October 21, 2000
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Author: Matthew Bruun
WORCESTER -- A witness in the federal trial on whether the Winchendon Housing Authority ignored a tenant's complaints of racial harassment said some 20 minority applications for housing were dumped under a desk and behind a file cabinet.
Lynda Shepard Richardson, the former director of the Pearl Drive complex where plaintiff Demetrius F. ``Missy'' Branson lives, was out of town and could not testify in person yesterday in U.S. District Court, according to Charles Messina, one of the lawyers for Ms. Branson.
Instead, lawyers read her testimony to jurors from a lengthy deposition she gave before the trial began.
Ms. Richardson testified that a person hired by the housing authority to select tenants quit in 1996 after being chided by Ms. Richardson in front of another employee. Ms. Richardson said she was concerned that vacant apartments at the complex were not being filled quickly enough.
After the employee's departure, Ms. Richardson testified, she found some 50 applications for housing under the employee's desk and behind her file cabinet. The forms were in different stages of processing, but none was listed in both a ledger of applications and a waiting list for available apartments.
Ms. Richardson estimated that 20 were from minority applicants, who are supposed to receive preferential treatment when filling vacancies.
"Some of them had not been processed at all?'' asked Francisca D. Fajana, one of the plaintiff's lawyers, of the Legal Assistance Corp. of Central Massachusetts.
"Correct,'' Ms. Richardson replied. ``They wouldn't get housed if they weren't on the ledger or the waiting list.''
Ms. Richardson said she had confronted the employee earlier about the comparatively small number of minority applications.
"She said, `Why should I offer any units to the minorities? We've already reached our quota. They're all in homeless shelters anyway, and they don't want to come here (to Winchendon),' '' Ms. Richardson said, quoting the former employee.
Ms. Richardson also testified that the authority would be at risk if advocates for the homeless, looking to place people in homes, discovered that applications had been mishandled.
"We would be in for a large lawsuit,'' she said. ``This was a huge problem.''
Ms. Richardson said the housing authority's board of directors was told about the problem and decided to suspend the waiting list for three months while all applications were reviewed.
Summarizing the board's opinion of the matter, Ms. Richardson said, ``It may have been a little sloppiness with the ledger, and that could be corrected.''
Ms. Richardson said she was familiar with Ms. Brinson's claims of racial harassment. She said she offered Ms. Brinson a chance to transfer to another apartment.
"She didn't want to give the impression she was running away,'' Ms. Richardson testified, recalling an alleged encounter in which Ms. Brinson scuffled with another tenant, during which a racial slur was uttered.
There was other discontent on Pearl Drive, Ms. Richardson said.
"It was just putting out one fire after another, and you couldn't keep up with them,'' she said, recalling problems with alcohol and drugs, and an incident involving a tenant who drove his snowmobile around children from the complex, as if they were traffic cones.
"The tenants of Pearl Drive were all filing suits against each other,'' she said
Her testimony was read by Jennifer Valianti, another lawyer from the Legal Assistance Corp. The reading of her deposition had not been completed when Judge Charles B. Swartwood III dismissed jurors for the weekend yesterday afternoon.
Copyright (c) 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
Record Number: 0010212349