Fair Housing Center in Nebraska Delivers Justice for a Mentally Disabled Client

When the disabled man, known as Randy for this story, contacted the Fair Housing Center in Omaha, Nebraska he
said he was having problems with his former landlord. Randy had made his former landlord his Social Security payee out of a desire for security. However, the payee, only gave Randy about $40 a month to live on and kept the rest. In addition, he threatened the young man with eviction if he stopped using the landlord as his payee. Because Randy had so little money, he had to rely on the local food pantries to obtain adequate food. He also had no choice but to sell blood to pay for medications and for food for his service animal.

The Fair Housing Center of Nebraska looked into Randy's case and its investigators discovered that the landlord had been withholding the young man's SSI money as "rent" for a house so badly deteriorated it had been on the City of Omaha's demolition list for some time. The Center's investigation also documented fair housing violations, landlord-tenant law violations, and possible Social Security fraud. At the young man's request, the Center referred him to a private attorney to review the case and the attorney agreed to pursue the case at no cost. On February 5, 2009, Randy and his attorney filed a federal lawsuit against the former landlord.

In August, 2009, a court in Omaha, Nebraska awarded Randy full compensatory damages totaling $68,127 and $10,000 in punitive damages to punish the landlord for swindling money through excessive rent charges. Because the amount of the former landlord's low net worth the Court concluded that a substantial award of punitive damages was necessary, but awarded the punitive damages as reasonable and sufficient to punish him. The Court also granted attorney fees and expenses of $5,611.80, for a total judgment of $83,738.80.

The Fair Housing Center of Nebraska is a program of Family Housing Advisory Services, Inc., a performance-funded HUD Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) grantee. For more information about fair housing, please see HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity on HUD's website.