The city of Black Jack is playing with semantics in order to discriminate. 3 kids 2 adults and 5 bedrooms. I don't see a problem, even if it would be a persons per square foot issue. Black Jack can spout all the ordinances they want, but judging by the "Why didn't you marry him when you had the chance" remark smells like
someone didn't like their lifestyle, which is really no one else's
business.
When Olivia Shelltrack saw the yellow house
with green shutters, she loved it right away. It had a yard, a deck, a
finished basement and five bedrooms — plenty of space for Shelltrack,
her partner of 13 years, Fondray Loving, and their three children. It
was in their price range.
But the house is in Black Jack, Mo., where
anyone moving into a house must get a permit of occupancy. When
Shelltrack and Loving went to get theirs, the city said no.
Black Jack prohibits more than three unrelated
people from living together. City officials ruled that Shelltrack and
Loving, who are not married, and the three kids, one of them
Shelltrack's from a previous relationship, fit that description.
"This ordinance is outdated. We are a family,"
says Shelltrack, 31. "There's a mom, there's a dad, there's three
children. We are a family." Whether Shelltrack, a stay-at-home mom, and
Loving, 33, who works for a payroll-administration company, are married
"should not be anybody's business, if I pay my taxes, if I'm able to
buy the house," she says.
Now, under threat of a lawsuit from the American
Civil Liberties Union and an investigation by the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development, the city is set to vote today to broaden
the law just enough to allow the Shelltrack-Loving household to live in
town.
"It's nothing unusual to have these particular
type of laws. Basically it's to prevent overcrowding," Mayor Norman
McCourt says. Legislating morality, he says, "was never the intention."
Nationally, definitions of "family" in zoning
laws are widespread and are generally designed to prevent fraternity
houses and boarding houses in single-family neighborhoods. Black Jack
city attorney Sheldon Stock says more than 80 of the 91 municipalities
in St. Louis County, which surrounds the city of St. Louis, have
similar restrictions.
Few enforce them, however, says Tony Rothert,
legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "We're not aware of any
other city that has recently tried to deny an occupancy permit to a
family," he says. "It's been happening in Black Jack a couple times a
year."
In 1999, an unmarried couple with 3-year-old
triplets, Duane Carpenter and Doris McKinney, were denied an occupancy
permit in the town. "The easiest resolution to cure the situation would
be for them to get married," McCourt wrote to the ACLU at the time.
"Our community believes this is the appropriate way to raise a family."
In 1986, a Missouri appeals court upheld a
similar law in Ladue, an affluent St. Louis suburb, after it was
challenged by Joan Kelly Horn and partner Terrence Jones, who lived
there two years with seven children from previous marriages before the
city ordered them out.
"It was, 'Get married or move out,' " says Horn,
who later served in Congress in 1991 and 1992. "We were both pretty
appalled." The couple married in 1987 — on their own timetable, Horn
says. They divorced in 1999.
Missouri housing laws, like those of at least 18 other states, do not prohibit discrimination based on marital status.
Manassas, Va., adopted a law in December
defining family as immediate family members only — not nieces, nephews,
aunts, uncles and cousins. Enforcement was suspended after public
protest and objections from the ACLU.
The Provo, Utah, City Council is debating
whether to define a family as people related by blood, marriage,
adoption or other legal ties.
In Black Jack, the proposed new law would
include in its definition "two unrelated persons" with children
belonging to either or both.
Black Jack residents who oppose changing the law
say Shelltrack and Loving should have done their homework before buying
a house.
"They've gotten into a situation and it doesn't
fit them," longtime resident Corliss Bonner says. "So their solution
is, change the situation. That's not an adult approach."
Larry Hensley says Shelltrack and Loving should
conform or move. He says that's what he did 20 years ago when he moved
from neighboring Florissant, which barred him from keeping bees in his
backyard.
"Any law that can prevent the morality of the
towns from going down is good. You might have a house with 10 or 15
people living in it. Two or three different so-called families in one
house," he says. "I don't know what the big deal is about getting
married."
The topic of marriage has come up between
Shelltrack and Loving. About three years ago, he proposed, and she said
yes. But the couple has set no date for the wedding. Instead, they
saved for a bigger house.
"We're happy with the way our lives are,"
Shelltrack says. "We don't feel that a piece of paper is going to
change it. It's not going to make us better parents. It's not going to
make us better neighbors."
UPDATE: The town's planning and zoning commission
proposed a change in the law, but the measure was rejected Tuesday by
the city council in a 5-3 vote.
"I'm just shocked," Shelltrack said. "I really thought this would all be over, and we could go on with our lives."
The current ordinance prohibits more than three
people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage
or adoption." The defeated measure would have changed the definition of
a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.
Mayor Norman McCourt declined to be interviewed
but said in a statement that those who do not meet the town's
definition of family could soon face eviction.
First, I believe that the real estate agent DID contact the city of
Black Jack and asked specifically about the occupancy requirements and
was not told about the definition of family. If you go to Black Jack's
web-site, you'll also see that there is information about occupancy
permits but not a word about their definition of family.
Secondly, I believe that the family meets Black Jack's definition of "Family" since everyone in the household is related by blood. If you
take the youngest child, you'll see that he is related to his
biological father, his biological mother, his biological sister and his
biological half-sister.
Thirdly, I believe that it's time to change these outdated
ordinances so that we can have more inclusive definitions of "family".
In the coming months, the Equal Housing Opportunity Council hopes to
draft model language for a more inclusive definition of family, and
we'll need help getting ordinances introduced into municipal
governments.
When Olivia Shelltrack saw the yellow house
with green shutters, she loved it right away. It had a yard, a deck, a
finished basement and five bedrooms — plenty of space for Shelltrack,
her partner of 13 years, Fondray Loving, and their three children. It
was in their price range.
