Tyshiem Brown stands outside the Comfort Inn in Scarborough on Sept. 22, 2022. Brown, who was homeless and lived at the hotel when it became a temporary shelter during the pandemic, filed a lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully evicted. Gregory Rec/staff photographer

SCARBOROUGH – Two people who were housed at Comfort Inn & Suites during the pandemic claim they experienced housing discrimination when they were evicted after city officials requested the hotel to resume short stays.

Tyshiem Brown and Corey Mitchell filed separate lawsuits accusing the city and the owners of the Route 1 hotel of discrimination based on race, color or receipt of public assistance, in violation of the US Fair Housing Act and the Maine Human Rights Act.

Both men are black and lived at the hotel when they rented rooms to about 80 people who received federal emergency rental assistance during the pandemic and who would otherwise have been homeless, according to the lawsuits.

Their complaints were originally filed in December 2022 with the Maine Human Rights Commission, which dismissed the charges in April after its investigator found “no reasonable cause” to believe the city discriminated against either man.

The lawsuits were filed in Cumberland County Superior Court in September, then moved to U.S. District Court in Portland in October at the request of the city attorney.

“They’re making federal charges, and that’s where the federal charges should be heard,” said Jonathan Brogan, an attorney at Norman Hanson Detroit in Portland.

“These are completely false allegations of people who the city gave beds, housing and food that they otherwise wouldn’t have received,” Brogan said. “Scarborough has done all it can to ensure people at the hotel are treated well during a difficult time. They went so far as to bring them lunches in the pit when they didn’t have access to food.”

Attorneys with Pine Tree Legal Assistance and Maine Equal Justice representing Brown and Mitchell did not respond to requests for interviews or written statements about the complaints.

Both men were and are still unemployed; they too were homeless before living at the hotel and are homeless now, according to the lawsuits.

ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINTS

The complaints allege that city officials and hotel owners treated Brown and Mitchell differently based on race, color and receipt of public assistance; and that they perpetuated the segregation of every man in the community when they failed to provide fair housing.

Furthermore, when the men were evicted from the hotel, they had to leave Scarborough because they could not afford rents in the area averaging $1,900 a month; and because city zoning and other regulations prohibit camping or building a shelter for residents experiencing homelessness, according to the lawsuits.

“There was no homeless shelter or any other temporary housing for (Brown or Mitchell) to move into in Scarborough,” the lawsuit states.

However, Jane O’Reilly, the state’s human rights investigator, found that while the city’s zoning restricts temporary housing and homeless shelters are not an expressly permitted use, the city’s zoning does not prohibit the construction of a homeless shelter .

O’Reilly noted that neither Brown nor Mitchell nor anyone acting on their behalf had attempted to build a homeless shelter in Scarborough and had not been denied a permit by the city’s zoning board. And none of the men demonstrated that they wanted to live in the city after they were evicted from the hotel, O’Reilly said in reports to the commission.

HOTEL BECOME SHELTER

The Comfort Inn rented rooms exclusively to people who received funds from the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program from September 2021 through April 2023, the lawsuit states.

Comfort Inn & Suites in Scarborough in May 2022. Drew Johnson/The Forecaster

The program provided more than $46 billion to eligible renters nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, including residents of other Maine hotels.

Mitchell rented a room at the Comfort Inn from March 2021 to April 2023 under the Temporary Rental Assistance Program, which was administered at the hotel by The Opportunity Alliance, a nonprofit community action agency with offices in Portland and South Portland.

Brown lived there from September 2021 until mid-February 2023, his lawsuit states.

The Temporary Rental Assistance program ran out of funding in September 2022, and by the end of the year the agency’s social workers they no longer had staff the program at the hotel.

THE CITY CRIES

In September 2022, the City Council agreed to renew the hotel’s operating license, subject to the owners’ plan to transition from temporary housing and resume normal hotel operations before January 1, 2023—a move that would put the hotel again according to the city. zoning and permitting regulations.

The plan called for a staggered evacuation process “to facilitate the safe and orderly removal of all current guests” from the 69-room hotel. Eviction notices will be sent several weeks before guests are expected to leave. Brown was evicted in February 2023 and Mitchell was evicted in April 2023, the lawsuits state.

The annual license renewal was pushed back from May 2022 while the local owner, Nexgen Hospitality Inc., addressed city officials’ concerns about a high number of public safety calls generated by hotel tenants.

The Comfort Inn was one of several hotels in Scarborough that were checked for 911 calls during the license renewal process, but it was the only hotel that did not have its license renewed in May, according to the lawsuits.

Nexgen and the hotel’s parent company, Choice Hotels International of Bethesda, Md., did not respond to requests for interviews or written statements.

COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGES

Brown and Mitchell were among 78 people from 48 households living at the hotel with emergency rental assistance, the lawsuits state. They were also among 14 people (18%) staying at the hotel who identified as black or African American, along with 45 white people (59%); seven from other races (9%); and 12 whose race was not reported (15%).

At the time, 35 percent of Maine’s homeless identified as black or African American, the lawsuit states.

Brown was interviewed in September 2022 for a story in the Portland Press Herald about his awaiting evacuation.

“I’m a little worried, but I’ve got some things in place,” said Brown, who was 39 at the time. He has been unable to work and has been living at the hotel since December 2021, he said. Social workers helped him find an apartment in Farmington, he said, but that would have been too far from his daughter, who lived with her mother in Portland.

“I don’t want to be too far from her,” he said.

The lawsuits seek compensatory and punitive damages for the harm Brown and Mitchell say they suffered, as well as legal fees.

They are also seeking declaratory judgments and permanent injunctions barring city officials and hoteliers from discriminating against anyone in housing and requiring them to attend fair housing practices training.

And they’re asking the court to enjoin the city from adopting or enforcing housing-related licensing, zoning and other ordinances in an arbitrary manner that adversely affects residents based on their economic or housing status.

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