Tribunal told man turned down apartment in ‘wrong part of town’

A claim by a homeless Eastern European man that Galway City Council discriminated against him has been thrown out by the Equality Tribunal.

Jurijs Kozlovs, a Russian-speaking Latvian, claimed the local authority discriminated against him on grounds of gender, race and family status with regard to providing social housing.

However, the Equality Tribunal, in a ruling issued this week, said Mr Kozlovs failed to make a prima facie case of discrimination on any of the three grounds.

The man and his teenage son were evicted from private rented accommodation in the city due to rent arrears in May, 2012.

The Council provided him with emergency accommodation in a three-star hotel for 18 nights.

He said he would prefer an apartment because the pair had to leave each day while the hotel room was cleaned by housekeeping. Mr Kozlovs argued if he was a mother, an apartment would have been provided.

They were asked to leave the hotel just as they were beginning to settle in, because the hotel was fully booked. He argued this was discrimination and would not have happened to an Irish person.

The City Council offered him an apartment in Doughiska but he said it was “the wrong part of town”, and that it was “dirty and smelly” and there were “undesirables” living in the area. He argued the Doughiska apartment would not have been offered to an Irish person.

He found his own private accommodation instead but this didn’t work out and again he presented as homeless at the City Council on July 6. However, he was no longer deemed emergency homeless as the Department of Social Protection had informed the Council that he and his son were co-habiting with his partner. Mr Kozlovs denied this and became irate.

The Council official he was speaking to offered to provide a train ticket to Dublin where he could attend his Embassy, but he said this was “very patronising” and would not be said to an Irish person.

The City Council said Mr Kozlovs was put up in a three-star hotel with swimming pool at taxpayer’s expense, and enjoyed “better accommodation than many people presenting themselves as emergency homeless did”.

The hotel rents rooms to the Council at preferential rates and “reserves the right to ask the Council to move people if more lucrative bookings emerge”.

The Council “utterly refuted” the claim that the apartment he was shown in Doughiska was in a state of disrepair and the next person who saw the property “eagerly accepted it”.

The Council also refuted the charge about Doughiska being undesirable. It said there is very little crime or anti-social behaviour in Doughiska.

The Council also pointed out the irony in his case – Mr Kozlovs turned his nose up at Doughiska because there were too many ‘ethnics’ living there and yet he is taking the case against the Council on grounds of racial discrimination.

The local authority gave evidence that it was prepared to offer alternatives if he hadn’t found his own accommodation.

The City Council said offering to financially support the man in seeking consular assistance was “good public service” and not discriminatory.

It said it had a duty to protect the Exchequer against fraudulent claims for accommodation, which is why it relied on information from the Department of Social Protection in an example of good joined-up thinking.

An Equality Tribunal found against the complainant on all three grounds of discrimination and ruled in favour of the Council.