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HUD Says Campaign Targets Hispanics
Probe Focuses On Manassas Crowding Hotline

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 4, 2006; PW01


Federal housing officials have released the details of their discrimination complaint against Manassas, providing hard numbers supporting allegations that the city's two-year-old campaign against crowded housing has illegally targeted Hispanic families.

The federal investigation focused on the centerpiece of the campaign: the "overcrowding hotline," set up in April 2004, that allows residents to complain anonymously about neighbors they suspect of violating city ordinances. At least 342 complaints have been made to the hotline so far.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which began its investigation in January, examined calls to the hotline between July 1, 2004, and Feb. 3, 2006. Investigators found that more than half of those hotline complaints -- 182 -- turned up no violations. Of that number, about 62 percent involved homeowners with what investigators called Hispanic surnames, 4 percent with Middle Eastern surnames and 3 percent with Asian surnames, according to the complaint.

A total of 145 complaints were said to turn up violations, though not necessarily involving crowding, that were corrected without incident. Of those 145, about 71 percent involved homeowners with Hispanic surnames, 7 percent with Asian surnames and about 3 percent with Middle Eastern surnames.

Federal officials noted that the city said it "voided" 15 complaints to the hotline. About 10 of those complaints were against people with "Anglo surnames," HUD said.

"The numbers tell the story," HUD spokesman Jereon Brown said.

Although Hispanics make up about 14 percent of Manassas's population, more than 60 percent of hotline complaints were against them.

With the initial investigation complete, HUD officials said that they will now start a deeper probe to determine the reasons Hispanics and other minorities were disproportionately affected by hotline complaints and that they will work with Manassas officials to rectify the situation.

City officials declined to comment on the investigation.

In the past, Manassas officials have argued that they are simply enforcing the city's laws and that if the complaints tend to be against Hispanic residents, then that's simply the way it is.

"Nobody's targeting anyone," City Manager Lawrence D. Hughes has said.

The federal complaint, filed May 23, alleges that regardless of intent, the city is in fact enforcing its laws in a manner that discriminates based on national origin in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

"If someone has a discriminatory motive, they don't necessarily verbalize it," said Bryan Greene, deputy assistant secretary in HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. "It's important to look at the practice," rather than words.

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status or national origin. The federal complaint against Manassas says the city is violating the act, which makes it unlawful to "make unavailable or deny a dwelling to any person" based on those qualities.

A separate complaint was filed recently by the Equal Rights Center, a civil rights group based in the District that conducted its own five-month investigation. That complaint goes further than HUD's, alleging not only that the Manassas hotline functions to harass Hispanic families but also that some of the city's zoning ordinances are illegal because they attempt to regulate who can live in a house, rather than how many people can live in a house.

The group notes that residents were rarely found to be violating widely accepted occupancy limits designed to protect health and safety. Rather, they were sometimes violating more restrictive city ordinances that allow, for instance, only one unrelated person to live with a family or that define family as no more than three unrelated people living together.

In January, the city repealed an even more restrictive and highly controversial ordinance that had made it a crime for extended relatives -- such as aunts, uncles and cousins -- to live together as a family. Ten families, all Hispanic, were cited under that law.

The Equal Rights Center complaint alleges that all those ordinances disproportionately affect Hispanic families, which tend to be larger for various reasons.

The city's campaign against crowding has come at a time of rising complaints about illegal immigration and its impact on school budgets and government services. Manassas has contended that the campaign was not intended to address illegal immigration but rather quality-of-life issues, such as noise, traffic and safety.

On that point, the Equal Rights Center complaint also goes further than HUD's, alleging that the city's program to combat crowded housing was in reality designed to "foreclose housing opportunities to Manassas's growing Hispanic population."