[StBernard] Department of Justice applies legal muscle to St. Bernard Parish fair housing battle

[Westley Annis]

Department of Justice applies legal muscle to St. Bernard Parish fair
housing battle

Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 10:15 PM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

The federal government, for the first time, exerted its legal might in the
running battle over fair housing in St. Bernard Parish when the U.S.
Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the parish of
limiting rental housing opportunities for African-Americans. The Department
of Justice complaint, filed in U.S. District Court's Eastern District of
Louisiana, cites the parish's repeated attempts to limit affordable
multifamily and rental housing, in part by establishing an onerous
permit-approval process for single-family rentals and eliminating wide
swaths of multifamily zoning.

"Every person should have the opportunity to choose where they will live,"
Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division,
said in a statement released Tuesday. "When a local government puts up
discriminatory barriers, as St. Bernard Parish has, it violates the law."

"We will use our enforcement tools to break down such barriers and ensure
that people have housing choice free of discrimination," he added.

Nearly all of St. Bernard's housing was swamped by Katrina floodwaters and
the parish has in turn experienced the most dramatic population decline of
any in the state, according to the 2010 census. Its population still remains
47 percent below its 2000 figure of 67,229 residents, and swaths of its
storm-ravaged landscape still are ripe for rebuilding.

Spearheaded by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, the
parish has been sued multiple times since Katrina over housing and land-use
decisions. Since just March 2009, U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan has
issued six contempt motions against St. Bernard for violating federal Fair
Housing laws, in connection with housing and zoning decisions.

About a year ago today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
filed an internal complaint against the parish that focused broadly on
zoning ordinances the Parish Council had passed in December 2009 that
eliminated most multifamily housing as a permitted use. At that time, Bryan
Greene, general deputy assistant secretary in HUD's fair housing department,
said it could result in a referral to the Department of Justice.

After HUD warned it would block federal money for the parish -- and possibly
for the state -- if the Parish Council did not rescind the zoning
ordinances, St. Bernard repealed them in April. But legal struggles
continued in federal court, mainly over four 72-unit mixed-income apartment
complexes in Chalmette that developers had been attempting to build since
2008.

In her fifth contempt ruling in October, Berrigan stated that the parish's
continued blocking of the four Provident Realty Advisors apartment buildings
is intentionally discriminatory against African-Americans by "doggedly
(attempting) to preserve the pre-Katrina demographics" of the parish.

In late December, Berrigan ordered St. Bernard to issue occupancy permits to
the apartments or the parish would be fined $50,000 a day. The parish
quickly did so, and residents began moving into the complexes this month.

But now the Department of Justice is seeking a general court order that
would prevent the parish from making unavailable or denying housing on the
basis of race, and require the parish to take actions to prevent any similar
discriminatory conduct in the future. The lawsuit also seeks a civil
penalty, and monetary damages for people harmed by the parish's actions.

In May, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan told a
Times-Picayune reporter that the Department of Justice was investigating
eight complaints filed by individuals who say they were discriminated
against based on the 2009 St. Bernard ordinances.

"We continue to be disturbed by a pattern of resistance" to fair housing in
St. Bernard, Donovan said at the time. "If the Department of Justice
believes there's enough of a pattern (of racial discrimination) there for a
case to be brought, they will do that," he added.

The Justice lawsuit is in part based on 10 resident and homeowner complaints
filed with HUD between March 2008 and September 2011, each alleging St.
Bernard's actions violated the Fair Housing Act.

And Jan. 20, HUD also officially referred its complaint about the
discriminatory nature of the now-repealed zoning ordinances to the
Department of Justice, according to a Justice statement released Tuesday.
The statement says that the Fair Housing Act authorizes it to enforce
allegations of discriminatory zoning or land use practices by a local
government.

Also in a statement released Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten noted that
the Department of Justice "is committed to ensuring that everyone in our
community -- regardless of race, color or national origin -- enjoys the
equal protection of our Constitution and our laws, as well as the absolute
right to live in any community of their choosing without discrimination."

John Trasviña, HUD's assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal
Opportunity, added that the Justice complaint shows that both departments
"are working together to eradicate housing discrimination."

"Our agencies will not allow zoning or other exclusionary means to deny
housing because of race," Trasviña said.

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch at timespicayune.com or
504.826.3321.

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