Unmarried Couple Denied Right to Move In

WWTI (ABC) ^ | 2/23/2006 | United Press International

[Quick1]

A Missouri couple say they were denied an occupancy permit for their new home because they're not married.

Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving have been together for 13 years and have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The couple are appealing the occupancy permit denial from the Black Jack, Mo., board of adjustment, which requires people living together to have blood, marriage or adoption ties. Loving is not the father of Shelltrack's oldest child.

I was basically told, you can have one child living in your house if you're not married, but more than that, you can't, Shelltrack told the newspaper.

This is about the definition of family, not if they're married or not, Mayor Normal McCourt said. It's what cities do to maintain the housing and to hold down overcrowding.

[Hi Heels]

1. Might be a budette. 2. Might be with a man who won't buy a ring.

Just a guess.

[JamesP81]

The area is probably zoned for single family occupancy. Since they aren't married, it would be considered two-family occupancy. I suspect this is how it's viewed from the city's standpoint.

[southernerwithanattitude]

Thats what I keep thinking, it must be a public housing complex.

[www.saveourguns.org]

parents are married.

Bah, what foolishness is this? Your basic 18th century mindset I think.

Marriage is a religious concept. Foo on those who think that perfectly committed people who have not been "married" are not capable of being parents.

[Mr. Brightside]

I seem to remember a couple of jurisdictions prohibiting sex toys.

Didn't the Alabama Supreme Court allow the state (or a city) to ban them all together?

[Quick1]

Doesn't sound like public housing. They bought the house, and the community (from what I've heard) is a bit more upper class.

[Mulch]

Unreal. How is having four people in a house overcrowding?

You should see how some people arrange themselves in inner city style living. Its 4 today, 12 tomorrow, 2 the next day, 7 next month. Allot of these homes become revolving doors for transients and other hangers-on. Its gets to be a mess.

[Tax-chick]

I think this law is designed to prevent groups of unrelated people from living in the same dwelling. This couple just got caught in a phrasing quandry, because of the combination of their not being married, and Fondray's not being the father of one of the children.

[wideawake]

Ah, so the couple that drunkenly decided to get married while they were in Vegas is much more committed to each other than this couple is.

I'm sure that rw considers this kind of sideshow to have no more to do with the "historic institution of marriage" than shacking up does.

Both are a bad joke.

[Quick1]

The difference is that one would be allowed to live in the house they bought here, while the other couple won't.

[Tax-chick]

Good point. As I said in a later post, they'd probably count as a "single family" if Fondray was the father of all the children, OR if they were married.

[wideawake]

Bah, what foolishness is this? Your basic 18th century mindset I think.

In other words, conservatism. On FR, of all places.

[wideawake]

Then maybe they need to find a community that caters to their lifestyle.

[Quick1]

Here's another source

Olivia Shelltrack finally has her dream home. Her family moved into the five-bedroom, three-bath frame house in Black Jack last month. But now she fears she and her fiance face uprooting their children because of a city ordinance that says her household fails to meet Black Jack's definition of a family.

Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, her boyfriend of 13 years, were denied an occupancy permit because of an ordinance forbidding three or more individuals from living together if they are not related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The couple have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, although Loving is not the biological father of the oldest child.

"I was basically told, you can have one child living in your house if you're not married, but more than that, you can't," she said.

The couple appealed the denial of an occupancy permit last week at a hearing before Black Jack's board of adjustment. Shelltrack said board members asked her and Loving personal questions about their relationship, their children and their previous home in Minneapolis, from where they moved, for nearly an hour. Then the board denied the couple's appeal. The case now goes before Black Jack's municipal court.

At the hearing, Shelltrack said, one board of adjustment member, Norma Mitchell, even pointed at her and asked, "I don't understand why you as a woman didn't exercise your right to marry that man," before being hushed by another board member.

Mitchell refused to comment. She referred all calls to Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt, who defended the ordinance.

"This is about the definition of family, not if they're married or not," he said. "It's what cities do to maintain the housing and to hold down overcrowding."

The ordinance has been challenged before. In 1999, the unwed parents of triplets challenged the city's denial of an occupancy permit. It is unclear how that case was resolved.

Shelltrack said she and her family live in a 2,300-square-foot home, providing plenty of space for her family. But McCourt said the city can't differentiate its treatment to residents.

"You have laws on the books to preclude any situation," he said. "That's why it's there. It's kind of like a speed limit. You say you go 30 miles an hour. If everybody drives 30 miles an hour, why keep it on the books? It's the same situation."

In 1985, the city of Ladue sued a couple for violating a city ordinance prohibiting an unmarried man and woman from living together if they were not "related by blood, marriage or adoption." A year later, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the ruling against the couple, who had lived in the home since 1981.

Many municipalities in the region do have "these ridiculous ordinances about what's considered family," said Katina Combs, a fair housing specialist with the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council.

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination involving race, religion, color, national origin, gender, disability and families with children, Combs said. Most states often will include additional protected classes, such as marital status. Illinois is one such state. Missouri is not.

"I have to believe in my heart that the people who live in Black Jack wouldn't try to make us leave the city and our home that we own simply because we have too many children out of wedlock," Shelltrack said.

"We've had a stable home as long as they've been alive. We are a family. (My kids) are not children of an unmarried couple, they're children of two loving parents," said Shelltrack.

Shelltrack, 31, could appeal Black Jack's decision to the St. Louis County Circuit Court, but she said that would involve legal fees that she and Loving can't afford because of the money they poured into buying their home.

She said, however, the couple has filed a complaint with the U.S. Housing and Urban Department.

"I refuse to run down to the courthouse and get married just so I can live in my own home," she said. "I love my house. I love the area. I love the schools. We wouldn't have bought the house if we didn't think it was what we wanted."

[massgopguy]

Don't they have blood ties through their children?

[wideawake]

Says an anonymous poster on a chat board. Until the Supreme Court says differently, there is.

In other words, you support judicial activism and eschew strict construction and originalism.

Why are you posting on a conservative board?

[Quick1]

Or perhaps the community should rephrase an asinine law.

[wideawake]

I have no idea what the precise definitions of the statute are.

[Quick1]

Apparently the oldest child is not the father's biological parent.

[bk1000]

"They bought the house,..."

Must have a doozie of a home owner's association!