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GREENSBORO — A judge may rule next week in an unusual eviction case that has the city’s Human Relations Department taking sides against a nonprofit housing complex affiliated with Shiloh Baptist Church.

LaTonya Stimpson, a mother of four, was among six tenants taken to court Nov. 25 by the management of J.T. Hairston Memorial Apartments, a federally subsidized housing complex owned by a nonprofit church board.

Several neighbors were ejected shortly before Christmas for owing small amounts of back rent and payments for minor repairs — in one case, $10.35 for a broken mini-blind — but Stimpson appealed her eviction order.

Stimpson says she is being put out of her home in retaliation for circulating a petition calling for the property managers at the apartments to resign.

The property is managed by Westminster Co. Stimpson and fellow tenants picketed Friday evening outside Westminster’s North Church Street offices.

The Greensboro City Attorney’s Office, in a memo filed with the court on Stimpson’s behalf, agreed that her discrimination complaint “had merit.”

Westminster’s attorney, T. Keith Black, could not be reached for comment. The chairman of the board at Hairston Apartments, Mary Mims, said in an earlier interview that management complied with all HUD rules and followed the law in evicting tenants.

But the city’s associate general counsel, Jamiah K. Waterman, arguing earlier in February before District Court Judge Polly D. Sizemore, asked for a preliminary injunction to stop Stimpson and her children from impending eviction.

According to the City Attorney’s Office, the case is the first time the city has invoked the Fair Housing Ordinance in support of a tenant fighting an eviction order.

The staff lawyer wrote that, as the municipal equivalent of HUD, the city was entitled to “some measure of governmental deference” in the matter and that the court need consider not only the harm Stimpson’s eviction would do to her family, but to the cause of tenants in general.

“The City’s goal of ending housing discrimination will be harmed,” Waterman wrote. “This eviction will have a chilling effect on other tenants. They will be reluctant to seek vindication of their rights for fear of eviction.”

In complaints that have been denied by Westminster, Stimpson alleged in an affidavit that an apartment manager told her she should not register for community college “because I had so many children that I needed a job.”

Stimpson complained that the complex had imposed curfews on the tenants and limited use of common areas. Mims countered that all of the rule changes were made for the safety and security of residents at the complex, which is across Florida Street from the Smith Homes public housing community.

At Friday’s rally at the corner of East Cone Boulevard and North Church Street, a security detail kept protesters far from Westminster’s offices. Tenants said they were tired of not speaking out.

“Everybody’s scared to say something,” said Toni Curtis, who moved to the complex in 2003 and said the complex was well run at that point, before a number of maintenance and management concerns.

“They have belittled us and made us feel like nothing. If the church cared about us, they would listen to us.”

Mims, who meets each month with a tenant board, said in the past that the removal of basketball equipment and the decision not to have playgrounds was for the residents’ own safety, because they became a magnet for drug activity in the neighborhood. Tenants took issue with that argument.

LaIndia Murphy, a mother of two who moved to Hairston Apartments in 2007, said she tried to organize a dance group for teens, Fully Focus, but was accused of promoting “gang” activity and was cited for a lease violation.

Where do Hairston’s children play?

“Nowhere,” she said as she faced rush-hour traffic Friday holding a sign that said, “Shiloh, Y’all know, Y’all wrong.”

“They (children) use trash cans as a basketball goal. I want to move, but I’m not working right now. And I want my children to see that their mother works hard. And that we’re fighting this.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com