Review Alleges Housing Authority Engages In Racial Discrimination

Michael Squires, Review-Journal, May 4

The Las Vegas Housing Authority provides better security and maintenance at its majority-white senior housing developments than at its majority-black and Hispanic family developments, a federal review of the local public housing agency alleges.

Repeating a long-standing charge, a preliminary report sent to the troubled agency last month states Department of Housing and Urban Development investigators found a “significant disparity” between the authority’s treatment of family housing residents versus those in senior housing.

The report also accuses the agency which oversees all public housing within the city of Las Vegas of dismantling desegregation plans, failing to reach out to Hispanics and failing to fully comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Investigators found that residents of family developments, where 85 percent of residents are black or Hispanic, deal with persistent crime, cluttered grounds, maintenance delays, curfews and intimidation by security guards.

At senior complexes, where blacks and Hispanics comprise 39 percent of residents and whites are the majority, grounds are generally clean, the buildings well maintained and residents have few complaints, the report states.

“Do they treat family housing different than they do senior housing? Yes, they do,” said Jerry Neal, who lives in the Marble Manor family development in West Las Vegas. He points to yellowing grass, a small playground for about 200 units and a day-care center that’s been boarded up for years.

“If they had this at a senior citizens’ complex, I don’t think it would look like this,” said Neal, who serves on the resident board. “They (seniors) got nice apartments, nice everything. They keep up the grass.”

Housing authority Commissioner Beatrice Turner agrees the agency’s senior housing receives preferential treatment.

“The family developments look like garbage,” she said. “The senior developments look like you’re in Donald Trump’s tower.”

But housing authority officials denied the accusations and vowed to ask for a full review of the report which could lead to sanctions against the agency.

“Allegations are one thing, proof is another,” said Parviz Ghadiri, the housing authority’s acting executive director. “I strongly believe we do not have that kind of disparity.”

Family developments are inherently more difficult to maintain, according to Ghadiri. “That’s true throughout the country,” he said.

Family complexes have larger grounds than senior developments, which tend to be high rises. They also house children and teens, who contribute to clutter more than the elderly residents of senior housing, Ghadiri noted.

Chris Hoye, a police officer who lived in the authority’s Gerson Park development as a child and served as a housing authority commissioner from 1998 to 2003, said HUD’s accusations are based on “dangerous assumptions.”

“On the surface it may appear to be true, senior complexes are better maintained and have less crime, but I know how hard the housing authority works on those issues,” he said.

The disparity in appearance between family and senior complexes has more to do with residents’ attitudes and behavior than the authority’s policies, he said.

“Unfortunately when you get into low-income housing you get residents with families who do not take as much pride as the seniors do,” Hoye said. “Is that discrimination? It’s the truth. The only people you will see caring for their homes are the older residents, whether they’re black or not. It’s not so much racial discrimination. Our seniors take more pride and are a lot more active.”

Catherine Kozera, a 15-year resident of a senior complex and head of the agency’s resident advisory board, said because residents of senior housing are retired they also have more time to work with the agency to correct problems.

“The reason why it looks like the seniors get more is because they do more to get it,” she said.

Sheila Collins-Davis, who lives in Sherman Annex, a family development, doesn’t fault the housing authority’s maintenance of the complex. But she finds security is lacking.

“You see gang activity outside and sometimes they just observe,” she said.

HUD reported security guards have established curfews at some family housing complexes, barring residents from sitting in front of their homes at night.

Although aware of the accusations, Ghadiri said he’s been unable to verify curfews exist at any development.

“Nobody’s shown me proof,” he said. “I need facts to show me who it is and what happened. If it did happen they should be disciplined.”

The housing authority has a history of discrimination, HUD noted. In 1991, HUD found black applicants for public housing were treated differently than applicants of other races.

In 1996, federal officials found the authority failed to maintain its housing in West Las Vegas, the city’s historically black neighborhood, on par with its properties in other parts of the city.

There have also been concerns the authority concentrated blacks in West Las Vegas public housing, a problem the authority attempted to address by purchasing homes throughout the community.

In the current report, HUD accuses the authority of dismantling those desegregation efforts by selling off the homes.

“They have moved them back to the projects,” Turner said of the homes’ residents.

But Ghadiri said the authority sold the 21 homes as part of a self-sufficiency program for public housing residents. And it did so without damaging efforts to desegregate, he said. Three of the homes’ buyers were black, 16 were Hispanic and two were white, Ghadiri said.

Bill Cottrell, who worked more than 30 years at the Clark County Housing Authority, said he believes the Las Vegas Housing Authority gets more scrutiny from HUD because of its past problems, even though they’ve been remedied.

“They’ve gotten themselves a reputation that they have difficulty getting out of,” he said. “It’s like Jerry Tarkanian, once you get tarred with the brush it’s hard to get rid of the tar.”