 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Couple sue, claiming apartment rental denied because of race
Thursday, May 14, 1998 By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Faye and Ron Alexander wanted a better place to live, and the three-bedroom Squirrel Hill apartment advertised in the Sunday Post-Gazette sounded perfect.
The Point Breeze couple made an appointment to see it the next day, Sept. 18, 1995. They made their appointment for noon but then postponed it until later in the afternoon. When they arrived, Maria Riga of Fox Chapel had bad news.
"She told us that we shouldn't have changed our appointment -- that we just missed the apartment," Faye Alexander told an eight-member federal court jury yesterday.
Riga, who owns the building along with her husband, Joseph, told the Alexanders that she had tried to leave a message on their telephone answering machine, telling them the apartment had been rented.
But the couple found no such message when they returned home, attorney Caroline Mitchell told jurors yesterday as testimony began in a housing discrimination suit the Alexanders, who are black, filed in 1996 against the Rigas of Fox Chapel, who are white.
Faye Alexander, a licensed practical nurse, and her husband, who works for a local grocery chain, were surprised a week after they had gone to the apartment to see the same one advertised in the newspaper again.
Ron Alexander asked a friend to phone the number in the ad and see if the apartment, at 5839 Darlington Road, was still available. Alexander was upset when his friend told him the apartment was still vacant, Mitchell said.
Ron Alexander then telephoned Maria Riga again and, using a different name, asked to see the apartment Sept 29. When he arrived, she was sitting on the apartment building's stoop, but she told him, "I'm sorry. I came all this way without my keys," Mitchell said yesterday.
When Ron Alexander asked for another appointment, Riga told him to phone her. As he turned to leave, he saw her enter the apartment.
Soon afterward, the Alexanders contacted the Fair Housing Partnership of Pittsburgh, an organization that tries to prevent housing discrimination.
The nonprofit, which also is a plaintiff in the Alexanders' suit, sent volunteers, who pretended to be prospective tenants, to try and rent the apartment.
Two white men were told it was available, but a black woman was told that it had already been rented, said Mitchell, adding that the apartment was eventually rented to an Indian couple.
The Alexanders and the partnership sued the Rigas under the federal Fair Housing Act, which requires landlords to provide truthful information to prospective tenants. The Alexanders and the partnership are seeking $50,000 each in damages.
Thomas M. Hardiman, an attorney for the Rigas, said his clients were first-generation Italian immigrants.
"They know what discrimination is about," Hardiman said, adding that the couple owned about 30 rental units.
Maria Riga, Hardiman told jurors, did nothing wrong and showed the apartment to many people, including four black people.
Hardiman said Ron Alexander had contradicted himself by telling inconsistent stories about the actual dates on when he viewed the apartment.
The trial resumes today before U.S. District Judge William L. Standish.
|
||||||||
