Discrimination takes housing in NC

To view this story as it is posted in the INDY WEEK newspaper, please google, "Who is Denise Fitzpatrick in Raleigh, NC" you will then be able to read it online. with photographs of my son and I. As you keep reading you can also read the wordings as written in the INDY WEEK newspaper in the March 16, 2016 edition, below.
 
 
March, 30, 2016
 
To whom it may concern;
 
I would like to share the following story of discrimination in violations of the Fair Housing Amendment Act of 1988, by the Wake County Human Services, a government agency authorized to provide housing to families who have been homeless and who have a disability, yet WCHS excluded my son from housing because he has a disability.

Please help us to raise money to help our situation in regards to housing. This money is needed ASAP, due to the temporary housing which I am currently residing in. I also need my own tranportation because of limited public transportation as I struggle to visit my son. I look forward to being able to afford legal Representation so that I may have the Guardianship of my son back that was lost illegally due to the actions of Wake CountyHuman Services.

Wake County Assistant Housing Director, Wanda Teel not only terminated the housing assistance for 3 false reasons(Proven in the cross examination) she also ignored a reasonable accommodation request and denied another reasonable accommodation request, thus denying two reasonable accommodation requests. An extremely dishonest Wanda Teel in the cross examination stated first that she had not gotten the first reasonable accommodation request, even though I sent the request by sending it certified mail, return receipt. This document was signed as received, by WCHS. Wanda Teel during the cross examination said also, that she did not know the person who signed for the document.
 
 Later, in the cross examination, Teel stated that she did know of the request. She stated that the Montecito Management who I also sent the document by certified mail, return receipt told her about the request. In a court of law on September 29, 2015, Wake County Assistant Housing Director, Wanda Teel in her answers, proved further, the discrimination which has caused extreme damages for my son and I.  A legal Aid fair Housing Attorney, Suzanne Chester states to me in an e-mail that if discrimination is found in the early stages of the lawsuit, Wake County's motion to dismiss such lawsuit would be denied by Judge Ned Mangum and I would be granted my motion for Preliminary Injunction, pending trial.
 
That is exactly what happened. Judge Ned Mangum in the findings stated that I HAD CLEARLY SHOWN A PRIMA FACIE RIGHT TO THE RELIEF SOUGHT. This Judge scheduled a trial for December 2, 2015, but this trial never came to be due to the wrongful actions by a former Judge, Abraham Jones who came into the case to settle it, harassing me for nearly 4 months to settle, DESPITE MY ASKING HIM TO STOP HARASSING ME INTO DOING SO, but he continued. As you will read, Jones is responsible for elimination of the trial, scheduled by Judge Ned Mangum, who refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

In doing so, he like Suzanne(His long time friend of 20 years)Chester denied me my request in for a trial by Jury. Attorney Suzanne Chester denied the jury trial off and on, before Jones came into the picture, against my will. I am not and have never been adjudicated incompetent or incapacitated. As a strong Christian woman, I am fully and completely with "Sound Mine"It is Abraham Jones who appears to be "Professionally Incompetent".
 
I say this after reading the 30 page document on the "Rules for Professional Conduct of NC". Also, after reading such, Attorney Suzanne Chester for her role in promising to go forth with the trial, urging me to fight discrimination and her dishonesty and contradictions(Which can be proven by her own e-mails and text messages which are still in my possession) including the no return of the documents that I presented to her has also violated the "Rules of the Professional Code of Conduct. This one also after I was granted my motion for Preliminary Injunction, pending trial, called it "Good news". She finally denied it after promising that after WCHS did an answer, after the cross examination, we would be able to argue my lawsuit of FHAA violations to a jury.

Lastly, Chester in a saved e-mail to me stated that she thought it was too late to request a trial by jury. In a court hearing, Chester told the Judge, after she asked that the lawsuit be "Sealed" with the Judge denying such, pretended that she "Thought" she had asked for a trial by jury. Wake County Attorney, Roger Askew at that point said, "We do not want a jury trial". 
 
 Suzanne Chester motioned to withdraw, not in August of 2015, as stated by the INDY WEEK, but it was after she performed the cross examination of Wanda Teel on September 29, 2015, leaving it to Abraham Jones to settle it so that it would not reach trial. The Legal Aid Attorney, Suzanne Chester filed and prepared a large document lawsuit of discrimination on my behalf in July of 2015 for compensatory and possible punitive damages but  after the cross examination which she performed on WCHS' Wanda Teel, Chester motioned to withdraw. Abraham Jones, a Former Judge for Wake County was allowed to become a Guardian Ad Litem to get my case settled.

I first made a complaint of discrimination in November of 2014 with HUD, Raleigh, Human Rights Commission, a partner of HUD and amended it in March of 2015 due to further illegal acts of discrimination by Wanda Teel and Terrie Deal and also a Caseworker, Joanna Fullmer of WCHS, for their roles of harassments and intimidation that I would need to sign into a new program, an individual program in continuing to make housing unavailable for my son, discriminating also against me as one associated with him. This is also in violation of the FHAA of 1988.
 
In or about July of 2015, Raleigh, Human Right Commission Investigator, Mr. Edward Smith sent me an e-mail stating that HUD wanted harassment and intimidation added to my amended complaint. This is also discrimination, a Civil Rights Violation, under the FHAA of 1988.
After WCHS continued to offer "Unreasonable and tricky proposals" Attorney Suzanne Chester of the Legal Aid so called Fair Housing project urged and insisted that I offer WCHS a proposal.

This, of which WCHS denied. Suzanne Chester called the proposal that we offered to WCHS as being the "Reasonable one". Suzanne Chester wrote me a letter(Still in my possession) in or about July of 2015, that she would motion to withdraw from the lawsuit, "If" I did not accept the settlement proposals from WCHS, that of which she stated as being "Reasonable".
 
Please, if you would, read the following communication, which is included in the headlines of the INDY WEEK newspaper by Journalist and Staff Writer, Jane Porter.

 
Why Was a Wake County Woman’s Lawsuit Settled Against Her Will? 
By Jane Porter
Photo by Alex Boerner
Denise Fitzpatrick is in a struggle with Wake County to secure housing for her and her son, Julian Coatley.
It started with an argument. No punches thrown, just words exchanged.
Denise Fitzpatrick, a petite, primly dressed African-American woman, now sixty-one, went to use the restroom at the Cornerstone Day Center, a publicly funded, Wake County-owned facility in downtown Raleigh that provides services such as mental-health and substance-abuse treatment to the homeless.
It was August 2014, and Fitzpatrick had swung by Cornerstone to pick up her mail with her son, Julian, now thirty-four, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. They were homeless—and had been, on and off, for the previous two years. At the time, they were living out of a storage unit.

When she returned from the restroom, Julian was in the Cornerstone lobby, arguing with another homeless man. The man was cursing at Julian, Fitzpatrick says.
"It was M F this and F you, you stepped on my bag, M F this, that, and the other," Fitzpatrick recalls. "He was saying, 'Let's take this outside.'"
Staff members and security guards later told Fitzpatrick that Julian had stepped on the man's bag.

Julian apologized, they said, but the man wouldn't accept his apology. As Fitzpatrick was leading her son out of the building to cool down, the man continued to yell at him. Julian picked up a metal trashcan and slammed it to the ground. It was an uncharacteristic outburst, Fitzpatrick says.
For this infraction, Julian was barred from the Cornerstone premises for twenty-eight days, in accordance with the center's policy.

Fitzpatrick sent Julian to a crisis center and had his medications adjusted.
From the county's perspective, this should have been the end of it.
Fitzpatrick thought it was.
She continued to utilize Cornerstone's services. A month later, she signed into Shelter Plus Care, a program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides rental subsidies and support services to homeless people with disabilities, including mental illnesses. Fitzpatrick has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
She was approved for the program, which currently has about two hundred participants in Wake County. On October 14, 2014, she attended an orientation and signed a document outlining expectations for voucher participants. According to the form, Fitzpatrick could request that her son be allowed to live with her, and she agreed to monthly visits with her caseworker. In exchange, Wake County would cover 100 percent of her rent—which turned out to be $655 a month—plus her utilities.
But after Fitzpatrick made it clear that she wanted her son to come live with her, things started to unravel.
A social worker told Fitzpatrick that Julian couldn't live with her because his behavior was threatening to himself or others. Another Cornerstone employee told Fitzpatrick she would have to apply for a different program if she wanted her son to live with her. Yet another told her she would have to live by herself for a year before she could have her son move in.
To Fitzpatrick, these responses contradicted the rules she'd agreed to follow. Neither the form she signed nor any of the paperwork she received said anything about behavior beyond prohibitions on alcohol and drug use. Instead, she thought county officials were discriminating against Julian because of his mental-health problems—and that, to her mind, constituted a violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The law makes it illegal for otherwise qualified individuals with a disability— including a mental impairment—to be excluded from federally funded programs because of their disability or the disability of anyone associated with them. Fitzpatrick maintained that Julian was not a threat to anyone, yet the county refused to let him live with her.
In November, Fitzpatrick filed a complaint with HUD, the North Carolina Human Relations Commission, and Legal Aid of North Carolina's Fair Housing Project. That kicked off what Fitzpatrick describes as months of harassment and discrimination against her by Wake County employees, culminating in a lawsuit brought against her by her landlord after the county revoked her voucher and a countersuit she filed against Wake County. That, in turn, led to a settlement she didn't want but was forced into by her court-appointed guardian, a former Wake County judge, after she was declared unable to manage her own affairs—a decision, it seems, prompted in part by her insistence on taking her case to trial.
Fitzpatrick's story sheds light on just how challenging it is for people like her to find normal, stable housing where they can live independent lives. It also raises questions about the kinds of decisions social workers and bureaucrats should be allowed to make on behalf of people with disabilities, and about under what circumstances individuals should lose their legal autonomy.
"I am crying out for justice," Fitzpatrick says. "I am crying out for fair treatment to whoever listens. It isn't fair for my son to be in adult care, begging to come home. Justice to me means fair treatment—that we should be compensated for our damages."
Four years ago, Fitzpatrick and Julian lived together in a rent-to-own home in Atlanta. Julian's schizophrenia, with which he'd been diagnosed at eighteen, had escalated, and Fitzpatrick often came home from her job as a receptionist to find that he'd been pacing the streets of their neighborhood. She quit work to care for him.
Fitzpatrick became Julian's guardian in 2013, shortly after they moved to the Triangle. Fitzpatrick wanted to be able to sign off on his medical decisions. She struggled to find housing, and they ended up staying with a niece in Knightdale. The situation soon became untenable. Julian stayed up all night and ate and slept at odd times; that irked the niece's husband, who wanted them gone, Fitzpatrick says.
So, for the rest of 2013 and most of 2014, they lived together in hotel rooms when they had money and out of storage units when they didn't. Julian was hospitalized a few times and lived intermittently at crisis centers and group homes. Fitzpatrick would stay in shelters when he was away.
After enrolling in Shelter Plus Care, Fitzpatrick signed a lease for a one-bedroom unit at the Montecito Apartments, a complex of brick buildings on Colby Drive in North Raleigh, in December 2014. Based on the assurances she says county officials gave her, she assumed she'd be allowed to have her son move in with her.
click to enlarge Photo by Alex Boerner
Julian Coatley, Fitzpatrick's son.
County officials had other ideas.
"The program is designed to assist the eligible applicant to establish and become stable before we entertain adding anyone else to the household," program assistant Wanda Teel wrote in an email, included in court documents, to caseworker Joanna Fullmer.
In January 2015, Fitzpatrick received a handwritten note from Fullmer, stating that Wake County would terminate her voucher if she didn't show up to a meeting at Teel's office. Teel followed up with several emails explaining that Fitzpatrick had signed the wrong paperwork in December. The correct paperwork, she said, required weekly instead of monthly caseworker visits. The new forms also would have required Fitzpatrick to wait two years before she could add a family member to her voucher.
But when Fitzpatrick met with Teel in March, Fitzpatrick says, Teel refused to let her see the new rules she was supposed to agree to. So Fitzpatrick refused to sign anything new. (Teel did not respond to the INDY's request for comment. As outlandish as Fitzpatrick's claim may seem, in a later ruling, Wake County District Court Judge Ned Mangum found it to be true.)
Because Julian wasn't allowed to live with her, Fitzpatrick lost guardianship; in March, Julian was discharged from a county crisis center, where he'd gone a few months earlier after having suicidal thoughts, and sent to an adult-care home in Durham. And because Fitzpatrick had refused to sign Teel's paperwork, she received a notice that, effective May 31, 2015, Wake County would be terminating her housing voucher.
Federal regulations state that, under Shelter Plus Care, assistance can only be revoked in severe cases. The county cited Fitzpatrick's failure to complete required paperwork, noncompliance with weekly visits (which Fitzpatrick never agreed to), and her absence from a required housing committee review.
May 31 came and went, but Fitzpatrick refused to leave her apartment. In June, Duke Energy cut off her utilities. She stayed anyway.
"I had already filed a complaint [with HUD and Legal Aid], and when they cut everything off, I didn't really have anywhere else to go," Fitzpatrick says. "I could have gone to a shelter ... but I just thought, this is wrong. My voucher was terminated wrongfully, and this needed to be in front of a judge. So I contacted Legal Aid again."
On June 18, Fitzpatrick received an eviction notice. She stayed put.
At Legal Aid, an attorney named Suzanne Chester picked up Fitzpatrick's case. Fitzpatrick told Chester that she wanted to sue the county because her mental illness had been exacerbated by stress.
"I was having chest pains, and I had to go to the ER," Fitzpatrick says. "They gave me more tests than you can think of—EKG, blood tests, a chest X-ray. They said it is stress related, because they couldn't find anything else that was wrong."
In a July 19 email, Chester advised Fitzpatrick to be evaluated by a psychologist. An affidavit from a mental-health provider, she said, would be crucial for the case to be successful. So therapist Lauren Bridges assessed her. According to an affidavit, Bridges determined that Fitzpatrick "is at risk for recurrent episodes of heightened anxiety, paranoia and underlying mood symptoms" as a result of homelessness and "stressors related to the loss of her housing voucher."
In July, Chester and Fitzpatrick appealed Montecito's eviction order and sued Wake County for wrongful termination of Fitzpatrick's voucher. Chester wrote in Fitzpatrick's complaint that "deprivation of her right to enjoy housing with or without her son had caused her apprehension, embarrassment, humiliation and emotional distress."
Wake County countered with a motion to dismiss. But it also proposed a settlement that would retroactively reinstate Fitzpatrick's voucher, not require her to wait two years to add Julian, and dismiss Montecito's claims against her. In return, Fitzpatrick would agree to drop her complaints against the county and attend weekly meetings with a caseworker.
Fitzpatrick refused. In emails to Chester, she insisted that she wouldn't settle because she was sure the county had discriminated against her and she wanted compensation. In the emails, which Fitzpatrick provided to the INDY, Chester repeatedly advised her to settle, becoming evermore frustrated with her client. Finally, in August, Chester withdrew as Fitzpatrick's counsel, citing Fitzpatrick's refusal to accept a "reasonable" settlement.
Photo by Alex Boerner
Denise Fitzpatrick
But before Chester exited the case, another district court judge, Debra Sasser, appointed Fitzpatrick a guardian ad litem, someone to act on Fitzpatrick's behalf. It's not clear from court records why this happened, but, under state law, guardians can be appointed to act on behalf of "insane or incompetent" people.
Fitzpatrick believes Chester used the therapist's affidavit—which states that she is "unable to trust information presented to her" and feels anxious and paranoid—to convince Sasser that Fitzpatrick was not capable of acting in her own best interest. Fitzpatrick points out that no records indicate that she is "insane or incompetent."
However, judges are allowed to use their discretion to decide whether someone is incapable of assisting herself in court.
"[Chester and another Legal Aid attorney] took me into a room and said, 'Look, they are going to appoint you a GAL," Fitzpatrick recalls. "'The judge is going to give you a GAL, and we want to choose who it is.' She said, 'I know a man that used to be a judge. We have been friends for twenty years.'"
(In an email, Chester defended her representation of Fitzpatrick. "In this case, what is in the public record is not indicative of all that transpired," she wrote. She said she could not elaborate because she is bound by state rules governing attorneys' professional conduct.)
The GAL they chose was Abraham Jones, a former Wake County Superior Court judge. Like Chester, Jones advised Fitzpatrick to accept the settlement. Again she refused. In October, Judge Mangum refused Wake County's motion to dismiss Fitzpatrick's case and scheduled a jury trial for December 2.
But that trial never happened.
"[Jones] came into the picture in August to settle this thing for Wake County," Fitzpatrick says. "He harassed me from August to December to settle, and then in December, the day before the trial, he motions the judge to dismiss the case."
Jones declined to comment for this story.
As Fitzpatrick's guardian, Jones could approve the settlement whether Fitzpatrick liked it or not—and that's what he did. As part of the agreement, Fitzpatrick's complaints to the Human Relations Commission and HUD were also dismissed.
Fitzpatrick's was one of 105 Wake County housing-discrimination complaints filed with the state Human Relations Commission between 2007 and 2015, according to county records. In a presentation prepared ahead of a county commission work session on Monday, staffers said the county lacks the resources to investigate these complaints. The county is now considering whether to establish its own human relations committee to take on that task.
Fitzpatrick's story may be unique, in that she lost her autonomy for reasons that aren't immediately clear, but housing mentally ill people is a widespread problem, both in Wake County and throughout North Carolina.
In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice sued North Carolina and a handful of other states for violating the Olmstead Act, which requires states to place people with mental disabilities in community settings where they can live independent lives. Per the terms of a settlement, the state has to ensure that at least three thousand people with mental illnesses living in adult-care homes are placed into "community-based supportive housing"—meaning homes and apartments—by 2020.
Ann Oshel, the community relations director at Alliance Behavioral Healthcare, a health network that provides services for the mentally ill, says that since the state settled the DOJ's lawsuit in August 2012, thirty-seven people with mental disabilities "have been waiting for months and months [for Wake County] to locate housing for them."
Put simply, landlords don't want them, even if they have housing assistance.
"The problem we have run into in Wake is that there is a competitive housing market anyway, so landlords have a choice of who to rent to. So the people we serve are less likely to be granted accommodation," Oshel says.
But for Fitzpatrick, finding a landlord wasn't the problem; it's more the vicious cycle of homelessness and unemployment that she's once again fallen into.
In January, Fitzpatrick relinquished the housing voucher her settlement afforded her. She says she no longer trusted the county and was too stressed to deal with its caseworkers. She landed a job at Waffle House, she says, but lost it because she couldn't arrange transportation to and from the women's shelter. She's still looking for work.
Julian remains in an adult-care home in Raleigh.
"He begs to come home, he wants to stay with me on the weekends," Fitzpatrick says, her voice breaking. "Whenever I start thinking about it, I get sentimental. I think about the fact that Wake County is authorized by the federal government to provide housing for mentally ill people with disabilities. We go in, we're homeless, living in storage units, hotels, and shelters. Then we're excluded because my son has a disability. It doesn't make sense. And it's illegal."
This article appeared in print with the headline "Autonomy Lost"
 
Not only did Abraham Jones settle the case against my will but he also falsified legal documents stating that I was in his presence along with his Paralegal (who is also a Notary Public)
on December 1, 2015. It is stated that I read along with him and agreed to the settlement agreement. I was NEVER  in the presence of Abraham Jones and his Paralegal, ever. I have proofs of were I as on that date and it was certainly not with a dishonest Abraham Jones. Later in an e-mail I wrote in a response to the Paralegal's e-mail that I was never in the presence of Jones and her on December 1, 2015 and have never been. This also, dishonest employee of Abraham Jones wrote that I was not there on December 1, 2015. This person also stated on February 2, 2016 that Abraham Jones was my GAL still. She then wrote that Abraham Jones ceased being my GAL on December 8, 2015.
 
 I relinquished the housing voucher to avoid further acts, the continuing of discrimination and due to my distrust of not all people but of WCHS and its caseworkers. The relinquishing of such voucher, if I had not done so, would have caused me to sign the same papers that Wanda Teel refused to show me the rules  to before I signed them. In a proposal by WCHS it is stated that I would not have to sign any new papers, yet before I relinquished the voucher in January of 2016, a Caseworker informed me that I was a Participant in the "Housing First" Program, an individual not family program(More tricks by WCHS!) and would need to sign to such! Abraham Jones' Paralegal, e-mailed and inquired about my relinquishing the voucher. It is at this time, February 2, 2016 that  his Paralegal and Notary wrote in an e-mail that Jones was still the GAL!
 
In this case, Chester and Jones kept writing using the words, "Possibly adding son in the FUTURE and wordings such as you will not have to wait 2 years to add the son. It should have been that you can add your son, ASAP not using the word FUTURE. WCHS wanted me to keep this case under the rug, stating that I would not have to sign anything new now. They wanted me to act as though nothing happened, as though there were no damages to us, just wanted me to agree to this type of settlement with no monetary damages, just agree to keep the apartment and that would be the end of it. This is what Abraham Jones fixed the settlement to look like. Edward Smith of HRC said, what about your damages?
 
Smith also stated long before the case got this critical these words. "THIS CASE NEEDS TO BE IN THE MEDIA, WHAT IS THAT TROUBLE SHOOTERS NAME?" I SAID THESE WORDS, "I WAS THINKING ABOUT CONTACTING MOVIE WRITERS" HE SAID, "I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN TO CONTACT THE MEDIA" But he never did. In a court hearing, County Attorney, Roger Askew said to Judge, Ned Mangum, "WE DON'T WANT THIS IN THE MEDIA, WE DON'T WANT THIS IN PUBLIC RECORDS". Again, Attorney Suzanne Chester said, "I AM ASKING THAT THE CASE BE SEALED" At this, Judge Ned Mangum said, "YOU HAVE NOT GIVEM ME ANY REASON TO SEAL IT" After these words, Suzanne Chester turned to me and said, "ARE YOU O.K WITH THE CASE NOT BEING SEALED?" I then said, "YES I AM OK WITH IT NOT BEING SEALED, I DO NOT WANT IT SEALED AT ALL AND I WANT IT IN PUBLIC RECORDS"
 
 I have e-mails and text messages saved to show the tricks, dishonesty and contradictions of Chester and Jones. The e-mails and texts show how Chester promised to go on with the trial. They will show how in the beginning of September of 2015, I asked Chester to withdraw if she was going to continue to be for WCHS and if she was going to continue to be dishonest, she replied back by text and by e-mail that she did not want to withdraw and that she would prepare to try the case and to fight the discrimination and have the rents paid at the Montecito Apartment, pending trial. She later stated that she was not going to try and get me to settle anymore and that it was not her who was trying to get the case settled, she blamed that on Abraham Jones. Attorney Suzanne Chester is the person who promoted the settling of the case by a very dishonest and former Judge Abraham Jones who the Montecito Apartments Attorney wanted to cross examine in the court room on September 29, 2015. Judge Ned Mangum refused such cross examination. Attorney Suzanne Chester stated to me the following; "This case is costly the Montecito Apartment Attorney about 200.00 per hour and he wants it to be done with".
 
Montecito Attorney stated in a document(Saved) that Jones had not settled the case because he was scared of a Bar Complaint. Jones harassed me for nearly 4 months to settle the case before he did, as I never agreed to such. The large volume of e-mails that I have saved, also show were in Suzanne Chester's own words how she agreed to the discriminatory actions of WCHS! Thank you so much, Mr. Michaels and I hope that you will help us to make this case highly exposed.

As I go on to study Civil Rights, (Walking in my dad's footsteps as he was a Minister of God's word and a Civil Rights fighter) I pray that something that I have done, by stepping forth in the fight against FHAA of 1988 violations, will help someone else. I pray that if the only true God will grant us monetary damages from WCHS, I will do as Jesus said, "GIVE UP YOUR RICHES AND GIVE TO THE POOR"(Matthew 19:21).

When I think back on how Martin Luther King  fought for the Civil Rights of African Americans and how he dedicated his life in helping all people, makes me cringe when I think especially of Abraham Jones and Wanda Teel, both African Americans who violated the Civil Rights of an African American family, me and Julian Glenn Coatley, my dear son. What would Martin Luther King think if he was alive today? I hope to see this great man in the resurrection when Jesus Christ says, "Wake up". This case is also published online in the INDY WEEK newspaper. I will be deeply appreciative  for the financial help and pray that one day I will be able to help others. Thank you for your consideration.
 
Respectfully;
 
Denise Newton Fitzpatrick