The city of Manassas, Va., has
changed its definition of family to restrict households to immediate relatives, even when the total is below the occupancy limit.
This move is in response to immigrants who buy or rent large houses and share them with extended family or even some non-related individuals.
As you might expect, this policy most heavily affects Hispanic households. Those households are the targets of the vast majority of the complaints.
While it's clear to me that the ordinance is motivated by anti-immigrant bias, it's not clear to me just what "problem" the ordinance is purported to address. From the story:
Under the city's old, broad definition of family, just about any group of relatives, however distantly related, was allowed to share a single-family house, along with one unrelated person.
The problem with that ... was that when inspectors responded to a complaint, they often found houses full of aunts, uncles, cousins and extended relatives but no violations, because the total number was below the occupancy limit.
"We were stymied by families who met the existing definition," Smith said. And so the city changed the rules to break up more households.
In other words, "Them Mexican's wasn't breakin' no laws, so we needed to pass a law ag'in' 'em."
Not only is the ordinance clearly a violation of the Fair Housing Act, it's probably unconstitutional. The Supreme Court struck down a similar ordinance in Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977). In that case, the Court held:
Of course, the family is not beyond regulation. ... But when the government intrudes on choices concerning family living arrangements, this Court must examine carefully the importance of the governmental interests advanced and the extent to which they are served by the challenged regulation. ...
When thus examined, this ordinance cannot survive. The city seeks to justify it as a means of preventing overcrowding, minimizing traffic and parking congestion, and avoiding an undue financial burden on East Cleveland's school system. Although these are legitimate goals, the ordinance before us serves them marginally, at best.
As the court points out in Moore, such ordinances do nothing to alleviate traffic and overcrowding. For example, the ordinance would allow a husband, wife and eight kids to live together because they are "immediate" - i.e., within two degrees of consanguinity. What if all those kids drive cars? On the other hand, what if you have the same number of cousins living together, all of whom walk to work because they don't own cars? They'd be barred from living together because they are too distantly related.
Manassas is not the only city with such an ordinance, and this particular disease is spreading. This will inevitably lead to litigation, and I hope my colleagues in the fair housing movement will sue the ever-lovin' crap out of the cities that are doing this.
And public officials who pass laws that are clearly unconstitutional should be PERSONALLY held to account for them when they are struck down. Sadly, that never happens because of legislative immunity, but it should. Politicians shouldn't be able to pass popular but constitutionally questionable legislation only to blame them meddlin' federal judges for striking it down. It's a waste of money and resources and a further degrading of the public discourse.