Hesperia, sheriffs settle with Feds over “crime-free housing” law

An Inland Empire city and sheriff’s department accused of illegally evicting Black and Latino renters were ordered to pay $1 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit.

Federal prosecutors hailed the case against the city of Hesperia and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as a landmark effort to combat so-called “crime-free housing” laws, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Such laws, popular in California and across the country, encourage landlords to evict or exclude tenants with criminal backgrounds or brushes with law enforcement.

Investigations by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Los Angeles Times have shown the “crime-free housing” policies have disproportionately affected Black and Latino residents, making it harder for them to rent apartments and leaving them at greater risk of eviction. The $1 million settlement still needs approval by a federal judge.

Hesperia, San Bernardino County and the Sheriff’s Department engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination that violated the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act, according to a consent order cited by the Associated Press.

“Hesperia’s ordinance was a blatantly racially discriminatory solution to a problem that didn’t exist,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in announcing the settlement. “This meant evictions of entire families for conduct involving one tenant or even guests or estranged family members.

“It meant evictions of the survivors of domestic violence. It meant evictions in the absence of concrete and real evidence of criminal activity,” she said.

The settlement challenged “crime-free” housing ordinances and should send a message to an estimated 2,000 cities nationwide that have similar policies that are often discriminatory, Clarke said.

The city, county and Sheriff’s Department denied the allegations but agreed to settle the case, according to the court order. The city repealed the ordinance last month and the sheriff agreed to stop enforcing it.

Hesperia passed the ordinance in 2015, intending to stem the flow of a growing number of Blacks and Latinos from living in the Mojave Desert city of 100,000, the consent order charged, In one City Council meeting, a council member said their purpose was “to correct a demographical problem with people that are committing crimes in this community.”

Another council member said that the crime-free housing policy was designed to weed out criminal outsiders the same way “you would call an exterminator to kill roaches.”

A HUD investigation found that Black renters were almost four times more likely, and Latino renters were 29 percent more likely, to be evicted under the program than white renters.

The ordinance required landlords to submit prospective tenants’ names to the sheriff for background checks in an effort to deny housing to anyone with a criminal record, federal prosecutors said.

The sheriff, in turn, would notify landlords if tenants had been in trouble, regardless of whether there was an arrest or a conviction.

Hundreds of people were targeted, including people who called police for help and ended up being dislodged as a result, prosecutors said.

A Black woman who repeatedly called police about an abusive boyfriend was forced to move out after the sheriff threatened to file a misdemeanor complaint against the landlord, Clarke said. The woman and her children had to stay in a motel and ended up moving across the country after another rental application in Hesperia was denied.

A Latina who called the police because her boyfriend was having a mental breakdown was forced out temporarily because the boyfriend was arrested when deputies arrived at the home before paramedics.

The bulk of the settlement — $670,000 — will go to evicted tenants. Some of the money will fund marketing for fair housing, and the Sheriff’s Department will pay a $100,000 civil penalty, prosecutors said.

A sheriff’s spokesperson said the office can’t comment until the consent is signed by a judge. A lawyer representing Hesperia said the city settled solely for financial reasons.

“At no time has the city admitted liability in this matter, and the city continues to vehemently deny all allegations contained within the complaint,” attorney J. Pat Ferraris said in a statement.

— Dana Bartholomew

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