Sec. 8 tenant's civil rights claim rejected

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a civil rights lawsuit by a former Sec. 8 voucher tenant against the Detroit Housing Commission.

The tenant, Oliver Caswell, was sued for eviction by his private landlord, who alleged he was not keeping his apartment clean. While this court case was pending, Carswell also lost his Sec. 8 rent subsidy as a result of an administrative hearing where he represented himself. Caswell beat the underlying eviction case and won the right to remain in his apartment, but he later became homeless because he could not afford the full rent without his former subsidy. He sued the Housing Commission in federal court under the venerable 42 U.S.C. 1983, which alleges deprivation of civil rights under color of law, claiming that housing officials denied him procedural due process at the hearing and violated his rights under 24 CFR 982.311(b) by stopping his subsidy while the eviction case was still pending.

Both the trial court and the appellate court have now thrown out Caswell's claims. In this week's decision, the 6th Circuit rejected the due process allegations and held that Sec. 982.311(b) did not clearly entitle a tenant to continue receiving payments during an eviction proceeding.