Awnuh v. Public Housing Agency of the City of Saint Paul

Background

Abdi Awnuh and his three teenaged children received federal Section 8 rental assistance from the Public Housing Agency of the City of Saint Paul (the PHA) from 2009 until April 30, 2019. The PHA terminated the assistance after determining that Awnuh had failed to report summer 2018 employment income within the required ten-day period. The PHA calculated that it had overpaid $1,198 in rental assistance for September and October 2018.

The PHA sent Awnuh notices explaining the balance, payment options, and his right to request an informal hearing within ten working days. The notices included Somali-language inserts directing him to contact the PHA for free language assistance. Awnuh had limited English proficiency. At a February 2019 recertification appointment, he brought his adult daughter to interpret instead of requesting a formal interpreter. The PHA later notified him that it could not process his recertification because of the unpaid balance and warned that his assistance would end if he did not pay. Awnuh did not make the required payment, and the PHA terminated his Section 8 participation on April 30, 2019.

Claims and Motions

Awnuh claimed that the PHA violated the Fair Housing Act by refusing to provide meaningful language-access services or a hearing. At the hearing on the motion, his counsel stated that Awnuh was pursuing only a disparate-impact claim—the theory that a neutral policy disproportionately harms members of a protected group—and had abandoned the disparate-treatment claim pleaded in the complaint.

Awnuh also claimed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that the PHA violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by terminating his voucher without adequate notice or a pre-termination hearing. The PHA moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence presents a genuine dispute requiring a trial and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The PHA also moved to exclude the opinions of Awnuh’s expert, Dr. Claire Halpert.

Fair Housing Act Claim

The court granted summary judgment on the Fair Housing Act disparate-impact claim. First, the court held that Awnuh had not pleaded that claim in his complaint. His complaint focused on how the PHA’s policies and practices affected him personally, and he did not amend the pleadings to add a disparate-impact theory. The court held that raising the claim for the first time at summary judgment was procedurally improper.

The court also concluded that the claim failed on the evidence. It assumed that the PHA’s language-access policies and practices were facially neutral and considered Awnuh’s argument that requiring limited-English-proficient individuals to request interpreters, using language blocks in written communications, and not providing interpreters at the front desk adversely affected immigrants and people unable to read or write in any language. The court found that Dr. Halpert’s statement that the policies were burdensome did not establish discriminatory impact. It also found that the scholarly materials Awnuh cited did not show that the PHA’s policies had a disparate impact on other limited-English-proficient Section 8 participants.

The court further held that Awnuh had not shown a viable alternative to the PHA’s practices. His proposed alternatives included automatically flagging files for interpreter services, providing interpreters for every interaction, and using telephone-based interpretation at the front desk. The court found these proposals insufficiently developed or speculative and concluded that Awnuh had not established the elements of a disparate-impact claim.

Due-Process Claim

The court also granted summary judgment on the due-process claim. Due process requires notice of the reasons for a proposed termination and a meaningful opportunity to respond. The Section 8 regulations require notice stating the reasons for termination and explaining the right to request a hearing and the deadline for doing so.

The court rejected Awnuh’s argument that the PHA had to hold a hearing before every Section 8 termination, even when the recipient did not request one. Applying the balancing approach used to evaluate procedural protections, the court determined that the PHA’s administrative and financial burden of holding a hearing in every termination case outweighed Awnuh’s interest in requiring that procedure in his circumstances.

The court also found no evidence that the PHA intentionally or discriminatorily failed to recognize Awnuh’s submissions as a hearing request. The record showed that the caseworker tried to determine why Awnuh had submitted documents and money-order stubs, but Awnuh did not respond to her voicemail. The court further rejected Awnuh’s argument that the PHA should have known he could not understand the written notices and should have automatically contacted him in Somali or scheduled a hearing. The court found that he had no legal support for imposing those requirements and had not established a due-process violation.

Disposition

The court granted the PHA’s motion for summary judgment. It denied the motion to exclude Dr. Halpert’s expert testimony as moot because judgment for the PHA had already been entered on Awnuh’s claims. The order directed that judgment be entered accordingly.