Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

The United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Tex. Dep’t of Hous. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 2015 WL 2473449, — U.S. — (2015), upholding disparate impact claims under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. §3601 et seq. The case involved a challenge to criteria used by a state agency on where to give tax credits that subsidize construction of  low-income housing. Plaintiff is a nonprofit organization that promotes housing for low-income families. It claimed that the agency’s formula steered housing to poorer areas and thus perpetuated or aggravated racial segregation in housing. The specific question taken by the Supreme Court was whether disparate impact claims are at all available under the Fair Housing Act. The Court decided that they are but limited them because of constitutional principles.

The Court noted that earlier cases had upheld disparate impact claims in employment discrimination when the statutes focused on consequences of actions rather than just motivation. Those statutes were Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. The FHA makes it unlawful to “otherwise make unavailable” housing because of race or other characteristics. 42 U.S.C. §3604(a). That wording refers to consequences and thus supports a disparate impact approach. The mere fact that the statute makes actions illegal if they are undertaken “because of race” does not mean the statute requires a showing of intentional discrimination. Moreover, the 1988 amendments to the Fair Housing Act (which added “handicap” as a protected class among other things) showed that Congress approved of the uniform case law that had interpreted the FHA to include a disparate impact claim. Justice Kennedy’s opinion refers to Congress’s explicit consideration of disparate impact claims by reference to  legislative history and its rejection of a proposed amendment that would have eliminated disparate impact claims. Moreover, the 1988 Act included 3 exemptions from disparate impact claims that would have been superfluous had they not been available. For example, the 1988 amendments provided that “[n]othing in [the FHA] limits the applicability of any reasonable . . . restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling.” 42 U.S.C. §3607(b)(1).

At the same time, the Court held that the Constitution prohibits enforcing a disparate impact claim based solely on statistical evidence of a disparity; rather, plaintiffs must show that defendant’s policy causes the disparity and that “there is an alternative practice that has less disparate impact and serves the [defendant’s] legitimate needs.” Because actors must be able to achieve legitimate government or private policies, such policies are not contrary to the disparate-impact requirement unless they are “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers” to equal access to housing. Mainly because of this limitation on the applicability of disparate impact claims, the Court remanded for consideration of whether the Texas policies met this standard.

Remedial orders must be limited to eliminating the offending practice and should be race-neutral where possible.

The Court’s recognition of disparate impact claims preserves their function in the context of zoning laws. In explaining the “discriminatory practices” the disparate impact claim was intended to eradicate, the Court explained: “These unlawful practices include zoning laws and other housing restrictions that function unfairly to exclude minorities from certain neighborhoods without any sufficient justification. Suits targeting such practices reside at the heartland of disparate-impact liability,” (citing the foundational case of Huntington Branch, NAACP v. Huntington, 844 F. 2d 926, 935–936 (2d Cir 1988), among other cases).

Importantly, the Court clarified that disparate impact claims are available against both private and governmental defendants, rejecting a theory that at least one Circuit had adopted in the past.

It appears that the recent regulations of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that define disparate impact claims are largely consistent with the Supreme Court’s analysis but whether that is actually so may need to await further litigation. Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Discriminatory Effects Standard, 78 Fed. Reg. 11460 (2013), 24 C.F.R. §100.500.

The Supreme Court has taken certiorari in a Fifth Circuit case to address the question of whether disparate impact claims are available under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. §§3601 et seq. Tex. Dep’t of Hous. & Comty. Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 46 (2014), on appeal from The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. v. Tex. Dep’t of Hous. & Comty. Affairs, 747 F.3d 275 (5th Cir. 2014). All federal Circuit Courts to address the issue have found such claims to be available and the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs has fairly recently promulgated a regulation defining the test for disparate impact claims under the FHA. 24 Code Fed. Reg. Part 100, §§100.5 to 100.500.

A number of recent cases has revealed the persistence of racial discrimination affecting municipal decisions about housing. The Sixth Circuit found, for example, in Hidden Village, LLC v. City of Lakewood, Ohio, 734 F.3d 519 (6th Cir. 2013), that town officials may have engaged in a campaign of harassment designed to induce African American residents to move out of town. The case involved a Lutheran religious organization that helped young people released from foster care or juvenile detention to enter society. The organization found a helpful landlord willing to rent apartments to the organization’s clients. At first the town officials argued that this amounted to an institutional use in violation of the zoning law but the town planning commission found otherwise. At that point, the complaint alleges that town officials began a campaign of police harassment that involved citations for minor offenses and unreasonable searches of apartments.

The Sixth Circuit concluded that the landlord had standing to sue to claim violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. §§1981-1982 and the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3601 et seq. The court also held that plaintiffs had presented a viable substantive due process claim. The court noted that the due process clause “protects landlords against irrational restrictions on how they use their property. Rationality may be a low bar. But the government flunks even that test when it tries to prevent a landlord of any race from renting to tenants based on their race.

The court also found a potential violation of §3617 of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3617 which makes it illegal “to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of any right granted or protected [by the Fair Housing Act].” Although federal courts have been confused on the issue, the Sixth Circuit held that a §3617 violation could be shown even if there was no underlying violation of another section of the Fair Housing Act. In this case, for example, no one denied the youths housing or granted them discriminatory terms. Nonetheless, the facts sufficiently alleged that the town sought to interfere with their enjoyment of the right to obtain housing without regard to race.

In a second case, the Eastern District of New York held that a city violated the Fair Housing Act when it rezoned several parcels to prevent the building of low- and middle-income housing. The court found that the facts supported a finding of liability under both a discriminatory treatment and disparate impact theory. MHANY Mgmt Inc. v. Incorporated Village of Garden City, 2013 WL 6334107 (E.D.N.Y. 2013). read article The court found a discriminatory treatment claim (intentional racial discrimination) because there was sufficient evidence  to conclude that animus because of race was a significant factor in the denial of the housing opportunity. Evidence to that effect was shown by the fact that exclusion of low-income housing would impose a greater impact on African Americans than on whites, there was a history of racial bias in the city, and the sequence of events leading up to the denial of the housing opportunity that suggested a racially discriminatory motive. Although the city gave legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for the change in the zoning law, the plaintiffs undermined those justifications by showing that the proposed development would not significantly affect traffic and that other reasons given by the city were not supported by the available evidence. The court thus found that the proffered justifications were pretextual.

The court also found a disparate impact claim. Although the city gave legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for its decision (reducing traffic and providing for townhouse construction), it did not show that these goals could not be achieved in a less discriminatory manner or in a manner that did not perpetuate racial segregation.

The Supreme Court has twice in recent years accepted certiorari in cases to decide whether disparate impact claims are available under the Fair Housing Act. Both cases settled before the Supreme Court could determine the issue. The most recent was Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc. v. Twp. of Mt. Holly, 658 F.3d 375 (3d Cir. 2011). The prior case was Gallagher v. Magner, 619 F.3d 823 (8th Cir. 2010). Another lawsuit is in process called Am. Ins. Ass’n v. U.S. Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev. (D.D.C., filed 06.26.13),  brought by the insurance industry to challenge the disparate impact regulations promulgated this year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). read article Those regulations define when disparate impact claims are available and are consistent with the general outlines of the doctrine as it been developed by all the Circuit courts.  24 C.F.R. § 100.500(a)–(b).

The Sixth Circuit has held that §3617 of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3601 et seq., prohibits conduct intended to encourage residents to move even if they are not denied housing or induced to move. Hidden Village, LLC v. City of Lakewood, 2013 WL 5811642 (6th Cir. 2013). The basic provisions of the FHA (embodied in §3604) prohibit denying housing for discriminatory reasons, providing unequal and discriminatory terms and conditions for housing, and expressing an invidious preference for buyers or renters of a particular race, sex, etc. Section 3617 prohibits coercion, intimidation, threats, or any interference with any person’s right to exercise the fair housing rights protected by 3604. Federal courts have been confused and divided over whether §3617 provides a remedy when there is no underlying §3604 violation.

In Hidden Village, municipal officials were unhappy with a religious youth service that helps young people released from foster care or juvenile detention enter society. It planned to house its clients in apartments leased from a private landlord. Following a zoning controversy over whether the use was a lawful “residential” use or a prohibited “institutional” use, municipal officials engaged in a campaign to make life difficult for the charity’s beneficiaries by issuing numerous citations for minor offenses and conducting a warrantless search of the housing premises.

The Sixth Circuit acknowledged that there had been uncertainty about the meaning of §3617 but held that it prohibits conduct intended to interfere with someone’s ability to obtain or enjoy housing whether or not there is an independent violation of one of the terms of §3604. The Court explained:

“[D]efendants argue that they may not be charged with violating § 3617 unless they separately violated at least one of the provisions in §§ 3603–3606. We disagree. Section 3617 nowhere says that it comes into play only when a violation of one of these other sections has also occurred. An example confirms the freestanding nature of some § 3617 claims. Suppose Alice says to Bob, a prospective home buyer, “If a seller ever discriminates against you because of your race, sue him!” Eve, a racist eavesdropper, becomes enraged upon hearing this conversation and threatens to assault Alice. At this point, Eve has violated § 3617, regardless of whether she discriminated against Bob or otherwise violated the fair housing rights secured by §§ 3603–3606. Eve has “threaten[ed] … [a] person,” namely Alice. And this threat was “on account of [Alice’s] having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of [a fair housing right].” Eve threatened Alice because Alice had encouraged Bob to protect himself against discrimination relating to housing. The statute requires no more.”

The Ninth Circuit affirmed that an action intended to discriminate in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) creates a claim for which relief can be granted even if it has not had any other impact on the plaintiff. Pac. Shores Props., LLC v. City of Newport Beach, 2013 WL 5289100 (9th Cir. 2013). In this case, a city passed an ordinance intended to exclude group homes for recovering alcohol and drug users; it had terms that had the practical effect of prohibiting group homes from opening in most residential areas. The court held that a claim could be brought even if the plaintiff could not prove that the ordinance actually prevented it from acquiring property and operating. The ruling tracks prior case law which allow a damages claim for a prospective tenant denied housing because of her race even if she finds an apartment across the street five minutes later that is cheaper and better. Zoning practices that discriminate against individuals with disabilities can be discriminatory and violate the FHA if they contribute to making unavailable or denying housing to those persons.

The Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has issued final regulations defining the standards to make a claim that a neutral policy has a disparate impact on a protected group in a manner that constitutes unlawful discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3601 et seq. The regulations are at 24 C.F.R. 100.500 and can be found here. The rule affirms that disparate impact claims are available under the Fair Housing Act and identifies an approach to proving them to respond to the variation that exists among Circuits on what the legal test is for disparate impact in this area. Here is the test:

The Rhode Island legislature passed a statute likely to be signed by the Governor called the “Homeless Bill of Rights.” The act amends Rhode Island’s fair housing law by adding “housing status” to the list of prohibited kinds of discrimination and defines housing status to mean “the status of having or not having a fixed or regular residence, including the status of living on the streets or in a homeless shelter or similar temporary residence.” It guarantees access to public spaces (including sidewalks and public buildings) on the same terms as others and grants a certain amount of protection for the personal property of the homeless. The law also ensures that public services are available to homeless persons. The bill is S 2052 Substitute B (2012) and it will amend R.I. Gen. Laws ch. 34 by adding §§34-37.1-1 to 34-37.1-5 and amending §§34-37-1 and 34-37-3.

On May 8, 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan announced a $2 million settlement by a landlord, his building superintendent and the superintendent’s son to pay fines to tenants who were sexually harassed by the superintendent. The building superintendent was a convicted sex offender who served 14 years in prison for molesting or raping 3 girls and a woman before being hired by the landlord to run three buildings. The superintendent would enter women’s apartments while drunk and demand sex, retaliating when he did not get his way. Both the landlord and the superintendent are also barred by the agreement from owning or managing occupied properties. read article

The Ninth Circuit ruled in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate, LLC, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1971 (9th Cir. 2012), that the Fair Housing does not regulate roommate choices or advertisements expressing preferences with respect to roommates, dismissing a claim against Roommate.com, a website that allowed individuals to place ads stating preferences based on sex, sexual orientation, religion, and familial status in connection with roommate searches. The opinion by Judge Alex Kozinski noted that the Fair Housing Act regulates “dwellings” which are defined to include “any building, structure, or portion thereof which is occupied as, or designed or intended for occupancy as, a residence by one or more families.” 42 U.S.C. §3602(b)(emphasis added by this editor). Despite the “or portion thereof” language, the court noted that the constitution protects rights of intimate association and that it would be unconstitutional to restrict roommate choices so the statute should be read to preclude such regulation if possible. Since the statute could be interpreted to regulate only the transfer of an “independent living unit” rather than shared space, and doing so would avoid constitutional problems, that is how the court interpreted the “portion thereof” language. The court also held that advertisements that express preferences that would otherwise be discriminatory are lawful in the roommate context since §3604(c) prohibits ads that “indicate any [discriminatory] preference…with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling” and “dwelling” does not include shared living space, there is no prohibition against discriminatory roommate ads. This suggests that it is lawful to place an ad that expresses racial preferences as well as preference with respect to sex, sexual orientation, religion or familial status as long as the space is shared rather than transferred. At the same time, that fact situation was not addressed by the court because Roommate.com does not seek such information.

A recent Alabama immigration statute was held preempted by the Fair Housing Act because it required many mobile home owners to pay for a government-issued decal while prohibiting undocumented residents from making payments to government officials. In Central Alabama Fair Housing Center v. Magee, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142788 (D. Ala. 2011), the federal District Court judge found a violation of the federal fair housing law because there was sufficient evidence of discriminatory intent by legislators against Latino residents (including legal residents) and because the law had a disparate impact on the Latino population without any legitimate government justification. Because the law made it illegal to drive or possess a mobile home without a decal and registration and because it was illegal for undocumented residents to obtain the decal, the law effectively made such persons homeless. The court found the law preempted by federal immigration laws but also found a fair housing violation because the judge interpreted the FHA to protects any person without regard to immigration status. Because a greater percentage of Latinos would be affected by the statute than others, a disparate impact was present and because the Constitution gives the federal government (and not the states) the power to regulate immigration, the state could not demonstrate a legitimate government interest that could justify the disparate impact.

The Third Circuit has ruled in Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action Inc. v. Mount Holly, N.J., 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 18840 (3d Cir. 2011) that plaintiffs presented sufficient statistical evidence to constitute a prima facie case that displacement of low-income residents from an area slated for redevelopment would have a disparate impact on African American and Latino residents. The court clarified that no evidence of intent to discriminate was needed to bring a disparate impact claim, clarifying ambiguities on this score created by the Third Circuit’s earlier decision, Resident Advisory Bd. v. Rizzo, 564 F.2d 126 (3d Cir. 1977). The court accepted the town’s justification that its redevelopment plan was geared to remove blight but held that the town had a duty to show that no less discriminatory alternative could achieve that goal.

Attorney General Martha Coakley announced that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts settled a lawsuit with a subprime mortgage lender that originated subprime mortgages it knew were likely to fail and which not only targeted African American and Latino borrowers but gave its employees discretion to charge higher fees to such borrowers. The company will pay a penalty of almost $10 million to the Commonwealth and will direct its mortgage servicer to modify $115 million in loans either by writing down the principal balance of lowering interest rates. read article The settlement is based on the legal ruling in the earlier case of Commonwealth v. Fremont Inv. & Loan, 897 N.E.2d 548 (Mass. 2008), which held that it might violate the state consumer protection act to market mortgages that were almost certain to end in foreclosure.

In Quigley v. Winter, 598 F.3d 938 (8th Cir. 2010),the Eighth Circuit upheld a trial court ruling that landlord sexually harassed tenant in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), but it affirmed the  trial court’s reduction of the jury’s punitive damages award. The jury awarded $13,685 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. The trial court reduced the punitive damages award to $20,527.50.

The landlord engaged in a variety of inappropriate behavior, rubbing tenant’s arm, standing close to her and rubbing his genital area, following tenant and her sister into the bedroom while conducting an inspection and they were in their pajamas and then refusing to leave until asked to do so three times, calling tenant while drunk at 2:30 or 3:00 am.  The Eighth Circuit held that a claim for hostile housing environment created by sexual harassment is actionable under the FHA, that there was sufficient evidence to find that landlord’s conduct in tenant’s home rose to that level, and that landlord had engaged in quid pro quo harassment by suggesting tenant undress for him to get her security deposit back. The court also found a violation of 42 U.S.C. §3617 when landlord engaged in coercion, intimidation, and interference with tenant’s enjoyment of her housing rights.

However, the court approved the trial judge’s reduction of the punitive damages award from $250,000 to $$20,527.50 on the basis of Supreme Court precedents holding it violates due process to award punitive damages claims that are out of proportion to actual damages. See, e.g., State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003);  BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996). While the court found landlord’s conduct “reprehensible,” it did not find the degree of reprehensibility to justify a punitive damages award eighteen times the compensatory damages. The Eighth Circuit agreed with the trial judge that an award one and a half times the compensatory damages sufficiently reflected the reprehensibility of landlord’s conduct.

The Supreme Court ruled in Sossamon v. Texas, 2011 U.S. LEXIS 3187 (U.S. 2011), that Congress did not waive the sovereign immunity of the United States when it passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). This means that the only relief available against federal officials for violating the statutorily protected religious freedom rights of federal prisoners is prospective injunctive relief; no damages can be awarded for federal violations of the act. A similar result would apply to land owners whose land use rights are violated by federal officials. The case, however, was not against federal office but state prison officials in a state that accepted federal money to fund its prisons. The precise holding in the case was that prisoners cannot sue such states for damages when those states deprive inmates in state prisons of religious free exercise rights. A similar result could be expected for claims for damages against states and municipalities; such relief appears now to be foreclosed. Of course, states are free to waive their sovereign immunity by clear legislation if they wish to do so.

A tenant with AIDS and related illnesses won $25,000 in emotional distress damages from his landlord for refusing to make an exception to a no-pets policy to allow the tenant to live with his emotional support dog. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination made the award and ordered the landlord to allow the dog as a reasonable accommodation to his disability which included depression and anxiety. The landlord was also fined $5,000. read article

South Middlesex Opportunity Council, Inc. v. Town of Framingham, 2010 WL 3607481 (D. Mass. 2010).

In this case, Judge Douglas Woodlock allowed a suit to proceed against a town and individual members of the town meeting, the board of selectmen and the town planning board in both their individual and official capacities alleging that defendants violated the Fair Housing Act by blocking plaintiff non-profit organizations from obtaining necessary approvals to establish housing to provide residential treatment and support to homeless and at-risk families, some of which were undergoing substance abuse rehabilitation and some of which may have had criminal histories. The court found that the town had repeatedly delayed in issuing permits and created other procedural hurdles and that evidence supported the allegation that the town did so for discriminatory reasons. The court found evidence of discriminatory statements by individual defendants and evidence of disparate treatment of similarly situated projects by the town. The court found sufficient evidence that could justify a finding that the town interfered with the plaintiff’s housing project in violation of §3617 of the Fair Housing Act. Finally, the court found that the defendants’ proffered justifications for their conduct were sufficient to send the question to the jury of whether the town had legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions but that the town’s evidence was not sufficient to conclude decisively that the town acted for nondiscriminatory reasons. The court found some of the proffered justifications to be illegitimate and others to be pretextual.

Following the summary judgment denial, the town settled with the plaintiffs for $1 million, although refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Read article.

Craigslist.org now is seeking to prevent discriminatory housing ads (including roommate ads) on its website by posting the following message before one is allowed to fill out a classified housing advertisement:

“Stating a discriminatory preference in a housing post is illegal, is prohibited on craigslist, and can be expensive:  you can be fined more than $10,000 for each discriminatory ad, plus damages in court, plus loss of license if you are a professional. Avoid phrases which could be interpreted as discriminating by race/color/origin (e.g. ‘hispanic area’), religion (e.g. ‘christian home’), age / familial status (e.g. ‘no kids’), disability, sexual orientation, or source of income. The words you choose can cost you – get the facts and avoid being prosecuted under fair housing law.”

Two Bronx communities organized as co-ops require references from three co-op members in order to buy units. After using testers, the Fair Housing Justice Center has filed a lawsuit arguing that this requirement has a discriminatory effect when existing co-op members are overwhelmingly white and when the requirement was not consistently applied. Read article.

A nonprofit organization named Mano en Mano that sought to build multi-family housing affordable by farm workers was stymied by a change in the town’s zoning law placing a moratorium on all multi-family housing. That change in the law may have been motivated by racially discriminatory motives (by at least some townspeople) against the mostly Latino farm worker population and the nonprofit organization has sued the town of Milbridge, Maine claiming that the change in the law violates the Fair Housing Act. For background on the case see here.

Perhaps in response to both the lawsuit and the publicity generated by the moratorium, the town voted on Nov. 16, 2009 to rescind the moratorium, allowing the construction of the housing project to go forward. Read article.

The federal courts cannot agree on the question of whether the Fair Housing Act (FHA) applies only to discrimination in acquiring or renting property or also applies to post-acquisition discrimination in provision of services. The Fifth Circuit held, in Cox v. Dallas, 430 F.3d 734 (5th Circ. 2005), that African American residents of a neighborhood afflicted with an illegal dump had no remedy against the city that failed to clean it up. The court held that the dump merely made the housing less habitable but did not make it “unavailable” as required by 42 U.S.C. §3604(a) and that the prohibition against discriminatory terms in the sale or rental of a dwelling was inapplicable to city actions when the city was not the seller or renter of the property. For background on the case see here.

Similarly, the Seventh Circuit ruled in Halprin v. Prairie Single Family Homes of Dearborn Park Assoc., 388 F.3d 327 (7th Cir. 2004), that §3604(a) of the FHA gave no remedy to Jewish condo owners against the homeowners association or other members of the association for harassment that took place after they bought and moved into their home. Judge Posner’s opinion was similarly skeptical about whether §3617 provided a remedy; that section makes it unlawful to “coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise of or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by [the FHA].” The court found a potential violation of §3617 only because of a HUD regulation interpreting §3617 to encompass such activity; the court intimated, however, that the regulation exceeded the agency’s powers because it prohibited conduct not within the statutory language.

However, the full Seventh Circuit rejected the view expressed in Halprin when the court en banc reversed an earlier ruling of a three judge panel in the case of Bloch v. Frischholz, 2009 WL 3789996 (7th Cir. 2009).  In the earlier opinion, Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote for the majority that §3617  does not reach post-acquisition conduct. That ruling was reversed by the full court on November 13, 2009.

The Ninth Circuit has recently rejected the rulings in these cases, holding that the FHA does apply to post-acquisition discrimination in provision of services. In Committee Concerning Community Improvement v. Modesto, Cal., 583 F.3d 690 (9th Cir. 2009), the court ruled that residents of primarily Latino neighborhoods did have FHA claims against the city for discriminatory provision of municipal services. The court found that the language in §3604(b) prohibiting discrimination “in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in provision of services or facilities in connection therewith” did not only apply at the moment of renting or purchasing but “implicated continuing rights, such as the privilege of quiet enjoyment of the dwelling.”