HUD: Single mother refused housing because of no man to shovel snow:

[elocs]

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/article_5666d936-da9e-11e0-84e1-001cc4c03286.html

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Develop-ment has accused a West Salem landlord of violating the Fair Housing Act for refusing to rent to a single mother because she didn’t have a man “to shovel the snow.”

According to the charge against Dovenberg Investments, the unnamed woman answered an Internet ad in October 2010 for a two-bedroom home on a cattle farm in the Irish Coulee area.
When asked how many people would be living there, she answered just herself and her child.

Darlene Dovenberg said she wouldn’t rent to the woman because she didn’t have a man to help, according to the charge. Dovenberg later rented the house to two men.

The woman told housing authorities she wanted to live in the house because it was cheaper than her current rent, closer to her job in La Crosse and in a school district where her disabled son would have better services.

I wonder what political party Darlene backs?

[muffin1]

1. Two men? Tell me, who on earth will clean the place??

:sarcasm:

[OneGrassRoot]

2. Whew, I read the subject line differently; that the mother refused housing. n/t

[elocs]

6. Yeah, I can see how you might do that. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

3. Obviously discriminatory. That said, if I was a single mom of a disabled child, I would

not want to live on a rural property with no neighbors close by, and have to snow-plow my way out to the road. I own some rural property--if we lived on it, we'd have to invest in a plow for our pickup truck. But the prospective renter should have been warned that she would be responsible for snow removal, and then still given the option of renting.

[Xithras]

9. Many people raised in towns have no idea.

I used to own a small vacation rental in the Sierra's (bought it for myself, rented it out to vacationers when I wasn't using it). One summer we had a couple with kids from the SF Bay Area buy the property next door, and they were planning on making it their full time residence. The dad wanted to raise his kids "in the clean mountain air, without the crime, traffic, and smog". Well, after our first snow, I drove up to secure my house for the winter (snow was unexpected, and the pipes weren't drained) and found my new neighbors fuming on their front porch. Apparently they thought that it was the COUNTIES job to clear the snow off their 100 foot long driveway, and were furious to discover that they had to do it themselves. They didn't even have a snow shovel, and were out there trying to do it with a spade.

They'd moved back to the Bay Area by December, and ended up using the house as a vacation rental like mine.

That said, in reference to the OP, the landlord had no right to deny her housing. I was a landlord for many years, and if I'd been in that situation I would have simply made the tenant aware of the severity of the problem, and would have probably made an offer to help deal with it (e.g., most areas have professional snow clearing services, and I'd have offered to roll the cost of the coverage into her rent...for an extra $50 a month, she'd never have had to touch a shovel).

This landlord isn't going to be happy dealing with HUD. I once knew a guy who thought his tenants were there to flirt and sleep with. When one of them finally got HUD involved, he was pretty unrepentant "It's a free country and I can flirt if I want...they can always say no." By the time they were done with him, he had to sell two of his properties to pay the fines, an independent property management company was put in charge of the rest (taking a percentage of the rent to cover their expenses/profit), and he was banned from ever directly contacting a tenant again.

That's what needs to happen to this lady.

[TwilightGardener]

13. I hope they take her to task. Her problem was one of "can't shut the hell up"--

she could have left it at "I don't think my property is suitable for a single mother with a disabled kid", as if she was acting in the renter's best interests. She would have still been wrong and should have been fined, but adding that she won't rent to single moms and that they're causing America's downfall or whatever was just BEYOND stupid. RE your vacation property area--my husband and I considered buying our home in the mountains, he would have still been able to commute to work. Then he talked to a guy that lived at high elevation year round, near where we were looking at houses, and we decided that 9 months of possible winter conditions and snow chains didn't sound like all that much fun. The mountains, they suck you in during summer vacations--many don't realize how harsh the living can be the rest of the year.

[HappyMe]

4. What the hell!

Vicious bag. Darlene needs a shovel and a ladder to dig her way out of the big hole she dug herself.

[elocs]

5. “If she thinks I discriminated against her, I absolutely did,” Dovenberg said,

according to the complaint.

Brilliant, simply brilliant.

Dovenberg, who manages six rental properties, told housing authorities she never rents to single mothers, especially not in the country, and had no plans to change. She went on to complain that single mothers are part of the country’s financial problems and were not a problem in the 1960s and 70s.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. I did research on Fair Housing law compliance and this doesn't surprise me.

Some of the violators just make it easy for the investigators.

[LiberalFighter]

10. She thinks just single women are the problem?

How does she think they are single with kids?

What about all the men that agreed to have sex with women without any intention of marrying?

I agree that there are women that don't consider the consequences especially when they are young and vulnerable to the words and strength of men. BUT men don't get pregnant.

And there are of course bad women too.

[krispos42]

11. And what happens when her husband leaves her for somebody...

...with a trace of warmth and human compassion?



I'd like to see her evict herself from her own house.

[LeftinOH]

8. ..and supposing the two men don't shovel snow, either?

[a la izquierda]

12. Oooh, this makes my blood boil.

I grew up in a house with a single mom, her female partner, and two younger sisters. I'm a female. You know who shoveled all the f'in snow in the winter (I live in NJ and boy do we get some doozies)? I DID.
Stupid bitch.