HUD to Probe Manassas Anti-Crowding Effort

Federal housing officials said yesterday that they are investigating whether a two-year-old program to combat crowded housing in Manassas is unfairly targeting Hispanic families in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a complaint Tuesday alleging a pattern of discrimination. Yesterday, a group of Manassas residents and civil rights advocates filed 11 more complaints, saying that the city has selectively enforced its overcrowding rules and other ordinances against Hispanic residents in what amounts to a systematic campaign of harassment.

“We have not heard from white residents that inspectors are knocking on their doors, going in late at night, measuring bedrooms and asking for proof of relationships,” said Isabelle Thabault with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, which filed a complaint in conjunction with the Equal Rights Center, another advocacy group. “The only ones we heard from are Hispanic families.”

Thabault said her organization’s investigation found several cases that seemed to amount to harassment, including one in which an inspector was reported to have measured a bedroom that a couple was sharing with their newborn baby and then told the parents they would have to move the baby to another room. The couple measured the room and found that the inspector’s measurement was wrong.

“We found many examples where an inspector went to a household based on an anonymous complaint . . . found no violations then returned a month later and again found no violations,” Thabault said, adding that by her count, at least 200 Hispanic residents have been displaced by the city inspections.

Manassas Police Chief John J. Skinner, the acting city manager, said he could not comment on pending complaints.

The scrutiny of the Manassas program comes after the city repealed a controversial ordinance in January that redefined family and made it illegal for relatives such as aunts, uncles and cousins to live together, even if they were not violating household occupancy limits.

According to the complaints filed yesterday, that rule was just the “most egregious” part of a broader program begun in June 2004 that city officials have said is intended to combat crowded housing and its effects. The complaints say the program was “designed to foreclose housing opportunities to Manassas’ growing Hispanic population.”

The program relies heavily on an “overcrowding hotline,” a phone number that residents can call to complain anonymously about neighbors. Calls to the hotline, as well as e-mails and letters, prompt inspections by city officials that are often conducted late at night and without warrants and that, city officials say, have overwhelmingly affected Hispanic families.

{snip}