Fair Housing

CHICAGO - In an ambitious program said to be the first of its kind in the nation, a local agency is training suburban immigrants to become fair-housing advocates, able to identify discrimination and negotiate with local governments throughout the six-county Chicago area. The Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities hopes immigrants will be capable of working independently of fair-housing organizations, which are overwhelmed by the large number of cases in far-flung suburban areas.

Dickens W. Warfield, a psychologist who as associate director of Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. became an outspoken advocate for fair housing, died Oct. 21 of liver cancer at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. The former longtime Towson resident was 86. The daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker, Dickens Waddell was born in Detroit, and later moved with her family to Pittsburgh, where she attended what is now Carnegie Mellon University for two years. After the death in 1944 of her father, she and her mother moved to Roland Park, where she enrolled at Goucher College and was a 1946 Phi Beta Kappa graduate, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology.

For the second time in less than a year, a fair-housing advocacy organization has filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming racial discrimination by a company that owns 24 apartment complexes in the Baltimore region. Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. is suing the national company Home Properties, claiming that in December and March, agents at Fox Hall Apartments in Nottingham showed more apartments and offered a lower price to white than black "testers" sent to check rental practices at the eastern Baltimore County complex.

Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc., a nonprofit housing advocacy group, filed suit yesterday in federal court against the developer of Saybrooke at Seven Oaks in Anne Arundel County for allegedly failing to comply with the accessibility requirements of the federal Fair Housing Act.In 1988, Congress amended the Fair Housing Act to require all multifamily housing of four or more units first occupied after March 1991 to meet accessibility requirements for people with...

Fair housing summit slated this weekThe first statewide Fair Housing Planning Symposium/Civil Rights Summit will be held by a group of public and nonprofit organizations, Wednesday through Friday at the USF&G Mount Washington conference center. Registration is $40 per person and includes lunch, books and materials.The event will provide training and technical assistance on fair housing planning. The conference will also focus on barriers to fair housing, such as bias, housing and employment discrimination, and housing issues that affect individuals with disabilities.

WASHINGTON - Linda Gagne and her husband, Alfred, thought they had found the perfect apartment in San Bruno, Calif. But when the couple met the landlord, she took one look at Gagne's guide dog and said she would not rent to them because of a strict no-pets policy. Gagne explained that her guide dog was not a pet, but rather a companion trained to assist her because she is blind. When the landlord still refused, Gagne decided to file a housing-discrimination complaint. The Gagnes are among the thousands of people across the United States who are victims of housing discrimination, according to a report released yesterday by the National Fair Housing Alliance.

PHILADELPHIA -- When it comes to housing discrimination, Realtors say they've gone from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.Years ago, real estate salespeople would typically follow the wishes of the neighborhoods, steering some racial groups away from buying homes in certain areas while encouraging others.Then came federal fair-housing laws, and state and local statutes designed to halt housing discrimination.Slowly, practices began to change, though no one, not even the Realtors, will tell you that everyone today strictly adheres to those laws.

In Baltimore County Man severely burned in explosion while working on his boat PARKVILLE -- A man who was working on the ignition system of his gasoline-powered fishing boat was severely burned from the waist up yesterday in an explosion, said a county Fire Department spokesman. John Kraupa, 47, whose address was not available, suffered second- and third-degree burns in the incident at 6: 30 p.m. and was in critical condition in the burn unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, said Lt. Robert Rossman.

CONDOMINIUM and apartment developers across the country are about to get a major civil rights wake-up call from the federal government. Justice Department investigators have concluded that there is widespread noncompliance with the handicapped-accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act, thereby illegally denying large numbers of homebuyers and renters the right to live where they choose.Justice Department lawyers currently are in negotiations with more than two dozen building firms in the Chicago metropolitan area over alleged violations of the accessibility rules.