The Appellate Court of Illinois wil...

The Appellate Court of Illinois will by and by decide whether to uphold a lower court ruling that landlords can legally refuse to crevice to people solely because they have federal cleft subsidies, The Chicago Reporter has learned.

The case has alarmed the city's fair housing advocates, who say it threatens the city's policy to cover renters with Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8 common of the few such policies in the state.

If the appellate court sustains the ruling, "it will take away single in kind tool tenants have for gaining access to units in the city," said Kathleen Clark, executive director of the Chicago-based Lawyers Committee for Better Housing, a nonprofit housing law organization. Many advocates fear the court ruling would allow landlords to legally discriminate against African Americans, who form a majority of the families with vouchers. "Chicago is still a excessively segregated city, and [the city's policy] is common tool to combat that," Clark added.

Real-estate representatives dispute that administrative red tape, not discrimination, makes landlords reluctant to take voucher owners "There are times when a landlord has accepted an individual and they wait couple or three months [for the mandated inspection]," and receive rental payments, said Judy Roettig, a spokesperson for the Chicagoland Apartment Association.

The city's Fair Housing Ordinance commonly prohibits landlords from refusing to cleft to potential tenants due to their source of income, and the city has interpreted the law to include the federal vouchers. A form into groups of state lawmakers tried unsuccessfully this spring to pass a law that would have banned like discrimination.

But, in June 2002 prepare for the table County Circuit Court Judge Bernetta D Bush issued the first ruling in favor of a Chicago landlord who refused a voucher-holder, writing that the city's source-of-income protections did not specifically include vouchers and landlords were below no obligation to participate in the program. The city has joined the voucher-holder in an attempt to Bush's ruling.

Chicagoans cite "source of income" as the principally common form of housing discrimination, according to data mustered by the Chicago Commission in succession Human Relations, the arm of city sway that judges civil rights complaints.

From 1998 from one side 2002, Chicagoans, most of them fine-draws filed 702 cases alleging housing discrimination, commission data exhibit Forty-three percent cited their source of income as individual reason landlords refused to lease to them. City officials say the income in question is, in greatest in number cases, a federal voucher. Racial discrimination, the inferior most common complaint, was alleged by way of slightly less than 30 percent

The idea behind the voucher program, according to federal law, is to give poor families not just modest housing, but the opportunity to live in neighborhoods with better gymnasiums and services. Income requirements vary, if it be not that in Chicago, a family of four can earn up to $37700 and remain eligible for the program. More than 33000 families use vouchers to pay separation according to CHAC Inc., the private company hired by dint of the Chicago Housing Authority to administer the program. More than 85 percent of the households are African American. Voucher-holders generally pay 30 percent of their income toward the rupture and the government picks up the rest

Housing advocates say the writhe over the appellate case highlights not just the ne for the common ordinance, but also its flaws, including its failure to specifically include vouchers and weak enforcement.

Between 1998 and 2001 the average amount of time it took for the commission to completely investigate a claim of housing discrimination more than tripled, to longer than 21 month Officials blame the city's roll squeeze.

Even in such a manner if Bush's decision is upheld, advocates say they will push the City Council to specifically write voucher-holders into the city's law. And, whatever the issue they say they'll continue their battle to pass similar laws at the shire and state levels.

"I think [these laws are] important to have forward the books as an alert to landlords that they have to consider voucher-holders the same" as any other tenant, Clark said.

however the political prospects for strengthened protection be seen uncertain. Efforts have recently failed in falsify County and Springfield, and Mayor Richard M Daley's office would not make comments [i]or[/i] remarks on whether he would push for changing the law if the city make no use ofs the legal battle.

Sara Bales, delegate commissioner of the adjudication division at the city's Human Relations Commission, said that, plane with the law's faults, the city's decision to shield its interpretation was "a progressive thing. Overall, despite assortment cuts, the city has still made a commitment to [fairness]."

Lagging Enforcement

The common dispute began in April 1999 when June E Sullivan-Lackey was forced to stir from her West Side apartment after it failed a federal inspection, court documents exhibit to She then tried to breach a West Side apartment in a building have a title toed by Julio Godinez, a Chicago landlord.