Posted on 10/14/2018 8:06:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
An elderly couple facing a possible eviction from a Virginia-based retirement community for hosting a Bible study has taken their fight to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In July, the Community Realty Company sent a notice to Kenneth and Liv Hauge, who live at the Evergreens at Smith Run in Fredericksburg, informing them that they must either stop holding Bible study or be evicted.
First Liberty Institute, a conservative law firm representing the Hauges, filed a complaint with HUD on Tuesday, arguing that "CRC and Evergreens' actions violate the Fair Housing Act and its accompanying regulations."
"The totality of CRC and Evergreens' treatment of the Hauges, the notice, and the policy manifest both discriminatory intent and discriminatory impact relating to the Hauges' continued rental of a dwelling and access to the common facilities related to it, thus violating the FHA's prohibitions against religious discrimination in housing," read the complaint.
Lea Patterson, associate counsel for First Liberty, said in a statement released Thursday that she considered the treatment of the Hauges to be "shameful."
"It is both shameful and illegal to threaten elderly residents with eviction simply for holding a Bible study," said Patterson.
"Treating residents unequally simply out of hostility to religion violates federal law and taints Virginia's long history of religious freedom."
A semi-retired Lutheran minister who has resided at the Evergreens with his wife since January 2017, Hauge began holding a Wednesday evening Bible study at an on-site community room.
On July 23, the Hauges received a "Notice to Cure Default or Quit" letter from their landlord, informing them that they had to cease holding the Bible study or face eviction.
According to the notice, their Bible study "has caused, and continues to cause, serious and substantial disturbances with other residents in the community."
These included allegations that the weekly study involved "operating an unauthorized business" and "interfering with other residents' use of the community facilities."
"Landlord has received a series of complaints over the past several months regarding your conduct at the community," read the notice. "Landlord has also learned that you show religious films on Sunday evenings, followed by a group discussion on the religious film. This activity has resulted in complaints to Landlord similar to those related to the Bible study class."
In August, First Liberty sent a letter of complaint to an attorney representing CRC and the Evergreens demanding that the Hauges be allowed to continue their Bible study.
For the time being, the Hauges have agreed to halt their Bible study to avoid being evicted by the end of August, with the hopes of restarting it once their complaint is resolved.
As long as they abide by the documented rules for reserving common facilities there should be no problem.
HOA’s are like HOV’s ....everybody wants to be a boss....F”em I say. Flood the HOV lanes with single driver vehicles and do not buy in developments with HOA’s. People need to take this country back. Voting Republican/Conservative in all elections will certainly help.
My mom got on the board of her former condo development just to be a troublemaker and try to rid the commie mindset.
Her facility had about 80 units. The by-Laws only allowed four rentals. Great idea in good economy. In a deep Michigan recession in 2007, horrible plan.
Grandma dies and leaves you her condo, once worth $120,000, now lucky to sell at $35,000. It’s nice but not as nice as your home so you don’t want to live there. An empty unit attracts rodents, is unsightly and will deteriorate quicker than an occupied dwelling. So, you rent it out.
My mom re-married and was in a similar situation. She did a rent to own deal with a guy.
Her “friends” on the condo board actually sued her. She was able to offload the place before it went to court.
Bunch of doofuses.
I just had an argument with a friend who is a Democrat. Lives in a house where she pays a homeowners association.
I pointed out why should she pay a HO when she is the one paying the bank thousands of dollars to own the home? Why should she hand over her rights to decide what to do on her own land? Once you hand over your rights to someone else you are at their whim as to what those rights are or become.
She never could see my point. Kept saying she’s happy with them. It keeps the neighborhood up to snuff. I pointed out I live in a neighborhood without a homeowners association and the block looks fine. That people have been doing that for a long time. That peer pressure somewhat and pride of ownership keep up the neighborhood. She pointed out some people don’t care, blah blah blah.
I still don’t think there should be a ‘homeowners association’, at all. You are the owner of the home. You should have the ability to decide what is going on on your own property.
Yep. I recall the same sort of article on FR some time ago, designed to elicit the same "Christians are being persecuted!" response. IIRC, it turned out that "Bible Study" turned out to be some sort of a tent revival, with 100's of people, local traffic all goofed up, cars parked all over neighbor's lawns, and so on.
I'll withhold judgment until more info comes in.
Why have an argument if she is happy with it?
I retired to a gated/HOA community. My wife and I read EVERY word of the HOA CCRs and Standards before we signed on the dotted line. And we are OK with it.
The problems here are with people that do not know the rules of the HOA or think that the rules don't apply to them.
Nonetheless; it works pretty well and our HOA fee is worth the value.
When two of my elderly relatives went to live in Methodist homes for the aged, the homes started having financial trouble (due to the UMC's leftward drift; but that's another story), and so they decided to allow non-Methodists and even non-Christians to live there. There was a residents' council, which was immediately taken over by a non-Christian. Predictably, the first thing to go was the grace before meals and then, the numerous artworks depicting Jesus. At one of the homes, the two women hired to replace the outgoing director and his assistant were two cross-dressing lesbians. My relatives in their late 90s did not want to have to leave these homes that had been used by family members for three generations, so the rest of us had to suffer watching this erosion take place, and rapidly.
My guess is that one or two non-Christians, or CINOs, have lodged complaints about the Bible study, and the answer seems always to shut down the Christians rather than defend the religious liberty that was established in this land by Christians.
We had the argument because in the past she has complained often to me about the demands made that are hard for her to pay for or to do herself. She did know all the rules of the association before moving in but the house was the one she could afford in a neighborhood she wanted to live in. Money chose for her what she could buy and the homeowners association is now telling her how to live in that home. I pointed out during this conversation when talking about the guy across the street from me building something the city made him take down, (there are no home owners associations connected with our homes here on my block). In response to this she said ‘that’s why I like our homeowners association, they would’ve made him take it down’.
What the guy did was build a stone barbeque in his front yard, a very pretty one but the complaint from the city was it was too high. Too tall. His front yard is actually very pretty, with a huge brickpatio and lots of manicured plants, trees and seating.
I reminded her of how her homeowners association has been pretty tough on her, and often is pretty stringent with its regulations.
Where my brother lives the homeowners association has changed hands and the previous ones who ran it were already tyrannical. The new ones came up with more demands and some old coot goes around in a golf cart looking for stuff to report. He has nothing better to do I guess.
Why should a homeowner who is paying to own his property be subject to these petty tyrants. What is wrong with letting the homeowner have charge and freedom to care for something he is paying an enormous amount of money for?
Why not then have a car owners association, where people can report you for not washing your car? Or leaving a cup in it?
I pointed out that being a homeowner and paying thousands to the bank you would think
Your point is well said and well taken. It’s an interesting story, but the article lacked detailed info
Your point is well said and well taken. It’s an interesting story, but the article lacked detailed info
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I understand.
Thanks.
Crowding? Treating an apartment as if it were a church could cause trouble.
I missed that they were held in the community room. Different issues. They are accused of using it to run a business. As such, the complaint would seem to rise or fall on whether they collect offerings I excess of any occupancy chargese, or whether others have reasonable opportunity to use the room.
Even so, why evict, rather than just deny access?
Good questions.
This letter sheds a little more light on it. https://firstliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Hauge-Demand-Letter_Redacted.pdf
I haven’t been able to find any updates. Somebody please ping me if you see an update.
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