Department of Justice Files Suit to Enforce Housing Rights for Persons with Disabilities
Feature Story by Helen Norton - 5/18/2001
On May 8, the Department of Justice sued two Kansas apartment complexes for failing to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act's requirement that new multifamily housing be accessible to persons with disabilities.The suit charges the complexes’ builders and developers with violating federal civil rights law by designing these apartment complexes without required features that allow persons with disabilities to use them. Under the Fair Housing Act, all recently-built apartment complexes must include certain features that allow persons with disabilities to use them. The requirements include doors that are wide enough for wheelchairs to pass through; kitchens and bathrooms with enough space to allow persons in wheelchairs to use the appliances, sinks, toilets and bathtubs; and accessible routes that allow persons in wheelchairs to get into and move around apartments and common and public use areas without climbing steps or going up steeply sloped sidewalks.
In negotiations with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the developers were unwilling to make the changes needed to ensure that units currently under construction and units planned for future construction will fully comply with Fair Housing Act requirements. The Justice Department is seeking a court order requiring the defendants to make the complexes in question -- Homestead and Wyncroft Hills -- accessible to persons with disabilities, to compensate persons with disabilities whose rights have allegedly been violated, and to pay punitive damages and civil penalties.
