DATE: Wednesday, March 26, 1997             TAG: 9703260517

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Staff writers Katrice Franklin and Susie Stoughton contributed

        to this report.

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   28 lines

LANDLORD FILES SUIT, ACCUSING AGENCY OF RACE DISCRIMINATION

A Suffolk landlord alleges in a lawsuit against the Suffolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority that the agency is abusing funds by paying different rents, based on race, for tenants in the same building.

The suit involves a federal program that subsidizes rent for low-income residents. Participants pay no more than 30 percent of their income for rent, and the housing authority pays the rest with federal money.

The suit was filed in Suffolk Circuit Court by Hubert H. Young Jr., attorney for Young Properties Management Corp.

It alleges that the program refused to pay rent for a white resident because the complex did not meet inspection requirements yet found acceptable a black tenant in an identical apartment in the same building.

The suit also alleges that the authority would not pay the same rent for the black participant as it did for the white one and that it failed to pay rent for the white resident for three months while continuing to make the black resident's payments.

The suit asks the agency for $1,018 in past rents for the white resident, $5,000 in punitive damages and for attorney costs. KEYWORDS: LAWSUITS

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