From the Baltimore Sun

For the second time in less than a year, a fair-housing advocacy organization has filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming racial discrimination by a company that owns 24 apartment complexes in the Baltimore region.

Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. is suing the national company Home Properties, claiming that in December and March, agents at Fox Hall Apartments in Nottingham showed more apartments and offered a lower price to white than black “testers” sent to check rental practices at the eastern Baltimore County complex.

The suit, filed last week in Baltimore, claims the renting agents at the 720-unit complex offered “eight to approximately ten current or upcoming vacancies” to the whites, and only one to the African-American testers. The agent also quoted a rent to the black tester “higher than that offered to the white testers,” the suit claims, adding that the agents “intentionally” gave “false information.”

The difference in treatment of the whites and blacks was meant to “discourage African-Americans from living at Fox Hall Apartments,” the organization alleges, claiming Home Properties violated both state and federal fair housing laws.

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