United States v. Housing Authority of Ashland, Alabama (N.D. Ala.)
On December 13, 2022, the court entered a consent decree in United States v. Housing Authority of Ashland, AL, et al. (N.D. Ala.). After filing a complaint on December 1, 2020, the United States filed an amended complaint on January 25, 2021, alleging that the Ashland Housing Authority engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination and denied rights to a group of persons on the basis of race, in violation of the Fair Housing Act, by steering Black applicants away from four overwhelmingly white properties that it manages and steering White applicants away from two disproportionately Black properties that it manages, and by maintaining those properties as largely segregated. The complaint also named as defendants the private owners and agent of two of these properties. The consent decree requires the defendants to pay $275,000 in damages to 23 current or former tenants who were allegedly harmed by the defendants’ conduct; pay a $10,000 civil penalty to the United States; implement policies and procedures to remedy the alleged segregation and to ensure nondiscrimination, transparency, and consistency in processing applications and offering units to applicants; contact a group of approximately 145 individuals who are disproportionately Black who applied to two overwhelmingly white properties but were not placed on the waiting lists for those properties, and offer them spots on the waiting list based on their original dates of application if they still qualify; undergo fair-housing training; and submit periodic compliance reports to the Justice Department.
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