North Side Residents Lose Court Battle Over Disruptive Neighbors Spokane Housing Authority Sued Over ‘Clash Of Cultures’ In Pacific Park Area

North Side residents who claimed that noisy, foul-mouthed neighbors destroyed their quality of life lost their court case against the landlord, Spokane Housing Authority.

“There was a clash of cultures in this neighborhood,” said Spokane District Court Judge Richard B. White.

Residents of the Pacific Park neighborhood, in the Indian Trail area of northwest Spokane, described 18 months of screaming, taunting, profanity, and around-the-clock streams of traffic to the house at 8311 N. Valerie St.

They described a Christmas Eve yard fight that ended with a bleeding man coming to their doors asking for help.

In their suit, a dozen Valerie Street residents each asked for the maximum of $2,500 in damages.

They said harassment from the neighbors made them afraid to leave their homes.

“I was afraid to go out of the house or answer the door,” said Kim Wilkins.

Mary Jo Harvey, executive director of the Spokane Housing Authority, said the agency didn’t know about the problems until last winter. She said they handled the situation the best they could.

“We do the most stringent screening of tenants of any landlord in town,” she said.

She cheered the judge’s decision and said she hopes to keep communication open with the neighborhood in the future.

“I hope this is a chance for us to start a dialogue with the neighborhood about the low-income families who will be their neighbors for many years to come,” she said.

Residents, however, said they are disillusioned by the process.

“I’ve learned large entities don’t have to answer to anyone,” said neighbor Lundy Smith. “I’ll know how to deal with a problem like this in the future, but I don’t have a lot of hope of changes. I feel this agency was able to circumvent the law,” she said.

In October 1995, Pearlie Rhodes and her family moved into the Valerie Street home owned by Spokane Housing Authority.

Residents said they went out of their way to be friendly to the new neighbors.

But problems became progressively worse. Neighbors called police, then the housing authority, but were mistakenly told that the agency didn’t own the house.

Frustrated, they contacted Safe Streets Now, a Spokane COPS program that helps residents get rid of neighborhood nuisances and began keeping records of the problems.

In late February, the housing authority began evicting the family, giving them 30 days to leave. Harvey canceled the eviction after learning Rhodes and her family were in a “protected class” and “reasonable accommodation” had to be made to find them housing.

The protected class can include people of color, recovering substance abusers, developmentally disabled and others.

Rhodes and her family moved out of the neighborhood in early June.

Susan Mann, a Spokane police officer and Safe Streets trainer, testified that some of the children living in the house with Rhodes had a history of vehicle prowling, malicious mischief and weapons possession. Another young man who visited often is a registered sex offender, Mann said.

Safe Streets has handled 200 cases in its first three years. Most are settled without going to court. Four cases have gone to court. This is the first loss.

Judge White said he felt for people on all sides of the issue, including Rhodes.

“She had to feel a little bit like a fish out of water in this neighborhood,” he said.

, DataTimes