{"id":364,"date":"2011-08-19T12:11:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T19:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=364"},"modified":"2013-04-03T16:37:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T23:37:55","slug":"racial-discrimination-lawsuit-spurs-federal-investigation-in-the-av","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2011\/08\/19\/racial-discrimination-lawsuit-spurs-federal-investigation-in-the-av\/","title":{"rendered":"Section 8 lawsuit spurs federal investigation into racial discrimination in the Antelope Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US Justice Department announced Friday that it will launch an investigation into alleged discrimination by the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Departments in Palmdale and Lancaster. Specifically, the Justice Department will investigate:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whether deputies have conducted warrantless searches of African-American families\u2019 homes under the auspices of housing authority compliance inspections;<\/li>\n<li>Allegations that housing authority investigators based in the Lancaster and Palmdale sheriff\u2019s stations have been accompanied by sheriff\u2019s deputies as they conduct routine housing contract compliance checks;<\/li>\n<li>Allegations that deputies have approached Section 8 recipients\u2019 homes with guns drawn and in full SWAT armor and conducted searches and questioning themselves, unrelated to the housing program;<\/li>\n<li>Allegations that the sheriff\u2019s department has sought to identify, during routine traffic stops, individuals who use Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Justice Department is also investigating whether there has been a systematic effort by the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster to discriminate against African-Americans and Latinos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am pleased that the Justice Department has recognized the need to finally come into the Antelope Valley and review the injustices created under the color of authority,\u201d said Juan Blanco, President of the Antelope Valley Branch NAACP.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the NAACP joined The Public Counsel Law Center in filing a federal lawsuit against the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, claiming more than 3,600 black and Latino families using Section 8 were victims of constant, unbearable harassment at the hands of housing authority investigators, sheriff\u2019s deputies and local politicians who have incited\u00a0neighbors against the families.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCity officials have gone so far as to declare \u2018war\u2019 on black and Latino families,\u201d Catherine Lhamon of the Public Counsel said in a statement. \u201cFifty years after courts outlawed racial segregation, Lancaster and Palmdale have turned back the clock, turning neighbor against neighbor in the process. They should be building one community, not tearing it apart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit was filed in federal district court on behalf of The Community Action League, the NAACP, and two residents who faced racial discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit states that city and county officials engaged in practices meant to drive out black and Latino residents. The lawsuit claims:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lancaster\u2019s mayor said in a City Council meeting that \u201cit is time to go to war\u201d against Section 8 residents.<\/li>\n<li>In public comments, elected officials in both cities spread false stereotypes of Section 8 participants as outsiders who have been &#8220;dumped&#8221; in their cities, and criminals.<\/li>\n<li>Lancaster and Palmdale targeted Housing Choice participants based on lists they received from the County, a violation of state and federal law.<\/li>\n<li>The cities have targeted families and landlords with a pattern of constant surveillance and harassment, including passage of a nuisance ordinance in Lancaster that encourages neighbors to report \u201cproblem renters.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>City officials have pressured the County to send threatening letters to landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers and sought ways to deny business licenses to those landlords all together.<\/li>\n<li>City officials sought ways to dissuade Section 8 participants from moving to the Antelope Valley, including a proposed advertising campaign suggesting that there were no jobs, no services, and that the cost of living was high.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cIf the tactics Lancaster and Palmdale use to drive out their Section 8 participants are permitted to go on, the national effort to provide families with safe and affordable housing in communities of their choice will be put at risk in California and the nation as a whole,\u201d said Bill Lann Lee, one of the lawyers for Antelope Valley families and the chief U.S. Department of Justice civil rights prosecutor in the Clinton Administration.<\/p>\n<p>Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris and Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford have both denied the allegations. Parris told City News Service the lawsuit was \u201cnonsense\u201d and said his city is doing nothing more than enforcing the rules of the Section 8 program to the letter. In the wake of the lawsuit, the Board of Supervisors in June suspended Section 8 \u201ccrackdowns\u201d for 90 days.<\/p>\n<p>The matter is now being investigated by attorneys from the Special Litigation Section and Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice\u2019s Civil Rights Division. \u00a0 The department is asking citizens with comments or concerns to contact the department at 1-877-218-5228, or via email at <a href=\"mailto:community.antelope@usdoj.gov\">community.antelope@usdoj.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Justice Department announced Friday that it will launch an investigation into alleged discrimination by the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Departments in Palmdale and Lancaster. Specifically, the Justice Department will investigate: Whether deputies have conducted warrantless searches of African-American families\u2019 homes under the auspices of housing authority compliance inspections; Allegations that housing authority investigators based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}