Riverside County, Calif. has been ordered to provide $16.1 million in grants, loans and other funds for housing projects, and to pay almost $750,000 to two dozen farm worker families as part of a larger $21 million housing discrimination settlement announced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo said the settlement will improve housing for an estimated 2,000 families -- most of them Hispanic -- who have been living in "Third World slum conditions." His agency will monitor the agreement for the next five years.

The original complaints filed under the federal Fair Housing Act by the families alleged that Riverside County officials used "selective and discriminatory enforcement" of health and safety rules for Hispanic-owned and occupied mobile home parks. The 24 families also claimed the county tried to evict them without due process.

Cuomo himself visited the mobile home parks last summer. The HUD leader said he found homeless farm workers sleeping outdoors, on roadsides, in vehicles and in structures with no indoor plumbing.

The county is required to spent $10 million over 10 years for low-income housings, provide a total of $3 million for various farm worker services, use $1.8 million to build a 40-unit single-family development, and spend other funds for other farm worker services.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nearby City of Coachella will provide another $4.2 million in loans and grants for housing initiatives. Neither of these two groups were named in the complaints.

The settlement also calls for each of the 24 families to receive $28,000. People who filed individual complaints will split $15,000, and another $60,000 is earmarked to get rid of existing dilapidated homes.

Full text of the article is currently found at:
http://www.hud.gov/pressrel/pr00-110.html