[StBernard] St. Bernard sued over rent limit

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard sued over rent limit
By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau 

A New Orleans civil rights organization filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday
seeking to overturn a St. Bernard Parish ordinance that prohibits many homes
from being rented to anyone who is not a blood relative of the owner, a
measure the suit condemns as an effort to "perpetuate segregation." 

St. Bernard officials vowed to mount a vigorous defense, saying the new
rental restrictions are designed to promote homeownership and preserve
residents' quality of life as the flood-ravaged parish struggles to rebuild.


Filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans by the Greater New Orleans Fair
Housing Action Center, the suit targets an ordinance adopted two weeks ago
that says renters of single-family homes that had not been rented before
Hurricane Katrina must be blood relatives of the homeowner. Homes rented
before the storm are not subject to the restrictions. 

Noting that 93 percent of St. Bernard homeowners are white, the suit says
the ordinance virtually excludes nonwhite renters in violation of the
federal Fair Housing Act. 

"St. Bernard Parish seeks to perpetuate segregation by preserving the parish
as an overwhelmingly all-white enclave," the 10-page suit says. 

Parish Councilman Craig Taffaro, who wrote the ordinance, bristled at the
allegations of racism. 

"What a tremendous burden it must be to believe that everything is motivated
by race," he said. "Our motivation is simply to do what's best for our
recovery and to restore and maintain our pre-Katrina quality of life." 

Taffaro said he is concerned about investors buying large tracts of flooded
homes, making minimal repairs and renting them to make a quick profit,
thereby depressing property values in traditionally owner-occupied
neighborhoods. 

"Buying a home is the largest financial commitment most people will ever
make," Councilman Joey DiFatta said. "We're just trying to protect the
investment of residents who are coming back and rebuilding after having lost
everything they owned. I think we owe them that much." 

James Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing
Center, said the council's intent doesn't matter. 

"What counts is the effect of the ordinance," he said. "If an ordinance
limits housing for minorities, as this one clearly does, then it's illegal.
It's as simple as that." 


'Financial hardship' 

Taffaro emphasized that homes that were rented before Katrina are
grandfathered in. 

"If you rented before Katrina, you can rent now," Taffaro said, noting that
the parish has approved permits for 850 renovated rental units since the
storm. "There is still a lot of rental housing out there." 

The grandfather clause won't be any help to Wallace Rodrigue, a lifelong St.
Bernard resident who bought three homes to rent before Katrina. Because he
was still renovating the homes and hadn't rented them when the storm hit, he
is prohibited from renting them to a nonrelative. 

"It's a big financial hardship," Rodrigue said at a Tuesday afternoon news
conference held by the fair housing organization. "A lot of money is going
out, but none is coming in because I can't rent my properties." 

After enacting an across-the-board moratorium on renting single-family homes
in March, the council voted 5-2 on Sept. 19 to lift the moratorium, but
require that the renter be a blood relative of the owner. 

"People are selling their homes in a panic to outside investors and
speculators," DiFatta said. "This was a step to slow that process down and
reflect on what we want our community to look like." 


Aiming for homeowners 

St. Bernard had a homeownership rate of 75 percent in 2000, compared with a
statewide rate of 68 percent, according to U.S. Census data. St. Bernard's
rate was higher than New Orleans, 46.5 percent, and Jefferson Parish, 63.9
percent, but it was lower than the four other parishes in the New Orleans
area: St. Tammany, 80.5 percent; St. John the Baptist, 81 percent; St.
Charles, 81.4 percent; and Plaquemines, 78.9 percent. 

Councilwoman Judy Hoffmeister said encouraging homeownership is a critical
part of the parish's recovery plan. 

"When you buy a house, you are literally buying into the community," she
said. "That's the kind of commitment we need from people as we work to
rebuild the parish from scratch." 

But Councilman Mark Madary, who joined Council Chairman Lynn Dean in voting
against the ordinance, said St. Bernard can't afford to turn away anyone who
wants to invest in rebuilding the parish after virtually all of its 27,000
homes were swamped by Katrina. 

"Without an infusion of outside investors to jump-start the recovery, you
might be living next to a debris pile for a lot longer than you would like,"
he said. "The longer the houses sit empty, the harder it is to convince
people to come back." 

He said the ordinance also unduly restricts property rights. 

"When you buy property, you buy the rights that go with it," he said. "To go
back retroactively and change those rights is unconstitutional in my
opinion." 

Madary, who has bought four flooded homes and a bowling alley in Arabi, said
it wasn't a conflict of interest for him to vote against the ordinance
because he doesn't plan to rent the homes he is renovating. 

"You can make more money fixing them up and selling them," he said. "That's
why I think the fear of people coming in and turning whole blocks into
rental housing is overblown." 

'Code word for skin color' 

Several residents who spoke at the Parish Council's meeting Tuesday
disagreed. 

Bill Schmidt, who lives on Pecan Drive in Chalmette, said he plans to move
if landlords gain a foothold in his neighborhood. 

"The rental lords will let their properties fall into disrepair as they
count their money in gated communities outside St. Bernard," he said,
reading from a prepared statement. 

But another homeowner said he thinks the council's ordinance was racially
motivated. Interviewed outside his home in Violet's Oak Ridge Park
subdivision Monday, Joseph Munoz said he thinks the ordinance is intended to
prevent Hispanic recovery workers from finding affordable housing in St.
Bernard. 

"Blood relatives? That's just a code word for skin color," said Munoz, who
moved to Violet from Los Angeles 20 years ago. "How would they even enforce
this? Are they going to run DNA tests on everyone who wants to rent a
house?" 

Taffaro said the council might consider amending the blood-relative
exception. In the meantime, he and other council members who support the
ordinance said they are gearing up for a legal fight. 

"Our people have been through enough. Everybody lost their homes, and many
of them lost family members and friends in the storm," DiFatta said. "They
don't want to lose their quality of life as well, and that's one thing we
can damn well help them to hold on to." 

Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux at timespicayune.com or (985) 645-2852.