The Fair Housing Legal Clinic took action in a familial status discrimination case after a local family was regularly excluded from a campground pool and community facilities due to the property’s policies. The Clinic won a $10,000 settlement in the case, and the restrictive rules have been amended.
The Clinic’s client was a mother of three who owns two lots at the campground and enjoyed taking her children there, in part because the campground had two pools. However, she argued the rules requiring anyone under the age of 21 to exit the pools for 10 minutes each hour for bathroom/rest breaks was excessive.
In addition, the campground set hours restricting swimming and the pool deck to adults-only between 4 and 5 p.m. at pool one, and 5 and 6 p.m. at the second pool. Not even the campground’s teenage lifeguards were able to enter the pool areas during these times.
For the Clinic’s client, it meant packing up her young children to take them to the second pool just to turn around 45 minutes later to take them back to the first pool.
And, despite the family being members of the campground association, her children could not enjoy the community facility that houses an Internet café, library, fitness center and recreational room because they were not 21 or older.
As the case was gearing up for a hearing at the Illinois Commission on Human Rights, the Clinic agreed to assist in the fair housing discrimination case.
“Our students worked on discovery and wrote some major motions that ultimately lead to the Association deciding to settle the case. Students over eight semesters made major contributions,” said A.J. Young, an attorney at the Clinic.
Thanks to the work of recent Clinic interns, Rich Orman, Pat Bushell, and Daniel Rivera, under the supervision of the Clinic’s Director Allison Bethel, the case came to a resolution.