ATLANTA, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Communities using housing ordinances to regulate the occupancy rate in homes are being charged with profiling growing Hispanic populations there.
Zoning officials in Cobb County, Ga., last week proposed to decrease the number of unrelated residents who can live together from six to four.
Other municipalities have tried to redefine what a family is, sometimes excluding great-grandparents and nieces.
Edgar Rivera, an activist in Fairfax, Va., said a rule like this is a way for local communities to enact there own immigration policy, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Gilbert Moreno, director of the Houston-based Association for the Advancement of Mexican-Americans, said the laws don't take into consideration the cultural difference between family support structures.
He said extended families are relied upon much more in Latino communities than in the United States, with non-immediate family members renting houses and paying bills together.
"They work toward the same goals," he said.
In Cobb County, most of the 60 complaints about houses being overcrowded were from white neighbors of Hispanic families.
Atlanta homeowner Jose Cruz Rodriguez was fined $135 last fall when code inspectors found more people living in his house than legally allowed.
His excess family was forced out.
