By focusing on Jeyte's three-year legal battle and huge legal fees, Chang over-looks that Jeyte violated our state fair housing law and ignores the concerns of the Hobbs family, the victims of his illegal discrimination. She also ignores the public policy behind the familial status protection in the fair housing law -- giving families with children an equal opportunity to rent a home.
Jack and Misayo Hobbs and their two young children moved to Hawaii in 1993. For several weeks they looked at many rentals. Some were too expensive, others were run down or in less desirable locations. Jeyte's Manoa rental house was just what they wanted. It was affordable, had a large yard, was away from the street, and was located near good schools and their work. It was also large enough for them.
Chang states that Jeyte used "common sense and the prerogative of a private landlord" to decide that people can't sleep in living rooms and that the house was too small for four people. She suggests that Jeyte was justified in setting a three-person occupancy limit. However, given the small housing units in Hawaii, it has been historically necessary and "common sense" for families to sleep in living areas, and many continue to do so today. Furthermore, according to city and county Building Department and state Department of Health rules, the house could be occupied by four people. And, as Chang was aware, both agencies agreed that the house was large enough for the Hobbs family and that living rooms could be used for sleeping.
The commission's position is that occupancy limits must be based upon applicable county or state occupancy rules. This is because a landlord's "common sense" and "prerogative" are subjective factors that can allow them to set arbitrary occupancy limits which effectively exclude families with children. Under state and federal law, it is unlawful to deny a rental because of familial status -- the presence of minor children in a household.
Although Jeyte did not have a sign saying "no children allowed," his occupancy limit had the effect of excluding families with children and was discriminatory. This legal position is not "radical." In another case, federal Judge Samuel King found that a two-person occupancy limit for a studio apartment was discriminatory because, under county rules, the studio was large enough to be occupied by three people.
Thus, landlords should consider applicable state or county occupancy rules before setting an occupancy limit. Otherwise, they should consider only a family's ability to pay rent, past history as tenants, and other legitimate business reasons.
After Jeyte refused to rent, the Hobbses filed a complaint with the commission. The commission measured the house, determined it was large enough for four persons and issued a finding of reasonable cause. Litigation ensued when Jeyte chose to have the case tried in Circuit Court. When Jeyte's insurance company agreed to settle, the commission sought to dismiss the case. The commission's agreement to pay a small fraction of Jeyte's legal cost (but not his attorney's fees) was a reasonable litigation decision. If the commission continued to litigate, it would have spent much more taxpayer money for a two-week jury trial involving a mainland expert after the underlying claim was already settled.
On the other hand, if the commission had backed down because of the amount of money Jeyte poured into the case, Chang could have written a different column criticizing the commission for abandoning the Hobbses when confronted by a wealthy landlord who could outspend us. The decision to pursue the case on behalf of the Hobbses until their claims were resolved is what the law and the public expect from the commission.
We welcome this discussion about our civil rights fair housing laws. However, the press must also look at the issue from the perspective of the victims of discrimination. The important policies embodied in our civil rights laws cannot be left to unfair and inaccurate media characterizations, landlord prerogatives or expensive defense counsel. The civil rights laws are designed to protect all of us, and the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission will continue to vigorously pursue that mandate.
Even as Diane Chang wrote about "he-said/she-said versions of the truth," she denied your readers our family's story. Here's a bit of what "we said."
While lionizing Jeyte as a champion of the people, the columns never described our years of experience as community housing property managers, and mine as a trainer of resident managers on the application of non-discriminatory rental procedures. That was 1985-90 in California, where anti-discriminatory legislation prohibits landlords from the widespread practice of barring children from rental units and upon whose codes Hawaii partly modeled its own familial-status protections.
Simply put, landlord Jeyte had met his match. We researched the law and considered our options.
Jeyte's troubles began not "when he selected another applicant" for the cottage but earlier, when he failed to appear at the appointment scheduled by his agent, Wheelwright, for him to show us the place.
After I had insisted and finally got a chance to view the cottage, Jeyte made it obvious he had no intention to consider us as potential tenants. I wrote an appeal to him, imploring him to consider us for this affordable cottage in a good school district, and close to work opportunities at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
During an abrasive deposition, Jeyte's attorney repeatedly tried to goad me into diagramming exactly where in the cottage my wife and I had intended to sleep, and where we would rest our children. I refused to answer his invasive probing.
In fact, a judge was offered the bedroom/bathroom health code scam and trashed it. It's this and other elaborate dog-and-pony shows engineered by Jeyte's high-priced lawyer that are the main reason for the landlord's money woes.
To blame the HCRC is perverse. That this lawyer now wants to campaign on Jeyte's ticket to amend fair housing laws and make it illegal for Hawaii's struggling families to sleep in their living rooms should put a fright into everyone struggling financially because of Hawaii's wildly dysfunctional rental housing market.
Would that a powerful news organization found a way to advocate the comfort and safety of the real victims (of the rental market), perhaps then families like my own might not be asking to rent overpriced, minimally adequate apartments, houses and cottages that landlords like Jeyte will so casually deny us as unsafe, unhealthy and too small.
So let Jeyte proceed with his quixotic fantasy. On to the Hawaii Supreme Court, let us go. Who knows? It ultimately may cost Jeyte a cool million or more to learn two very simple lessons: One, it's against the law for a landlord to discriminate against families with children in Hawaii.
Two, if they are foolish enough to do so, the underpaid and overworked but truly wonderful people at the HCRC might just teach you something about lesson No. 1.