Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 10-15-21

Editorial
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NAACP, Other Groups Respond To Mayor’s Letter, Meeting On Crime Free Multi-Housing Program
The 6-page response on September 16, 2021, was di- rected to Mayor Castor and members of Tampa City Council; calls for immedi- ate end of the program.
Several groups joined the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP to reach out to Mayor Jane Castor and members of Tampa City Council after several publications of the Crime- Free Multi Housing Program.
In response to the article published by the Tampa Bay Times, Mayor Castor con- tacted the NAACP Executive Board in a September 15, 2021 letter, about her position on the Crime-Free Multi-Housing Pro- gram: the changes that have taken place since 2013, how the program actually works.
The group responded in a 6- page letter on September 16, 2021 that states:
“We write on behalf of the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP, the Greater Tampa Chapter of the ACLU, the NAACP, the NYU School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Florida to request that you immediately end Tampa’s Crime-Free Multi Housing Pro- gram (the “Program”).
“As structured and enforced, we believe the Program violates federal law. We were disap- pointed to see Mayor (Jane) Castor’s letter on September 15 to the Hillsborough County NAACP. The letter sought to de- fend the Tampa Police Depart- ment’s Program, and to minimize the devastating effects that it has had on families. The article provided the city with the opportunity to reconsider the Program after being confronted with evidence of its harm, but the letter suggests the Mayor does not intend to do so. Rather than trying to salvage its reputa- tion, Tampa must end the Pro- gram.
“Yesterday’s reporting in the Tampa Bay Times lays out the destructive effects of Tampa’s Program for tenants of color and their families. By training land- lords to conduct unnecessary and overly broad criminal-his- tory screenings of prospective tenants and pressuring land- lords to evict certain tenants, the Tampa Police Department per-
petuates a program that dispro- portionately targets and ex- cludes tenants of color and their families. By tightly weaving to- gether housing policy and the criminal legal system, the Pro- gram compounds the over-polic- ing of people of color in Tampa and causes catastrophic conse- quences for tenants of color: More than 90% of the 1,100 in- dividuals implicated in the Pro- gram — and subject to eviction as a result of the Program — are Black.
“We fervently believe that all people deserve to live in safe neighborhoods. But there is no credible evidence that broad housing exclusions like Tampa’s do anything to make communi- ties safer. Instead, the Program further entrenches the conse- quences of racial bias, further marginalizes people of color, and further compounds Tampa’s deep legacy of problematic housing and property policies. There are many tools to improve public safety, and this Program is not one of them. Tampa should immediately end the Pro- gram in its entirety.”
The response points out:
1. The Program’s lease ad- dendum and screening proce- dures likely violate the Fair Housing Act by creating a dis- parate impact on Black residents
“The Fair Housing Act, which “was enacted to eradicate discriminatory practices” within the housing sector, makes it un- lawful to “refuse to sell or rent or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to a person be- cause of race or other protected characteristic.”
As the Supreme Court made clear in Inclusive Communities, the Act prohibits not only prac- tices or policies that arise from a discriminatory intent, but also those that create a “dispropor- tionately adverse effect on mi- norities and are otherwise unjustified by a legitimate ra- tionale.”
"At issue here are two of the central features of Tampa’s Pro- gram: (1) a mandatory lease ad- dendum that, under the direction of the Tampa Police Department, has led almost ex- clusively to the eviction of Black tenants; and (2) the emphasis of the Police Department-led land- lord training on screening prospective tenants for criminal
history. We believe both violate the Fair Housing Act.
Tampa Must End The Program
“Tampa should immediately repeal the Program to ensure compliance with federal law. The Program’s lease addendum and screening process create a significant disparate impact for residents of color in Tampa, making these residents more vulnerable to eviction and limit- ing their housing options. Even if Tampa had a substantial, legit- imate, nondiscriminatory inter- est in the Program’s enforcement of the addendum or the use of the screening process — a prospect that seems unlikely, given that the city ap- pears never actually to have de- termined the real efficacy of the Program — the city can employ narrower and far less destructive means to achieve whatever those nondiscriminatory ends may be.”
Groups Meet With Mayor, City Attorney The mayor and the City At-
torney met with these groups again on September 21, 2021. However, even after that meet- ing there were questions and concerns.
In a follow-up letter, the group stated: “To fully evaluate the program in its current form, we request:
1) All materials related to the current training program, including but not limited to slideshows, handouts, etc.;
2) All documents utilized during site inspections, includ- ing but not limited to handouts, checklists, etc.;
3) All documents related to community outreach and “work- ing relationships”; and
4) All documents related to the City’s oversight of the pro- gram.”
Finally, the letter states that the groups are requesting that: “The City suspend all currently operating aspects of the pro- gram until it completes an eval- uation of the program and the lingering effects of improper training at the program’s incep- tion. As you mention, this is a program, not an ordinance. Consequently, it should be eas- ier to shut down this program than it would be to repeal an or- dinance. The program could be ended with a single e-mail.”
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Black And Blue
or 19 years “G” called “D” “ghetto,” “fat,” “stupid,” “dumb,” and he told her to “shut up,” made her give him receipts for everything she bought, arranged their fi-
nances so her payroll was deposited into a joint account on which she could not write a check and could not withdraw money unless he received an alert on his cell phone.
If “D” wanted to buy make-up or personal items, “G” al- ways arranged to go to the store and buy them for her. When she managed to go to the store on her own, “D” had to have G’s approval to spend the money. By the way “D” was 5 ft., 5 inches tall, weighs 110 pounds, and made $100,000 a year while “G” worked a few odd jobs while pursuing a sporadic singing career.
“G” stripped “D” of her self-worth and confidence bit by bit, and eventually “D” turned to alcohol to cope. When “D” called him an abuser, he said, “I never hit you.” Of course, “G” was blown away when a family friend confirmed that his words and controlling behavior were just as hurtful, maybe more so, than any punch he could have thrown. Of course, “D” never revealed that “G” had thrown a chair at her once and wouldn’t talk to her for days when he was angry.
Yes, domestic abuse can be physical, sexual, stalking, ver- bal, emotional distancing, isolating and financial control.
Both breast cancer awareness and domestic violence awareness are focused on during the month of October. Today, we focus on domestic violence by intimate partners because every 9 seconds, somewhere in America a woman is assaulted or beaten. “On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner,” total- ing 10 million women a year.
Indeed, if domestic violence was a virus, we believe more would be done to prevent, treat, and stop the prevalence. America seems to have a love affair with violence.
Domestic violence is not limited to intimate partners, for domestic violence homicides include family members, friends, neighbors, persons who intervened, law enforce- ment responders or bystanders. You might find it helpful to know that 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner and 94% of the murder-suicide victims are female. Over 20,000 calls are made nationwide to domestic hotlines each day.
Therefore, we advise our readers to invoke a ‘one hit rule’ – “hit me once I’m gone.” Do not hang around waiting for the abuser to change – get out now. Relationships never get bet- ter without professional counseling, and even counseling may not help.
We also urge all mothers to protect their children and
leave the relationship because your male children and girl children could grow up to be an abuser or be abused, respectively. By the way, “D” is saving money to escape her marriage.
We shall see!
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