Home  News Local News Condo manager kept out
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Monday, 18 August 2008 |
According to a Sun-Sentinel report clear racial discrimination is being practiced by the manager at a Davie apartment complex. The reports stated that the racist manager has been denying rental contracts to African-American applicants, and then use the absence of African American tenants in the complex to appeal to whites. This was the accusation made against apartment manager Dan Murroni of the College Square Apartment complex located at 6600 SW 39th Street in Davie and C.F. Enterprises LLC in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department.
The lawsuit accuses the parties of discriminating against Black people trying to rent the apartments in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Evidence was gathered through the department's Operation Home Sweet Home initiative, where individuals pose as renters to identify possible discriminatory practices.
The complaint alleges the defendants discouraged African-Americans from applying and offered to waive the application fee and other costs for white applicants only. The lawsuit, filed in Fort Lauderdale federal court, seeks an injunction against further discrimination, money damages for victims and civil penalties to be paid to the United States.
The president of the Fort Lauderdale branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is reported as having said that she hopes the lawsuit sends a message to other apartment managers who might try the same thing.
For some time there have been allegations of discriminatory acts by rental mangers, made by African American and Caribbean American residents seeking to rent apartment and Condos in cities like Coral Springs, Davie, Plantation and Sunrise. Leigh Foster, a Jamaican, told the National Weekly that she was turned down by an apartment manger in Sunrise, because her sons wore their hair in dreadlocks, and the manager told her that he had problems with dreadlocks tenants in the past. In another incident, African American Danny Roames said that an apartment manager in West Sunrise refused showing him and his Honduran girl friend a $1,580 per month three bedroom apartment, because the manager said she doubted he could afford the rent on his auto mechanic income.
Referring to the Sun-Sentinel reports, Davie Mayor Tom Truex said the claims of discrimination against the College Square Apartments were true, they are no reflection on the town of Davie which has no tolerance for people who discriminate against others based on race. African Americans represent 4 percent of the population of Davie, a town which prior to 2000 had a reputation for racial strife, with alleged Ku Klux Klan activity reported in 1989 and 1991.
The National Weekly was unable to speak to a representative for the College Square Apartment despite several telephone calls.
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