O.C. Apartment Firm Accused of Rental Bias

When Joy Mould was hired by an Orange County apartment management firm to serve as assistant manager of a Palmdale complex last year, she says, she was instructed to draw a “happy face” on all rental applications submitted by members of minority groups.

The smiling faces were not meant to symbolize a positive reaction toward the prospective tenant, Mould asserted Wednesday. Rather, they were a symbol to tip off her bosses, who planned to discriminate against blacks, Latino and Asian applicants, she said.

“I was told that no one would suspect that this was the signal,” said Mould, 37, at a press conference. “It’s really gross.”

On Wednesday, Mould, another former assistant manager and a black woman who said she was unfairly denied an apartment joined forces with the Fair Housing Congress of Southern California in filing a civil rights lawsuit against the management of the 112-unit Carmel Apartments complex.

Among the defendants are Investment Concepts Inc. and its president, George Chami. The firm manages more than 4,000 apartment units in more than 40 apartment complexes in Southern California, the bulk of them in Orange County.

“It is a slap in the face to use such an innocent symbol to further such pernicious racial discrimination,” said attorney Theresa M. Traber of Litt & Stormer, the firm representing the plaintiffs. “The effects of this kind of housing discrimination are far from innocent.”

Later in the day, an attorney for the defendants vehemently denied the allegations.

“Believe me when I tell you, there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the claim that this company discriminates--we go out of our way not to discriminate,” attorney Jerome Janger said. “This is really very bad for us because we represent institutional owners like savings and loan and insurance companies. . . . It’s kind of a joke. Mr. Chami doesn’t have an ounce of prejudice in his whole system.”

State records list Chami as a general partner in more than 20 California limited partnerships and Investment Concepts as a general partner in more than 60 limited partnerships.

The class-action lawsuit is one of the first filed by a private law firm under the federal Fair Housing Act of 1988, which strengthens the teeth of anti-discrimination laws. Before the legislation took effect in March, damages for housing discrimination were limited to $1,000 per incident, according to Traber. But now, victims can seek unlimited punitive as well as compensatory damages, making such suits more attractive for private firms to participate in, she added.

Federal officials say the new legislation has also resulted in an increase in racial discrimination housing complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Since March, said regional spokesman John Phillips, 225 complaints have been filed in Los Angeles County, half of them by individuals claiming they were denied housing because they are black.

Marcella Brown, executive director of the Fair Housing Congress of Southern California, said at the press conference that in Los Angeles, “discrimination is really very common based on race. We’ve had several cases like this.”

In one such case, Brown said, a rental manager coded the applications of blacks with a black dot, of whites with white dots and of Asians with yellow dots.

In the Palmdale case, both Mould and Annette Zimmerman, 25, said they worked briefly as assistant managers at the complex, where they claim that only three black families currently reside.

Both said they were told by their boss, who is no longer employed by Investment Concepts and is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, to draw the happy faces on forms filled out by minority applicants.

“I was told it was a smiling face so if ever asked, I would say, “Oh, we like you,” said Zimmerman. “I told them I couldn’t do it. It’s not right.”

Zimmerman said she was fired because she would not participate. Mould said she was forced to quit because she would not submit. Both have since moved, along with their families, from the apartment complex.

Zimmerman said she was serving as assistant manager when Bryant, 28, an Inglewood invoice clerk, applied for an apartment last year. Although there were several vacancies, Zimmerman said, Bryant was rejected because she is black.

Bryant, who has since moved to another Palmdale apartment complex, said she had decided to move to the Antelope Valley with her 8-year-old daughter because “Los Angeles was getting so rough.”

Bryant, who said she felt “shocked and surprised” by the alleged discrimination, said she sought “a better life . . . (after) my daughter saw a man get shot in the head” near their Inglewood residence.

Mould and Zimmerman said they discussed the “happy face” system, to no avail, with Denise Chrysler, an area supervisor for Investment Concepts. “She just made it very clear . . . the orders were from up there,” said Mould at the press conference.

In a telephone interview, attorney Janger denied that Investment Concepts employs prejudicial policies and said the firm will conduct an internal investigation of the charges. Any employees who practiced discrimination “would certainly be terminated,” he said.

Janger also questioned Mould’s allegations, saying that her January resignation letter contained no specific references to racism.