Nov. 9—SCARBOROUGH — Two people who were housed at Comfort Inn and Suites during the pandemic claim they experienced housing discrimination when they were evicted after town officials required the hotel to resume short-term stays.
Tyshiem Brown and Corey Mitchell have filed separate lawsuits charging the town and the owners of the Route 1 hotel with discrimination based on race, color or receipt of public assistance in violation of the U.S. Fair Housing Act and the Maine Human Rights Act.
Both men are Black and were living at the hotel when it was renting rooms to about 80 people who received federal emergency rental assistance during the pandemic and would have been homeless otherwise, according to the lawsuits.
Their complaints initially were filed in December 2022 with the Maine Human Rights Commission, which dismissed the charges in April after its investigator found “no reasonable grounds” to believe the town discriminated against either man.
The lawsuits were filed in Cumberland County Superior Court in September, then moved to U.S. District Court in Portland in October at the request of the town’s attorney.
“They are making federal charges and that’s where federal charges should be heard,” said Jonathan Brogan, a lawyer with Norman Hanson Detroy in Portland.
“These are completely spurious charges by people who were given beds and housing and food by the town that they would not have received otherwise,” Brogan said. “Scarborough did everything they could to make sure people at the hotel were treated well during a challenging time. They went so far as to bring them box lunches when they didn’t have access to food.”
Lawyers at Pine Tree Legal Assistance and Maine Equal Justice who represent Brown and Mitchell didn’t respond to requests for interviews or written statements on the complaints.
Both men were and still are unemployed; they also were unhoused before living at the hotel and are unhoused now, according to the lawsuits.
COMPLAINTS ALLEGE DISCRIMINATION
The complaints allege that town officials and the hotel’s owners treated Brown and Mitchell differently based on their race, color and receipt of public assistance; and that they perpetuated each man’s segregation in the community when they failed to provide fair housing.
Moreover, when the men were evicted from the hotel, they had to leave Scarborough because they couldn’t afford area rents averaging $1,900 per month; and because town zoning and other regulations prohibit camping or construction of a shelter for residents experiencing homelessness, according to the lawsuits.
“There was no homeless shelter or any other temporary lodging for (Brown or Mitchell) to relocate to in Scarborough,” the lawsuits state.
However, Jane O’Reilly, the state’s human rights investigator, found that while town zoning does restrict temporary housing, and homeless shelters are not an expressly permitted use, town zoning doesn’t prohibit the construction of a homeless shelter.
O’Reilly noted that neither Brown nor Mitchell nor anyone acting on their behalf had attempted to build a homeless shelter in Scarborough and been denied permission by the town’s zoning board. And neither man demonstrated that they wanted to reside in town after they were evicted from the hotel, O’Reilly said in reports to the commission.
HOTEL TURNED SHELTER
The Comfort Inn rented rooms exclusively to people receiving funds from the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program from September 2021 to April 2023, the lawsuits state.
The program provided over $46 billion to eligible renters across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, including residents of other hotels in Maine.
Mitchell rented a room at the Comfort Inn from March 2021 through April 2023 under the temporary rental assistance program, which was administered at the hotel by The Opportunity Alliance, a nonprofit community action agency with offices in Portland and South Portland.
Brown lived there from September 2021 through mid-February 2023, his lawsuit states.
The temporary rental assistance program ran out of funding in September 2022, and by the end of the year, the agency’s social workers were no longer staffing the program at the hotel.
TOWN CRACKS DOWN
In September 2022, the Town Council agreed to renew the hotel’s operating license contingent on the owners’ plan to transition away from temporary housing and resume normal hotel operations before Jan. 1, 2023 — a move that would put the hotel back into compliance with town zoning and licensing regulations.
The plan called for a staggered eviction process “to facilitate the safe and orderly removal of all current guests” from the 69-room hotel. Eviction notices would be served several weeks before guests were expected to leave. Brown was evicted in February 2023 and Mitchell was evicted in April 2023, the lawsuits state.
The annual license renewal had been delayed since May 2022 while the local owner, Nexgen Hospitality Inc., addressed town officials’ concerns about a high number of public safety calls generated by hotel tenants.
The Comfort Inn was one of several hotels in Scarborough that were scrutinized for emergency service calls during the license renewal process, but it was the only hotel that didn’t have its license renewed that May, the lawsuits state.
Nexgen and the hotel’s parent company, Choice Hotels International of Bethesda, Maryland, didn’t respond to requests for interviews or written statements.
COMPENSATION FOR HARM
Brown and Mitchell were among 78 people in 48 households who were living at the hotel with emergency rental assistance, the lawsuits state. They also were among 14 people (18%) staying at the hotel who identified as Black or African American, along with 45 white people (59%); seven of other races (9%); and 12 whose race wasn’t reported (15%).
At the time, 35% of people experiencing homelessness in Maine identified as Black or African American, the lawsuit states.
Brown was interviewed in September 2022 for a story in the Portland Press Herald about his pending eviction.
“I’m a little concerned, but I’ve got some things lined up,” said Brown, who was 39 at the time. He was unable to work and had been living at the hotel since December 2021, he said. Social workers helped him find an apartment in Farmington, he said, but that would have been too far from his daughter, who lived with her mother in Portland.
“I don’t want to be too far from her,” he said.
The lawsuits seek compensation and damages for the harm that Brown and Mitchell say they experienced, as well as payment of legal fees.
They also seek declaratory judgments and permanent injunctions that would prohibit town officials and the hotel’s owners from discriminating against any individual in housing and require them to attend training on fair housing practices.
And they’re asking the court to prohibit the town from enacting or enforcing licensing, zoning and other ordinances related to housing in an arbitrary manner that adversely affects residents based on their economic or housing status.
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