Child Bias in Rentals Expected Despite Ruling

Despite a precedent-setting new administrative ruling that bars landlords from discriminating against families with children by setting limits on apartment occupancy, a state civil rights attorney who won the case expects discrimination against families to continue.

“I’m sure they will try to find other ways to discriminate,” said M. Dick Osumi, a lawyer for the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing. “Hopefully, most of them will drop these standards.”

Osumi persuaded the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission last week to fine the former owners of a Hawaiian Gardens apartment complex $5,000 for discriminating against a married couple and their infant daughter by allowing only one occupant per bedroom in a two-bedroom unit.

The commission ruled that apartment owners violate the law if they restrict the number of residents who can live in a dwelling--a practice that state officials say has been in widespread use in recent years. Osumi described the 5-0 decision as a “landmark” ruling because there was no precedent in state law that could be used to fight private occupancy limits.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that apartment owners could not discriminate against families with children, but many landlords continued the practice by limiting the number of occupants in each unit, Osumi said.

Housing officials said Monday that the commission’s ruling strengthens their efforts to reduce discrimination against families without weakening local overcrowding ordinances.

Many local jurisdictions have passed safety codes that place strict caps on the maximum number of people who can reside in apartments. In Los Angeles, for example, a law passed in 1986 to ease crowding in tenements allows no more than 10 people to live in a moderate-sized, two-bedroom apartment.

Barbara Zeidman, executive director of the Los Angeles Rent Commission, said city officials do not expect tenants to take advantage of the new ruling to crowd into apartments. The city’s rent law ensures that landlords can boost their rents by 10% for each extra tenant, Zeidman said.

“We don’t expect any conflict from the new ruling,” she said.

Marcella Brown, executive director of the Fair Housing Congress of Southern California, said many of her agency’s discrimination complaints have come from areas such as the Westside of Los Angeles and Orange County, where adult-only apartment complexes have thrived in the past.

It was such a complaint that led to last week’s commission ruling.

In 1986, Daleen Tolmasov, 29, and her husband, Morris, 28, filed a discrimination complaint against Merribrook Apartments in Hawaiian Gardens. The Tolmasovs alleged that the owners of the 102-unit apartment complex told them that they would allow only one occupant per bedroom, which made it impossible for the Tolmasovs and their infant daughter, Chantel, to live in a two-bedroom unit.

“When my husband came back and told me we couldn’t live there because of their rule, I thought it sounded peculiar,” Daleen Tolmasov said Monday. “I said, ‘No way, that doesn’t sound right to me.’ So I called the fair employment department, and it didn’t sound right to them, either.”

Last year, the Tolmasovs’ complaint was upheld by an administrative law judge. Then, last week, the state commission fined the owners of the Merribrook complex for discriminating.

The commission does not decide cases with court authority. But it is empowered to interpret state codes. As a result, said Charles Isham, executive vice president of the 25,000-member Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, the decision “puts us on notice that the state will go after apartment owners who are in violation.”

Osumi said that several similar cases have been filed and are being challenged by landlords.

Ronald Steinbach, a lawyer for the Merribrook’s owners, said he was unsure whether he would appeal the case to state courts.