LDF Lawyers Win Right to Challenge Procedures of Public Housing Projects

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Yaad eae: 
President 

Hon, Francis E. Rivers 
* Director-Counsel | PRESS RELEASE 

, egal efense lund Jug Greenies : 
Director, Public Relations 

| NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. pes ela = Jente DeVore: J 
4 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 eggs peecionan 2 aaey 

y 6, 

LDF LAWYERS WIN RIGHT 
TO CHALLENGE PROCEDURES 
OF PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECTS 

BIRMINGHAM-~-A public housing authority--for the first time--must stand 
trial for admission, occupancy, and expulsion of tenants, thanks to the 
work of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) attorneys. 

The case, arising out of Talladega, Alabama, has national impli- 
cations because some 2,300,000 persons live in 2,045 low-rent public 
housing projects across the country. 

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The U.S. Court of Appeals this week ordered the U.S. District 
Court here to set down a trial this fall during which many housing 
authority procedures will be challenged by LDF attorneys. 

Miss Gabrielle Anne Kirk of the LDF's national office and Peter 
Hall of Birmingham will argue for the LDF. 

The lawyers will deal with the specific cases of two Negro women 
and their families who were asked to leave the Talladega housing pro- 
ject because of the pending birth of illegitimate children. 

Mrs. Everline Lewis and her children were ordered out of the 
Knoxville Homes because Mrs. Lewis' daughter, who does not reside with 
her, was expecting an illegitimate child. 

The housing authority rescinded its eviction orders to Mrs. Lewis 
3 and Mrs. Truss after the LDF suit was filed. However, the case is 

being pressed because other persons similarly situated still face the 
same policies. 

oe The attorneys will address themselves to the following issues: 

* proper and sufficient notice 
* adequate and reasonable grounds 
* a fair hearing on the charges 
* clients threatened with eviction on irrelevant grounds. 

LDF lawyers will argue that eviction of the families and others 
similarly situated would violate the "basic purpose of all publicly 

. supported low-income housing as set forth in the policy provisions of 
| the U.S. Housing Act of 1937." 

That act, the attorneys will assert, seeks to “remedy the unsafe 
and unsanitary housing comditions and the acute shortage of decent, 
safe and sanitary dwellings for low-income" families. 

LDF attorneys argued that "the Talladega policy does not help 3 ge eliminate the problems attendant to slum dwellings: it creates them. 4 
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