The Lenawee County Branch of the NAACP has settled their race discrimination suit against Adrian Manor Apartments. The settlement includes an undisclosed donation to the NAACP. Focus on the complex began three years ago when Carla and Rob Baty, a white couple living at Adrian Manor, contacted the Fair Housing Center of Washtenaw County to complain of discrimination against African-Americans.
In the complaint to the Fair Housing Center, Mr. Baty said that when a unit was available in October 1995, apartment manager Kenneth Wooldridge told him to let people know about the vacancy–as long as they weren’t black.
With no local fair housing organization in Adrian, the couple asked FHC-Washtenaw to investigate the situation. Testing conducted by the Fair Housing Center Supported the Baty’s charge of race discrimination. In one test, according to the FHC tester reports, the white tester was told of available units and warned to avoid a neighboring complex. Seventeen minutes later, the African-American tester was told that nothing was available at Adrian Manor and encouraged to try the same neighboring complex the white tester was warned against.
Granite Management, Inc. in Toledo, Ohio owns the Adrian, Michigan complex. “The NAACP must take action whenever confronted with evidence of race discrimination,” said NAACP President Lawrence Richardson, a detective with the Adrian Police Department. FHC-Washtenaw Cooperating Attorney Michael J. Steinberg filed suit on behalf of the NAACP in Federal District Court. The suit, filed in September of 1997, alleged violations of the Fedearl Fair Housing Act. The case was assigned to Judge John C. O’Meara.