reached between the Houston Authority of the Town of Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, and two former employees over allegations they violated federal law by denying housing to a Black mother and her young daughter because of their race, the Justice Department announced.
The settlement calls for the Housing Authority and former employees David Haynes and Myra Hess to pay $75,000 in damages and take other actions for violating the Fair Housing Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a Department of Justice release.
“It is abhorrent that a housing authority would deny a home to any applicant on the basis of race," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release."The Justice Department is committed to vigorous enforcement of federal law to ensure that no one is unlawfully denied housing because of race or for any other prohibited reason.”
Under the consent decree approved by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, the defendants must pay a total of $65,000 to the applicant and her child, and $10,000 to the Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma Inc., whose fair housing testing exposed the Housing Authority’s discriminatory conduct.
The consent decree also requires the Housing Authority employees and board members to undergo training on the Fair Housing Act and Title VI, implement nondiscriminatory procedures and submit to compliance and reporting requirements, according to the DOJ release.
A lawsuit filed in December 2020 alleged the Housing Authority employees told a Legal Aid employee who contacted them on behalf of the applicant that units were available and invited her to apply. But when the Housing Authority learned from her application that she and her child were Black, the Housing Authority denied the application and falsely told the applicant that no apartments were available.
Legal Aid then conducted testing, which confirmed that the Housing Authority was discriminating against Black applicants. The lawsuit, according to the release, states the Housing Authority told a white tester that there were multiple apartments available to her and her daughter and showed her three vacant apartments. By contrast, the next day, the Housing Authority told a Black tester that no apartments were available for her and her granddaughter and did not show her an apartment.
“The time for racial discrimination in housing should be far behind us,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Demetria McCain of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Office for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity said “HUD is pleased the Department of Justice and HUD’s Fair Housing Initiative partner, Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, took appropriate action to put a halt to the housing authority’s unlawful behavior.”
The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin and disability. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination because of race, color or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
