Judge Says HUD Erred on MD. Public Housing: Public Housing Projects Do Not Have to all be in Black & Brown Low Income Neighborhoods
/Black public housing tenants have been systematically consigned to
segregated, poor neighborhoods of Baltimore City as a result of the
policies of the United States Department of Housing and Urban
Development, a federal judge concluded on Thursday. By not placing more
public housing residents in suburban counties, HUD has failed to meet
its obligations under the Fair Housing Act, Judge Marvin J. Garbis of
Federal District Court ruled in a decade-old civil rights lawsuit.
Judge Garbis's decision is the latest turn in nationwide efforts
intended to reverse public housing policy that has historically sent
public housing tenants to poor neighborhoods consisting of minority
residents. In the 322-page decision, Judge Garbis said HUD must adopt a
"regional approach" to public housing that would disperse poor, black
residents instead of concentrating them in city neighborhoods. The
decision came in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil
Liberties Union against HUD, the Baltimore Housing Authority and
elected city officials. The suit, filed on behalf of 14,000 Baltimore
public housing tenants, claimed local and federal government policies
had created "black ghettos." Judge Garbis ruled that the plaintiffs did
not prove their claim that the City of Baltimore had failed to take
adequate steps to try to reverse the effects of previous race
discrimination in public housing. But the judge rebuked HUD for not
ensuring public housing "free from discrimination." He said "Baltimore City should not be viewed as an
island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a
contiguous region" that includes surrounding counties." [more]
- Md. Judge Rules on Housing Desegregation [more]
