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Delavan discrimination case highlights stepped-up federal prosecutions

DELAVAN -- A federal case involving a Delavan landlord and a dispute over a handicapped parking space highlights a much larger nationwide effort by the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute housing discrimination cases, officials said Tuesday.

The Recovery Act, more commonly referred to as the stimulus bill, allocated $13.61 billion to projects and programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including enforcing discrimination claims.

"The Department of Justice has dramatically stepped up its enforcement of fair housing practices," said Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa.

In the Delavan case, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that a disabled man's landlord repeatedly denied him a parking space close to his front door, even after he slipped on the ice on the way to his car and had to go to the emergency room. The company managing the apartment building has denied the allegations.

According to the complaint:

Richard Singsime, 52, filed a complaint with HUD against his landlord at Village Square Apartments in Delavan.

Singsime moved into his apartment in September 2008 and began parking in the handicap space closest to the building's entrance. Shortly thereafter, Dee Luebke, the property manager at the time, told him he needed to park across the lot because that space was reserved for picking up and dropping off residents. That winter, Singsime fell on the ice walking across the parking lot and had to be taken to the emergency room.

A private owner or housing provider is not required to have a proportion of parking spaces reserved for disabled residents. However, if asked, the owner must provide a disabled tenant with an accessible parking space, Goodloe said.

In November 2009, after several repeated requests for a closer parking space, Singsime moved because he "was afraid that he would fall again and injure himself walking across the parking lot once the weather became cold," the complaint says.

The complaint lists Cardinal Capital Management, Dee Luebke and WHPC-DWR, LLC, as failing to comply with the Fair Housing Act because they did not make reasonable accommodations to their policies and services for Singsime.

With disability cases, disputes over parking are one of the most common arguments, Bowitz said.

"There are only a certain number of parking spots usually, and most housing providers are not experts in the area of medical necessity," Bowitz said.

The management company disagreed with many of the claims made in the complaint.

"We consider (the complaint) factually inaccurate," said Erich Schwenker, president of Cardinal Capital Management. "We're going to defend it. We do not discriminate and have not discriminated."

Schwenker said his company is aware of fair housing policies and has had a good working relationship with HUD.

"This is not an issue we would normally come across," Schwenker said. "Usually we get the opposite, people telling us how accommodating we are."

If a judge finds the owner and management company did indeed follow discriminatory practices, civil penalties of up to $16,000 could be imposed, Goodloe said.

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel