Three single Black mothers in Owings Mills say they moved their families into a quiet Baltimore County townhouse community hoping for stability — and instead found themselves followed, recorded, and fined by the very homeowners association meant to serve them. Brittany Williams, Whitney Greenwood and Janice Brinkley have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that leaders of the Queen Anne Village Association targeted them and other Black residents who use housing choice vouchers, going so far as to ban their children from the community pool.
Lottery Winners Who Found Hostility Instead of Stability
According to the Daily Record, which first reported on the lawsuit filed in Maryland federal court, all three women moved to the Owings Mills neighborhood from lower-income areas of Baltimore City after their names were drawn in a lottery for government-subsidized housing vouchers. The suit names the Queen Anne Village Association, two management companies and two individuals as defendants, and alleges that HOA members repeatedly followed, harassed, recorded and improperly fined Black residents who used the vouchers.
Williams told reporters she moved to the neighborhood so her three young children could grow up in a safe, stable, affordable home, per the same outlet’s report. Instead, she said she was sick and tired of harassment by neighbors and the community association. The complaint alleges that HOA leaders used the term Section 8 as a stand-in for Black residents and that a 2018 HOA meeting discussed a dramatic increase in Section 8 and alleged problems caused by renters from Baltimore, according to the complaint. Brodie Management, the prior property manager, was reportedly ordered during that meeting to find ways to get control over these elements, the complaint states.
A 12-Year-Old Recorded and Reported to Police
Some of the most striking allegations in the complaint involve children. One resident allegedly yelled at Williams’s 12-year-old daughter while she played in the front yard, recorded her, and told her she could not play in the yard because her mother did not own the house. That same resident is accused of calling police on children on more than one occasion. Williams also says she received a warning after her father helped change a flat tire in front of her house, and that her parents and children were later banned from the community pool.
Williams could not obtain a pool pass, the complaint alleges, because her lease did not list her baby’s name. The complaint states that the denial of pool access evokes painful images of the Jim Crow era. Black residents more broadly, the suit alleges, were fined for alleged rule violations that were not enforced against white residents and were followed by the HOA head and other residents.
A Landlord Joins the Fight Over Fine Records
Zico Realty, which leases apartments to residents in the community, joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff, saying it opposes the HOA’s treatment of its renters. According to the complaint, Zico Realty paid some HOA fines it considered unfair to residents, then requested the association’s fine records — only for the association to prevent the company from accessing them. The complaint alleges that denial violated state law…