The State : $93,000 Awarded in Housing Bias Suit

A black man who was repeatedly denied an apartment in an all-white senior citizens’ complex in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek was awarded a record $93,000 in damages by the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission. Turning back arguments that rejections suffered by Robert Cannon, who originally applied to live in Walnut Creek Manor in November 1979, when he was 55, and was kept on a waiting list for the next 2 1/2 years, should be considered a single case, the commission voted 4 to 1 that the state’s fair housing law is violated every time a housing applicant on a waiting list is passed over for a vacancy because of discrimination, and that each violation is punishable by a fine of $1,000. The commission also ordered the complex to offer Cannon the next available one-bedroom apartment.