LOUISIANA – The Housing Authority in Ruston agreed to pay $175,000 to stop racial discrimination by assigning white applicants to predominately white housing developments and black applicants to predominately black housing developments, according to authorities.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleged in its lawsuit filed in 2013 that Ruston Housing Authority segregated the 300 apartments in its five public housing developments by assigning applicants based on their race, rather than on their place on the waiting list, officials said.
In addition, officials said the Ruston Housing Authority will pay $175,000 to compensate 19 individuals who suffered damages as a result of the Housing Authority passing them over for available housing units because of their race.
Also those 19 victims of the Ruston Housing Authority’s discriminatory actions identified in the consent order, the Ruston Housing Authority will allow those who are current tenants to request a transfer to another complex on a priority basis.
It will also permit people who are prior applicants and former tenants to reapply and, upon approval of their applications, give them priority for a unit at a complex of their choice, officials said.
“People who seek public housing, like all other home seekers, have the right to access housing free from racial discrimination,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division.
Adding, “It is particularly distressing that, almost 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, this public housing authority was still filling vacancies based on the color of an applicant’s skin, rather than based on when he or she had applied. We are pleased that the Ruston Housing Authority has agreed to dismantle this segregated system and compensate its victims.”
When it originally began developing housing in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, the Ruston Housing Authority reserved Louise Homes and Maryland Plaza for “white” persons, while reserving Greenwood and Truman for what it termed “colored” persons, officials said.
This is what Ruston Housing Authority officials were doing when assigning applicants based on race, officials said.
“Assigning persons housing based on the color of their skin not only robs them of the basic dignity everyone seeking housing should be afforded, it violates the Fair Housing Act,” said Assistant Secretary Gustavo Velasquez of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Office