Three single Black mothers in Owings Mills say they moved their families into a quiet Baltimore County townhouse community hoping for stability — and instead found themselves followed, recorded, and fined by the very homeowners association meant to serve them. Brittany Williams, Whitney Greenwood and Janice Brinkley have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that leaders of the Queen Anne Village Association targeted them and other Black residents who use housing choice vouchers, going so far as to ban their children from the community pool.
Lottery Winners Who Found Hostility Instead of Stability
According to the Daily Record, which first reported on the lawsuit filed in Maryland federal court, all three women moved to the Owings Mills neighborhood from lower-income areas of Baltimore City after their names were drawn in a lottery for government-subsidized housing vouchers. The suit names the Queen Anne Village Association, two management companies and two individuals as defendants, and alleges that HOA members repeatedly followed, harassed, recorded and improperly fined Black residents who used the vouchers.
Williams told reporters she moved to the neighborhood so her three young children could grow up in a safe, stable, affordable home, per the same outlet's report. Instead, she said she was sick and tired of harassment by neighbors and the community association. The complaint alleges that HOA leaders used the term Section 8 as a stand-in for Black residents and that a 2018 HOA meeting discussed a dramatic increase in Section 8 and alleged problems caused by renters from Baltimore, according to the complaint. Brodie Management, the prior property manager, was reportedly ordered during that meeting to find ways to get control over these elements, the complaint states.
A 12-Year-Old Recorded and Reported to Police
Some of the most striking allegations in the complaint involve children. One resident allegedly yelled at Williams's 12-year-old daughter while she played in the front yard, recorded her, and told her she could not play in the yard because her mother did not own the house. That same resident is accused of calling police on children on more than one occasion. Williams also says she received a warning after her father helped change a flat tire in front of her house, and that her parents and children were later banned from the community pool.
Williams could not obtain a pool pass, the complaint alleges, because her lease did not list her baby's name. The complaint states that the denial of pool access evokes painful images of the Jim Crow era. Black residents more broadly, the suit alleges, were fined for alleged rule violations that were not enforced against white residents and were followed by the HOA head and other residents.
A Landlord Joins the Fight Over Fine Records
Zico Realty, which leases apartments to residents in the community, joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff, saying it opposes the HOA's treatment of its renters. According to the complaint, Zico Realty paid some HOA fines it considered unfair to residents, then requested the association's fine records — only for the association to prevent the company from accessing them. The complaint alleges that denial violated state law.
Maryland's Homeowners Association Act requires HOAs to make financial records, meeting minutes and official books open for inspection by lot owners or their authorized agents upon reasonable notice, with statutory deadlines of 21 to 45 days for delivering requested statements, according to Westlaw. Separately, the law requires HOAs to deliver written notice citing the specific rule violated and grant residents a cure period of at least 15 days before levying any fine, according to FightMyHOA. The complaint alleges the HOA's fines were unfair and inconsistently enforced.
Legal Representation and Allegations Under State and Federal Law
Attorneys Lauren DiMartino and Andy Freeman represent Zico Realty and the other plaintiffs. They work for Brown, Goldstein & Levy, a Baltimore-based civil rights firm that employs more than 20 attorneys specializing in fair housing, employment and constitutional litigation, according to Baltimore Magazine. DiMartino said the clients simply seek to live peacefully and participate equally in their community.
The complaint alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act, Maryland fair housing law and the Maryland Homeowners' Association Act. Pelican Property Management began serving as Queen Anne Village's property manager in June 2024 and is based in Towson, according to the lawsuit as reported by the Daily Record. Pelican did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Brodie Management or the Queen Anne Village Association president.
A Community Built for Shared Amenities, Now at the Center of a Legal Fight
Queen Anne Village's townhouses were built between 1978 and 1986, and owners pay monthly HOA fees of roughly $145 to $150 to maintain common grounds, playgrounds, tennis courts, water, trash service and a community pool, according to Zillow listings for homes in the community. Those shared amenities — especially the pool — became a flashpoint in the dispute over access and selective enforcement described in the lawsuit.
Owings Mills itself has a population of about 37,200, with Black residents forming the majority demographic at roughly 22,700 people, alongside a median home value of $361,000 and a 45.3% homeownership rate, per Data USA. Baltimore County operates under a federal HUD Conciliation Agreement that designated 116 local census tracts as Opportunity Areas meant to help voucher holders move into well-resourced suburban communities like Owings Mills, according to MD iMAP, a program that grew out of civil rights complaints aimed at reducing regional housing segregation.
Tightening State Protections for Voucher Holders
The lawsuit arrives as Maryland's legal landscape around voucher discrimination continues to shift. The state's HOME Act of 2020 outlawed source-of-income housing discrimination, and an updated screening law that took effect October 1 further restricts housing providers from rejecting or screening out voucher holders using credit scores or total-unit minimum income rules, according to the Equal Rights Center.
In July 2025, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled in Hare v. David S. Brown Enterprises that housing providers violate state fair housing laws when they apply full-rent minimum income tests to voucher recipients, establishing that such policies create an illegal discriminatory impact, according to Economic Action Maryland. That case originated in Baltimore County after a landlord denied a tenant whose voucher covered most of her rent. Roughly 27,600 residents lived in federally subsidized rental housing across Baltimore County in 2025, about 3.3% of the county's population, per USAFacts.
