HUD Announces $1.5M Settlement with Bridgeport Housing

HUD recently announced that the Department of Justice negotiated a settlement with the Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport (HACB) settling allegations that HACB discriminated against persons with disabilities by failing to provide accessible units and ignoring their requests for reasonable accommodations.

HACB owns and manages more than 2,600 units of public housing and administers more than 2,800 vouchers under HUD’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. Under the terms of the agreement, HACB will establish a $1.5 million compensation fund that will be used to make payments to individuals who were harmed by HACB’s alleged discrimination and increase its housing stock to include units for people with disabilities.

The case originally came to HUD’s attention when a compliance review conducted by HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity revealed that HACB was in violation of federal disability laws. The case was referred to DOJ for enforcement, resulting in a lawsuit against HACB. According to the lawsuit, HACB failed to process and fulfill requests for accommodations from tenants with disabilities or to provide accessible public housing units for residents with disabilities.