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National Fair Housing Alliance and the Equal Rights Center denounce Discriminatory Zoning Ordinance of Manassas, Virginia

Washington, DC – The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) challenges the zoning ordinance recently adopted in Manassas, Virginia, which redefines family to restrict households to immediate relatives, even when the total number of occupants falls below the legal limit. Recent and extensive case law has clearly substantiated that this is a clear violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

The ordinance permits only immediate family members and one other unrelated person to reside in a home. Requiring a household to meet the criterion of “second degree of collateral consanguinity” from the person declared as the head of household effectively excludes extended family members including aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.

NFHA asserts that this ordinance unduly affects immigrant households who often reside in extended families, thus violating the federal Fair Housing Act by discriminating on the basis of national origin and family status. In fact, a local Manassas official has stated that thus far complaints have been overwhelmingly against Latino families.

This type of ordinance is not the first of its kind. In 1996, Waukegan, Illinois’s municipal government attempted to enact a similar ordinance by permitting only a husband and wife, their children, and no more than two additional relatives to live in a home or apartment, regardless of its size. The city was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for discriminating against Latino families by denying housing and attempting to limit the number of Latinos living in Waukegan. The city’s ordinance was revoked and the case settled for $175,000.

“Manassas is not going to get away with this thinly veiled attempt to violate the rights of its non-Anglo population,” says Shanna L. Smith, NFHA’s President and CEO. “This ordinance is clearly discrimination based on national origin and family status.”

According to a recent NFHA investigation, even hurricane Katrina evacuees are suffering high levels of discrimination. Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act to promote integration, eliminate housing discrimination and guarantee equal access to housing regardless of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability or because you have children. People should be able to choose what home in what neighborhood they want to live.

NFHA is joined by The Equal Rights Center (ERC), a local not-for-profit agency with a twenty-two year history of fighting for fair housing rights in the DC metropolitan area. “ERC does not accept and will never accept the passage of any ordinance that promotes discrimination. We endorse wholeheartedly the views expressed by the National Fair Housing Alliance as it objects to the Manassas redefinition of family,” says Rabbi Bruce Kahn, Executive Director of ERC.

The ERC has launched a full investigation into the legality of the Manassas ordinance, and whether it illegally generates disparate impact on Latinos or any other group of Manassas residents.

Working closely with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, the ERC has sent a letter to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice calling for a DOJ investigation into the actions in Manassas. The civil rights of innocent people in Manassas must not be undermined through any government sponsored effort to discriminate.

For more information on the National Fair Housing Alliance, please visit www.nationalfairhousing.org; for more information on the Equal Rights Center, please visit www.equalrightscenter.org.

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