The 15 residents are in the country illegally, but Ivy Finkenstadt, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Justice Center, says Waples is discriminating against the residents because of their immigrant status, by refusing to accept tax identification numbers the Internal Revenue Service provides workers who are not citizens.
The state’s landlord-tenant law allows landlords to accept IRS tax numbers as proof of identification, which Waples has done in the past but now insists it must have Social Security cards as proof, according to The Washington Post.
In a region where affordable housing for low-income immigrants often means families doubling up, the eviction proceedings are sending a shock wave through an immigrant community that has a fragile foothold, at best. Some residents took over manufactured homes that had been purchased and registered by a relative or friend, and took responsibility for the monthly expenses.
After Waples’ management began asking for Social Security numbers of all residents, they followed up with eviction notices. Finkenstadt said, “The fact that the company changed what it would accept has an impact on who can rent there, and that effect is discriminatory.”
Management of the community insists they need SS numbers in order to do background checks on residents.
Some of the households have a mix of family members with legal immigration status and those without; and some families who have been asked to leave are still paying on their homes. In the Northern Virginia county where the median monthly rent is $1,600, low wage workers have few options. Michelle Krocker, director of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, said, “It’s all they can afford. As a local economy, we need those workers to be here.” ##
(Photo credit: The Washington Post/Allison Shelley–Waples Mobile Home Park)
