An appeals courtroom in Pennsylvania affirmed a trial courtroom ruling on Thursday which held that welfare fraud and excellent restitution stability can’t be used to justify the denial of housing help. The choice signaled a win for candidates looking for housing vouchers in Pennsylvania.
The attraction, heard earlier than the Commonwealth Courtroom of Pennsylvania, involved the Lawrence County Housing Authority’s resolution to disclaim the appellee’s utility for help below the Housing Choice Voucher Program, in any other case often called “Part 8.” Funded and controlled by the US Division of Housing and City Growth (HUD), this system is run by way of native entities and goals to offer housing help for low-income, disabled, and aged people.
After a background examine confirmed the appellee had a historical past of “welfare fraud” and excellent restitution owed in relation to her prison case, the Housing Authority marked the appellee’s utility as “inactivated” and suggested that it might not be reactivated till she paid her remaining restitution. Following a listening to with the Housing Authority, the appellee was as soon as once more formally denied. In the end, the appellee introduced the matter earlier than the Courtroom of Widespread Pleas of Lawrence County which discovered that the Housing Authority abused its discretion. Underneath 24 C.F.R. § 982.553(a)(2)(ii)(A)(3)-(4), the Housing Authority:
[M]ay prohibit admission of a family to this system if [it] determines that any family member is at present engaged in, or has engaged in throughout an affordable time earlier than the admission…different prison exercise which can threaten the well being, security, or proper to peaceable enjoyment of the premises by different residents or individuals residing within the quick neighborhood; or different prison exercise which can threaten the well being or security of the proprietor, property administration workers, or [administrative personnel].
The trial courtroom discovered that, as a result of the findings of the appellee’s background examine didn’t counsel a menace, the Housing Authority abused its discretion. In reviewing the choice, the appeals courtroom confirmed the decrease courtroom’s conclusion, reasoning that “it isn’t prison exercise alone that types a enough foundation to terminate Part 8 advantages.” Felony exercise should “threaten the well being, security, or proper to peaceable enjoyment of residents and/or individuals within the quick neighborhood thereof.”
