Posted on 08/10/2012 11:15:41 AM PDT by grundle
A small Connecticut town is being sued for allegedly discriminating against minorities in an effort to keep its black population "so low that it does not register above zero percent," according to a federal complaint.
The town of Winchester "systematically and unlawfully" works to keep out African-American families by denying access to federal housing vouchers known as Section 8, according to a lawsuit brought by the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and plaintiff Crystal Carter.
"We are challenging a pattern of denying minorities fair access to housing," said Greg Kirschner, staff attorney for the Connecticut Fair Housing Center .
Carter, a single mom of six children, joined the lawsuit after she was allegedly told by the Winchester Housing Authority (WHA) that she was ineligible to apply for Section 8 housing in the town because she was not already a resident.
The WHA also told Carter "that Winchester was not on a 'bus line,' there were no real jobs there, and it was in the 'woods,'" Courthouse News Service reported.
According to census data, 94.4 percent of Winchester's 11,000 residents are white and 4.5 percent are Hispanic. The number of African-American residents is “statistically zero,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims the WHA is keeping minorities out by enforcing a "residency requirement" for those wishing to apply for Section 8 vouchers in its 17 communities.
Kirschner says the practice violates Section 8 guidelines.
"These requirements are unlawful because in communities with populations that are disproportionately white and or/non-Hispanic they perpetuate segregation by excluding minority applicants who live outside those communities from obtaining housing here," the lawsuit states.
Officials at the WHA could not be reached for comment. The agency's website said its mission is to "provide, without any type of discrimination; decent, safe, affordable housing and a sustainable living environment."
The Connecticut Fair Housing Center filed the lawsuit last week and is seeking both a policy change and punitive damages.
I feel your pain. Same thing happened to me when I lived in
Sylvania, OH. At the time I was in my early 20s and not completely aware of what welfare housing was.
I was paying through the nose and all of a sudden, crack heads, gangs, lots of members of the ROP with their creepy
stares and submissive bundled up women were residing in the same complex. Police became very aware of this once very quiet and safe apartment complex.
I never again took my kid to the pool or to the park in the complex...It was motivation enough for me to buy my first
house in the next state to the north and away from the Toledo area.
This article made me chuckle, as I published a conservative book that takes place in that part of the state, and the title character is black.
LOL!
If Section 8 slobs started moving into my township the volunteer fire company would need to triple in size.
“Quality of life” no longer applies to white Christian heterosexuals. “Freedom of association” — ditto.
I wonder how many of the kids in that litter have already been in and out of juvey? This little town in Connecticut may be an opportune place to open a window bars and security system company, or better yet, a gun shop.
In the usual way, methinks. (I won't post my first thought on the subject.)
Socialism as a system encourages racism, sectarian strife, a racial spoils system and gives to the government the power to enforce racism.
Here is a great article about this...
http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=359
Capitalism and the market economy encourage racial, ethnic, and religious tolerance, while supporting a plurality of diverse lifestyles and customs. Heavily regulated or socialist economies, in contrast, tend to breed intolerance and ethnic persecution. Socialism leads to low rates of economic growth, disputes over resource use, and concentrated political power-all conditions which encourage conflict rather than cooperation. Ethnic and religious minorities usually do poorly when political coercion is prevalent. Economic collapses—usually associated with interventionism—worsen the problem by unleashing the destructive psychological forces of envy and resentment, which feed prejudice and persecution.
This is just more Black Ku Klux Klan style of racism
If only blacks are getting Section 8 housing....that in itself is racism.
It is not racism to prevent people who cannot afford to live in an area to buy property, or that do not have the means to upkeep rental property. It is racist and bigoted to deny people what they have worked for
No, but it is racist to give section 8 housing to white people but put up barriers to giving it to black people.
That is what is at issue here - disparate treatment in socialist hand outs to white people and socialist hand outs to black people.
Socialism once again encourages racism, and state power is once again the enforcement arm of institutionalized racism.
Black farmers used to own and work about 10% of American farm land - but the Department of Agriculture did away with that by giving preferential treatment (socialist handouts) to white farmers.
If you want to speak out against section 8 vouchers I am right there with you. If you want to defend giving it to white people and not to black people (as is alleged here) that IS racism and it should have no place in conservative ideology.
This is easy to fix.
Simply build a prison in the town and the black population will shoot up like a rocket.
If there are more blacks than other groups in the government section 8 lists, its fraud. There is no medical evidence that blacks are crazier or sicker than other ethnic groups.
This is not anti-racism, this is progressivism in action, marxist lite.
You can see similar lawsuits coming to every “whitey town” in America.
I may be mistaken about this, but is not “Section 8” something into which municipalities enter into of their own volition? That is, they cannot be forced to agree to it “from the outside” or by higher authority?
I would hope that Winchester fights this with every ounce of their resources. In all likelihood, they’ll eventually cave and let themselves be rolled by the “civil rights advocates”, but I sense this is winnable — if they are determined to fight back. It wasn’t that long ago that a similar “putsch” called “Sheff v. O’Neill” was foisted as far as it could go in the state — a drive to “regionalize” small town and city schools for the goal of “integration”. Fortunately, the good folks kept resisting and after a while, it just faded away.
This is exactly how good towns get ruined.
By the way, Winchester is NOT one of Connecticut’s “gold coast” wealthy suburbs. It’s up north on the western side of the state, an old mill town which has since lost most of its industry. A nice old working-class town.
You won’t see any suits of this nature down in the fancy communities of Greenwich, Darien, Redding, or Westport.
No, sir!
I grew up in Toledo...South end. Also lived on East and West ends. We also moved to the state North of Ohio:)
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