$450K Discrimination Settlement Over Warminster Apartment Rule

WARMINSTER, PA —A Bucks County couple has received $450,000 in a discrimination settlement involving an application they filled out to live in a township apartment.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the 2019 application for an apartment in the Aspen Grove Apartment Homes on East Street Road was rejected because the applicant did not have a Social Security number.

The unnamed couple and The Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania entered into an agreement resolving allegations that CM Bucks Landing 120, LLC, Residential Management (NY), Inc., and Aspen Grove Apartment Homes violated the Fair Housing Act by adopting and applying policies that discriminated against potential applicants based on national origin, race, and familial status, a press release by the housing agency states.

A call to Rachel Wentworth, the center's executive director, was not returned. A call to Melissa Montemayor, Aspen's assistant property manager, was also not returned.

In its press release regarding the settlement announcement, the housing agency said it was contacted in May 2019 by a family who had their application rejected by Aspen Grove due to a policy of requiring all adults to have a Social Security number.

The husband had that and "an outstanding credit score" and enough income to qualify the family to rent the apartment, the agency said.

His wife had lawfully arrived from Colombia and was lawfully residing in the United States, but was not yet a citizen and did not yet have a Social Security number.

The Housing Equality Center —which serves a population of over 4.65 million in the seven-county Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley regions including Bucks County —conducted an investigation and discovered that Residential Management’s policies and practices at Aspen Grove and their other rental complexes were discriminatory on several bases.

Residential Management’s requirement of a Social Security number for all adult applicants has an unlawful discriminatory impact based on national origin and race, in that it is effectively a policy that excludes people who have lawfully immigrated to the United States from another country, but have not yet received a Social Security number.

In addition, Residential Management’s policies and procedures included a blanket ban on rentals to persons who have any type of criminal background which has an unlawful discriminatory impact based on race and national origin.

This policy did not contain a process for an individualized assessment to determine whether or not an applicant posed a direct threat to other persons or property, or any other less discriminatory alternative.

Residential Management’s policies and procedures contained occupancy standards at some complexes which had an unlawful and discriminatory impact on families with children. The Aspen Grove policy limited occupancy of a two-bedroom apartment to three people and occupancy of a three-bedroom apartment by four people.

These limitations were not justified by local property maintenance codes and limited the housing opportunities available to families in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, known as the Fair Housing Act, makes it unlawful to discriminate in connection with any housing-related transaction, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status.

In addition to engaging in differential treatment based on any of the protected classes, housing providers are prohibited from implementing facially neutral policies or practices that have a disproportionate impact on members of one or more of the protected classes in comparison to the general population.

“Property managers need to understand that even policies which are applied neutrally to all applicants may violate the Fair Housing Act if they make it more likely that immigrants, people of color, or families with children will be excluded from residing in a community,” Wentworth said in the press release. “Housing professionals have an essential responsibility to ensure equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination in all of their practices, even if that discrimination is not explicit or intentional.”

CM Bucks Landing 120, LLC and Residential Management denied the allegations in this case, but signed an agreement that will result in payments totaling $450,000 in damages to the complainants and to HECP to cover a portion of the costs incurred to bring about the agreement and to provide future consumer education regarding the fair housing rights of southeastern Pennsylvania residents, and legal fees.

The respondents also agreed to adopt revised policies addressing the acceptance of alternative forms of documentation for applicants without social security numbers, a less discriminatory criminal background screening process, and less restrictive, more appropriate occupancy standards.

The Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania has worked since 1956 to eliminate housing discrimination through education, advocacy, and enforcement of fair housing laws.