A black pregnant mother of three was kicked out of her apartment by her landlord because he claims she did not provide him with an ultrasound photo to indicate she was pregnant when she signed the lease.
According to the Miami Herald, Tiesha Davis moved into her Florida apartment last September when she was four months later. Then early this year, the assistant property manager of Sorrento Rental Community refused to renew the lease because she hasn’t disclosed her pregnancy nor provided an ultrasound photo.
Davis claims that she was visibly pregnant when she signed her rental agreement, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
The single mother is now suing this and other apartment complexes in federal court, as part of a larger suit by the Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence (HOPE). The Florida NGO works to fight against housing discrimination.
“To ask for a photograph of the inside of a mother’s womb is so intrusive, invasive, it has absolutely no business reason for being in an application for rent,” Keenya Robertson, president, and CEO of HOPE, told WPLG.
“You’re denying housing to those people who this housing was intended to benefit,” Robertson added. “You’re not doing what it is you said you’d do when you took our tax dollars to make this housing available.”
Sorrento is a privately owned affordable housing complex built, in part, with tax dollars. And because of the affordable housing shortage in South Florida, it took Davis a year to even find an apartment.
“Every day I’m going looking for apartments. I can’t focus on my job. I can’t focus on my children,“ said Davis of the ordeal.