As many as 200 local minority families have lost their federal housing assistance each year, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court by the National Assn. for the Advancement of [Leftist and Dependent] Colored People and unnamed victims of the alleged harassment.
If they didn't meet the criteria, they shouldn't have been getting the funding.
Most of the families have been cut off following surprise "compliance checks" by housing authorities and police, aimed at rooting out fraud in the federal housing assistance program known as Section 8.
Civil rights advocates say the crackdowns amount to racial discrimination, as 85% of the Section 8 households are black or Latino.
So cops should never pull over cars that are more likely to be driven by women, because that would be gender discrimination?
Residents have also complained that the inspections often involved armed Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, which they said adds a level of intimidation to the checks.
Well, yeah, when you're going into someone's home in high-crime areas, and they may be hostile, it is a good idea to be armed, no?
The lawsuit says the crackdown has created a climate of fear among minorities in the Antelope Valley and may have influenced vigilante attacks and hate crimes.
A climate of fear? Why? Are most of them defrauding taxpayers? My guess is that minorities who aren't defrauding the system aren't in fear of enforcement.
Palmdale's First African Methodist Episcopal Church was firebombed in August, and garages and other property of Section 8 renters have been vandalized with graffiti including racial slurs, swastikas and "I hate Section 8." One mother of four reported in the complaint that a carload of white youths shouted racial epithets at her children and threw a bag of urine at them.
Who knew that enforcing nonracist laws could do so much?
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said there is evidence that crime in Lancaster tends to "cluster around Section 8 housing." Since Lancaster began its stepped-up enforcement, crime stemming from Section 8 housing units has "dropped dramatically," Parris said.
Too bad! Wanting less crime is racist, even when reducing crime is likely to help racial minorities the most.
Palmdale recently renewed the contract for its special investigator for Section 8 fraud, whose work over the last two years has resulted in a termination of benefits for one in 12 residents in the housing assistance program. In Lancaster, which also hires its own enforcer for the federal program, one in 21 beneficiaries was cut off in 2009. The two cities accounted for 51% of terminations in L.A. County.
You know what that means? Other cities need to step up enforcement.
Those who claim to have been unjustly terminated contend that the two cities are trying to drive out Section 8 tenants and that the county rubber-stamps the cutoff requests.
I'm sure they have detailed knowledge of the process, right?
The article got some good comments.
Tommy99 at 9:15 PM June 7, 2011:
Wow, a race-based group accuses other people of racism! Big news.
He asks a good question.
How can something be racial discrimination simply based on the fact that a large percentage of the participants of the program are a minority? In other words, no one can enforce section 8 rules without being racist?
And:
"what is going to stop them from coming to your house"
Well, I am not a tax-taker. I own my house. I don't beg for handouts and then cry when the authorities make me live up to agreements.
"they had no right to enter any one house"
But it is not their homes. The homes belong to the landlord and the landlord is obeying the rules of the program. If the section 8'ers don't want to comply with the rules of the program, move out and don't participate. Beggers cannot be choosers.
The Left wants other people to pay, but then it doesn't want verification or standards.
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