article: On June 16, 2009, the United States filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3612, against the owners and managers of a 98-lot mobile home park located in Gulfport, Mississippi. The defendants leased lots to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to house persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. claimed, based on evidence from particular complainants and witnesses and on fair housing testing, that the site's management applied various park rules more harshly against African American tenants and members of interracial households, openly made racial slurs, declared that they didn't want any African American residents living at the park, and generally harassed and intimidated black tenants. The plaintiff sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, as well as civil penalties. The case was assigned to Judge Louis Guirola. On November 15, 2010, the Court denied defendants' motions for summary judgment; the court found that the U.S. had produced sufficient evidence of discriminatory rule enforcement, racial bias, and harassment. Though the case was scheduled for trial, shortly before that date arrived, the parties agreed to a three-year settlement on January 7, 2011. The agreement included a standard prohibition against discrimination, but it also included restrictions on the defendant manager in any future involvements in the rental real estate business. These restrictions included regulating the conduct of the defendant-owner in the event it re-entered the rental real estate business, including notice to the plaintiff, fair housing training, notice provisions, non-discrimination policies, detailed reporting and recordkeeping requirements to allow plaintiff to monitor its compliance, and consent to periodic compliance testing. Defendants agreed to pay $45,000 in monetary damages to twelve named aggrieved persons, $45,000 to the United States, and a $5,000 civil penalty. The case closed on January 18, 2011.
summary: This fair housing case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi was brought in June 2009 by the United States, against the owner and managers of a 98-lot mobile home park located in Gulfport, Mississpppi. The defendants had leased lots to the the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to house persons displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The plaintiff claimed that the site's management applied various park rules more harshly against African-American tenants, openly made racial slurs, declared that they didn't want any African-American residents living at the park, and generally harassed and intimidated black tenants. After District Judge Louis Guirola denied defendants' motions for summary judgment, the parties agreed to a three-year settlement. The agreement contained detailed provisions regulating the conduct of the defendant owner in the event it re-entered the rental real estate business, including notice to the Plaintiff, fair housing training, notice provisions, non-discrimination policies, detailed reporting and recordkeeping requirements to allow the plaintiff to monitor its compliance, and consent to periodic compliance testing. The agreement also awarded $45,000 in monetary damages to 12 named aggrieved persons, $45,000 to the plaintiff, and a $5,000 civil penalty. The case closed on January 18, 2011.