At the onset of winter, as this community grapples with a severe lack of housing, Salinas has "a major problem" with discrimination against families with children who are looking for a place to rent.
That's the assessment of a fair housing advocate which this month filed a federal complaint against one local landlord with plans to file against more.
The complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by Project Sentinel, based in the Bay Area. The complaint alleges that a Salinas landlord is discriminating against families with children.
The name of the real estate and property management company was not released to the public because negotiations for settlement of the complaint may continue once the company is advised by HUD, Christina Nguyen of Project Sentinel said Monday. If a settlement is reached, the complaint is dismissed.
The complaint describes the landlord as manager of more than 200 units in Monterey County.
The complaint alleges that the company discriminates against families with children by limiting occupancy to two people or fewer per bedroom at properties situated in Salinas.
"It's a major problem down there," said Stephanie Rabiner, Project Sentinel's senior fair housing coordinator. "No one has provided fair housing services (in Salinas) for some time."
She said her agency has investigated seven or eight major landlords in the Salinas area -- mostly management companies that manage a lot of properties. She said they received complaints about five of them from some of the tenants. Project Sentinel first meets with landlords to inform them about housing laws and regulations in an attempt to solve problems.Unresolved issues may lead to a formal complaint.
The agency also tests for discrimination, said Rabiner. Decoy couples are sent to apply for rentals -- some with and some without children -- to see if companies apply policies equally across the board.
“Unlawful occupancy policies are of particular concern in Salinas, where families are larger and have more children than in the rest of California,” Project Sentinel Executive Director Ann Marquart said in a news release.
“Unreasonably restricting the number of tenants makes it difficult for families with children to find safe and affordable housing that is located near good schools and community resources,” added Marquart.
Project Sentinel has been operating in Monterey County since 2014. Since then, 80 percent of the agency’s investigations have produced evidence of housing discrimination against families with children, officials said. The fair housing advocate’s investigations in the Salinas rental housing market is financed in part by HUD, the city of Salinas and Monterey County.
On Monday, city planning manager Anastacia Wyatt confirmed that Salinas has provided Project Sentinel $20,000 in the past two years to conduct its inquiries.
Low- to moderate-income families with children face a lack of affordable housing everywhere, especially when searching for housing in Salinas with the added hardship of housing discrimination, said Marquart. Often these families are told to rent a larger unit they don’t need and cannot afford, she added.
Recent rental market figures show that Salinas has one of the fastest rising rental prices in the state. In the past year, the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment soared by 17.2 percent to $1,180.
In Salinas, Project Sentinel’s investigation revealed that the landlord “unlawfully restricts the number of occupants per unit, regardless of the unit’s square footage, features, or whether there is space that could reasonably be used as an additional bedroom for a child.
“The (landlord) also enforces its policy without regard to the California Health and Safety Code, which sets the number of persons per unit based on square footage. As a result … a family of six with three children and a grandparent were denied an affordable 3-bedroom home in a desirable neighborhood, and a single parent with two children were denied a 1-bedroom unit.”
Project Sentinel recently settled a complaint against a property management company that manages over 500 units throughout the county. The settlement included $14,000 in damages, a change in policy, and fair housing education for its staff. The company also limited occupancy to two persons per bedroom without consideration of unit size, layout, or the age of occupants.
The agency has also received reports of Salinas landlords prohibiting children from playing outside at rental properties. While housing providers are entitled to impose reasonable safety rules, rules restricting children from playing on the property or making noise are a form of discrimination, said Nguyen.
FAIR USE NOTICE. Tenants Together is not the author of this article and the posting of this document does not imply any endorsement of the content by Tenants Together. This document may contain copyrighted material the use of which may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Tenants Together is making this article available on our website in an effort to advance the understanding of tenant rights issues in California. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.