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Black public housing tenants have been systematically consigned to segregated, poor neighborhoods of Baltimore City as a result of the policies of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a federal judge concluded on Thursday. By not placing more public housing residents in suburban counties, HUD has failed to meet its obligations under the Fair Housing Act, Judge Marvin J. Garbis of Federal District Court ruled in a decade-old civil rights lawsuit. Judge Garbis's decision is the latest turn in nationwide efforts intended to reverse public housing policy that has historically sent public housing tenants to poor neighborhoods consisting of minority residents. In the 322-page decision, Judge Garbis said HUD must adopt a "regional approach" to public housing that would disperse poor, black residents instead of concentrating them in city neighborhoods. The decision came in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against HUD, the Baltimore Housing Authority and elected city officials. The suit, filed on behalf of 14,000 Baltimore public housing tenants, claimed local and federal government policies had created "black ghettos." Judge Garbis ruled that the plaintiffs did not prove their claim that the City of Baltimore had failed to take adequate steps to try to reverse the effects of previous race discrimination in public housing. But the judge rebuked HUD for not ensuring public housing "free from discrimination." He said "Baltimore City should not be viewed as an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region" that includes surrounding counties." [more]

Md. Judge Rules on Housing Desegregation [more]