Brickbat: I Can't Hear You

Five years ago, officials in Tempe, Arizona, said they needed more housing for deaf senior citizens. So with the aid of $2.6 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Cardinal Capital Management and the Arizona Deaf Senior Citizens Coalition built a 75-room apartment building just for the elderly deaf. The apartments have lights that flash when the doorbell rings and other amenities designed for the hearing-impaired. But now HUD says the building it helped fund violates federal civil rights law because management markets it to and prefers to rent to deaf tenants. The agency has demanded that the owners take steps to make sure that 75 percent of residents of the building are not deaf.