Sec. 515 prepayment blocked in Arkansas

The Eighth Circuit ruled on Thursday in Charleston Housing Authority v. USDA that an Arkansas public housing authority was properly barred under the Emergency Low Income Housing Preservation Act (ELIHPA) from prepaying a Sec. 515 loan on an apartment complex that it hoped to demolish. Tenants and an advocacy group, Housing Comes First, opposed the prepayment. They obtained district court orders finding that the housing authority had failed in its obligation under the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 to "affirmatively further fair housing" and that it had violated the Fair Housing Act through disparate-impact racial discrimination against African Americans. The district court further ordered the housing authority to "reopen" the disputed apartments and "give priority to former residents who wished to return." The appellate court upheld these orders but did ask the district court to let the tenants and the housing authority submit evidence of circumstances that might have changed during litigation, apparently including the housing authority's statement that it had dropped its original plans to demolish the apartments for the purpose of "deconcentration."

The National Housing Law Project (NHLP), together with two Missouri legal service offices, assisted the tenants. It greeted the decision as a victory upholding the validity of ELIHPA. NHLP's statement said of the decision, "In upholding ELIHPA, it stakes out a clear, contrary position to those suggested in recent decisions by lower federal courts in Idaho and Oregon."