A federal judge recently held that the city of Baton Rouge officials discriminated against recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, by attempting to prevent them from living in group homes leased in single-family neighborhoods. The judge concluded that Baton Rouge violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to grant Oxford House (a group home) a reasonable accommodation to its Unified Development Code (UDC). The court also found that the City violated the Act by engaging in intentional discrimination against Oxford House because of their association with disabled persons; enforcing a facially discriminatory zoning provision in the form of its “Special Homes” ordinance and retaliating against the plaintiffs after they filed a fair housing complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and a fair housing lawsuit in federal court. Oxford House, Inc., is a nat...
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