US v. Housing Authority of City of Chickasaw, Civ. A. No. 79-0099-H.

• Decision Date: 07 March 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 79-0099-H.
• Citation: 504 F. Supp. 716
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF CHICKASAW, Alabama, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama

504 F. Supp. 716

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF CHICKASAW, Alabama, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 79-0099-H.

United States District Court, S. D. Alabama, S. D.

March 7, 1980.

Frank E. Schwelb, Joel L. Selig, and Denise Z. Field, Civil Rights Division, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Mitchell G. Lattof, and J. Cecil Gardner, Mobile, Ala., for defendant.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

HAND, District Judge.

I. FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The defendant is a public housing authority, regulated and subsidized by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (hereinafter HUD).

2. The defendant operates 309 units of public housing in the City of Chickasaw, Alabama.

3. The defendant has never housed a Negro tenant.

4. From December 11, 1962 until the present, the defendant has enforced a "citizenship requirement" providing that only "citizens" of Chickasaw, Alabama are eligible for housing in the defendant housing authority's units.

5. The City of Chickasaw was incorporated as a City in 1946 under Alabama law.

6. The City of Chickasaw is located in Mobile County, approximately five miles from downtown Mobile, and it borders the City of Prichard.

7. The population of the City of Chickasaw is about 8,000; the population of the City of Prichard is about 40,000; the population of the City of Mobile is 205,000.

8. No Negroes currently live in the City of Chickasaw. With the exception of one family who lived in Chickasaw for two weeks, see infra 103-121, no Negroes have resided in the City of Chickasaw since World War II.

9. According to the 1970 census, .3% of the population of Chickasaw is Negro.

10. According to the 1960 census, .03% of the population of Chickasaw was Negro.

11. According to the 1950 census, .04% of the population of Chickasaw was Negro.

12. According to the 1970 census, 50.5% of the population of Prichard is Negro.

13. According to the 1960 census, 47.1% of the population of Prichard was Negro.

14. According to the 1970 census, 32.3% of the population of Mobile County is Negro.

15. According to the 1960 census, 32.1% of the population of Mobile County was Negro.

16. The Commissioners of the Chickasaw Housing Authority are aware of the approximate racial composition of the cities of Mobile and Prichard and of Mobile County. They are also aware that the Prichard Housing Authority houses primarily Negro persons.

17. Like other public housing authorities, the defendant provides housing for low income individuals and families and enforces a maximum limit on the income an applicant or family unit can earn and still be eligible for housing.

18. According to the 1970 census, 59.4% of the population of Mobile County who receive less than 125% of poverty-level income are Negro.

19. According to the 1970 census, 72.0% of the population of Prichard who receive less than 125% of poverty-level income are Negro.

20. When adopted initially, the citizenship requirement excluded all qualified Negro applicants residing in Mobile County from living in the defendant Housing Authority's units.

21. At all times since its adoption in 1962, the citizenship requirement has excluded all otherwise qualified Negroes from living in the defendant's housing authority.

22. In August 1961, Mayor J. C. Davis selected the five original members of defendant's Board of Commissioners: C. E. Burrell, Aldon L. Smith, James Q. Yance, Jesse T. Miller and Julian H. Livings, who was the first chairman of the defendant Housing Authority.

The Minutes of the Chickasaw Housing Authority meeting of August 10, 1961 (Pl. Ex. # 2) shows that in forming a public housing authority under Alabama law, Mayor Davis and the City Council of the City of Chickasaw had to and did determine that a need for public housing existed within ten square miles of the City of Chickasaw.

23. The Mayor formed the Housing Authority for the purpose of acquiring control over Gulf Homes, a development of about 600 units of public housing located in the City of Chickasaw, from the Mobile Housing Board.

24. At the time the defendant took over Gulf Homes in January, 1963, none of the tenants were Negro.

25. The federal government built Gulf Homes under the Lanham Act during World War II. After the war, this housing was turned over for management to the Mobile Housing Board, then the only public housing authority in Mobile County.

26. The Mayor and the Board of Commissioners of the defendant Authority have stated the following reasons for acquiring Gulf Homes:

(a) They wanted to stop the Mobile Housing Board from "dumping social undesirables" in Gulf Homes;

(b) The tenants of Gulf Homes were causing many altercations which burdened the local police force;

(c) Gulf Homes had become an eyesore badly in need of repair;

(d) The project would better serve the residents of Chickasaw and would be run more efficiently if managed locally;

(e) The City of Chickasaw should control whatever public housing existed within its boundaries.

27. According to the trial testimony of James A. Alexander, Executive Director of the Mobile Housing Board, the Mobile Housing Board did not "dump social undesirables" in Gulf Homes. In fact, the Mobile Housing Board did not assign persons to Gulf Homes; instead, prospective tenants applied directly at Gulf Homes for housing.

28. As operated by the Mobile Housing Board, Gulf Homes was open to citizens of Chickasaw who desired housing therein.

29. When it took over the operation of Gulf Homes in January, 1963, the Board of Commissioners of the Chickasaw Housing Authority was aware of rules promulgated by the Public Housing Administration which allowed it to evict tenants who threatened the welfare of other residents. Mr. Burke E. Langham, the Authority's Executive Director, used this authority to evict such tenants beginning in January 1963. The Housing Authority also had the authority to screen tenants to insure that it did not house persons who had a history of causing disturbances or problems for others.

30. In January, 1962, the Mobile Housing Board, through James Alexander, its Executive Director, requested assurance from the Chickasaw Housing Authority that the City of Chickasaw was prepared to subsidize the operations of the Chickasaw Housing Authority. In the spring of 1962, the Public Housing Administration requested similar assurances. In June and July, 1962, Chickasaw City Attorney William McDermott provided two legal opinions in which he stated that the City of Chickasaw did have the legal authority to subsidize and support the Chickasaw Housing Authority. Mr. McDermott did not mention in either opinion that such financial support from the City of Chickasaw could be provided only if the Housing Authority served only residents of the City of Chickasaw. At the time these two opinions were offered, the Chickasaw Housing Authority had not adopted or discussed the citizenship requirement.

31. According to the minutes of the Board of Commissioners meeting of November 8, 1962, Mayor Davis appeared before the Commissioners of the Chickasaw Housing Authority and stated that the City was prepared to give the Housing Authority $61,398.00 as an "outright gift". The Housing Authority had asked for this money so it could pay off an administrative loan owed by the Mobile Housing Board to the Public Housing Administration. The Chickasaw Housing Authority had not adopted the citizenship requirement as of November 8, 1962.

32. Mayor Davis did not condition the city's financial support of the Housing Authority in any way on the Housing Authority's adoption of a "citizenship requirement". Indeed, the Commissioners of the Housing Authority adopted the citizenship requirement after receiving the sum of $61,398.00 from the city.

33. The Public Housing Administration, the predecessor of HUD, supervised and approved the transfer of the management of Gulf Homes from the Mobile Housing Board to the defendant.

34. When the defendant undertook management of Gulf Homes in January, 1963, its Commissioners understood that the Public Housing Administration would finance the demolition of Gulf Homes and the construction of new public housing units on the same site. During the next several years, starting in 1965, the defendant authority replaced the more than 600 units of Gulf Homes with the current 309 units of public housing using funds provided by the Public Housing Administration.

35. In renovating Gulf Homes, the Chickasaw Housing Authority did not build the total number of units which the Public Housing Administration concluded should be constructed in light of prevailing need.

36. Like other public housing authorities, the defendant has operated with monies it receives as rents from its tenants and with annual subsidies from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

37. In mid-December, 1962, the Mayor and Mr. Livings signed a cooperation agreement, sent by the Public Housing Administration, which outlined the city's responsibilities to the Housing Authority. The mayor of the city and the chairman of the Housing Authority both knew that the document had to be signed as a condition of federal financial assistance. Among its responsibilities, the city promised to provide all services to the Housing Authority which it provided to other persons and institutions within the city limits. It also promised to deed and vacate all streets and other territory within the limits of the Housing Authority and fulfill its obligations to the tenants of the Housing Authority regardless of whether the Chickasaw Housing Authority or some other governmental institution operated the housing.

38. The vast majority of the measures taken by the city in support of the Chickasaw Housing Authority and referred to at the trial of this matter by Mayor Davis and the Commissioners of the Housing Authority are required by the terms of the cooperation agreement. Most of the present and...