The owners of an Oklahoma City apartment complex have agreed to pay $52,500 to settle a federal lawsuit accusing them of refusing to rent to a single mother once they learned her young son would be living with her, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
The full payment goes to the woman, the department said. The owners must also put a nondiscrimination policy and practices in place at The Vintage at Mesta Park, a 36-unit building, and undergo training meant to prevent future discrimination, including against families with children, under the terms the department described.
The dispute started with an apartment search in July 2022. According to the government's lawsuit, the woman asked about a newly remodeled one-bedroom unit that was close to her job and across the street from a school where she hoped to enroll her son, who was 3 at the time. She toured the apartment and told the rental agent she wanted to go ahead.
Jacqueline Fox, who managed the property and owned the limited liability company that holds it, at first told the woman she would be approved, the department said. The suit alleges that when the woman mentioned her son would be moving in with her, Fox told her she could not move in because no children had lived at the property in more than eight years and it was not "kid friendly." Fox then refused to rent to the mother and her son, according to the complaint's account.
The woman took her complaint to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD investigated, issued a charge of discrimination and referred the matter to the Justice Department, which sued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in August 2025. The Fair Housing Act bars housing discrimination against families with children, the release noted.
The case took more than a year to resolve. Federal court records show that in March, Judge Patrick R. Wyrick consolidated the government's suit with a companion lawsuit filed separately against Fox, saying the two appeared to involve common questions of law and fact. A scheduling order in July placed the case on the court's January 2027 jury trial docket. Magistrate Judge Chris M. Stephens set a settlement conference for Sept. 28, and the court entered an administrative closing order two days later.
The claims were never tested in front of a jury. The department's announcement presents them as allegations and does not say whether Fox or her company admitted wrongdoing as part of the agreement.
"The Fair Housing Act has long prohibited landlords from denying renters simply because they have children. Unfortunately, this type of discrimination still occurs today," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the department's Civil Rights Division. Dhillon said the department is committed to seeking relief for families who are harmed when landlords illegally shut them out of housing because of their family status.
Craig W. Trainor, HUD's assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity, pointed to the 1988 amendments in which Congress added protection against familial status discrimination to the law. "A home should bring a family together, not force a mother to choose between a roof over her head and her own child," Trainor said, adding that HUD would keep using its authority "to protect the integrity of the family and hold accountable landlords who violate their legal obligations."