She texted Corrine immediately: "Does he know about the Fair Housing Act?"
The neighborhood was beginning to move: quietly, precisely.
Beverly, apparently deciding that subtlety had run its course, went public. She posted to the Sycamore Crest private Facebook group. She didn't name us directly—she was too careful for that. She referred to "a situation on the drive involving community standards and resident well-being" and invited concerned neighbors to contact the board. She got eleven responses; nine of them were angry at her. She either didn't read them carefully or didn't care. Probably both.
Then she tabled a motion at the next board meeting—the one I didn't know about until Tad texted me at 9:00 p.m.—to formally amend HOA rules to require that residents with "visible medical conditions" obtain a board variance before using their front porch.
She actually used that language: Visible medical conditions. Variance. Front porch.
Even two of her own board allies went quiet when she said it out loud. The motion was tabled, but the fact that she'd proposed it was captured in the minutes. Everything was always in the minutes.
That same week, Petra Sundwall knocked on my door with a legal pad, a pen she clicked compulsively, and the focused energy of a woman who had spent three decades preparing other people's cases and was absolutely delighted to finally have one of her own. She had read the HOA's governing documents cover to cover: seventy-two highlighted pages, four-page summary memo.
She handed it to me at Tad's kitchen table. Tad provided the coffee in a thermos roughly the size of a small engine part and walked me through her findings.
Three things stood out:
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Beverly had been approving expenditures above her authorized limit without a board vote: specifically, $14,200 in landscaping contracts paid to her nephew's company, Croft Outdoor Services.
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The meeting minutes contained discrepancies across at least six sessions going back three years.
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The variance motion Beverly had proposed would, if passed, almost certainly constitute a violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. Section 3604, prohibits housing discrimination based on disability, and cancer qualifies. Attempting to regulate a disabled child's use of her own front porch isn't a community standards issue; it's a federal civil rights issue, and it can be reported directly to HUD at no cost.
I sent a certified letter—I love certified mail; there's a receipt for everything—to the HOA's professional management company. I notified them that the board president had proposed an action that may constitute a Fair Housing Act violation, and that there was a documented pattern of unfounded police complaints filed against the same property. I copied the letter to the HOA's insurance carrier.
Within forty-eight hours, the management company sent a representative to meet with the full board. Beverly was not pleased; I know because Tad was there, and he described her expression as that of a woman who has just discovered the floor isn't where she thought it was.