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Relegated to the back of the bus Photos by Steve Johnson Val Burleigh, left, and his wife, Sandy, have been unable to find rental housing because they have eight children. Family of ten near Butte Falls can't find rental By SUSAN JAY Val and Sandy Burleigh are desperate to find a home for themselves and their eight children -- all of whom are under the age of 11. Discrimination against large families and the lack of large four-bedroom rentals have made their six-month search seem hopeless. They have the money because they are on state assistance, but no one will rent to them. "Most of the agents we talked to said our family is too big," said Val Burleigh, 46. They lived in their station wagon for months until last week, when they moved into their 1957 Ford school bus parked in the woods about 13 miles northeast of Butte Falls. Sandy Burleigh cleans the inside of the 1957 Ford school bus she shares with her husband and children. Their dilemma gets worse. They've been told that if they do not find a home to move into by June 1, their state benefits will stop, including monthly payments, food stamps and medical care. Val Burleigh, a veteran and former blue-collar worker, has been unable to work because of pain in his shoulders. He sees a specialist next week. The family moved here from Pahrump, Nev., to be close to Sandy's mother, who had cancer and died last December. They lived and went to high school here before moving away, and they want to stay because they have close friends and like the area. Dahna Dow, a community health nurse at the Upper Rogue Family Center in White City, has been trying to help the Burleighs find a home, with no success. "They need stable housing so that they can get services that their family needs," she said, including medical appointments for the father and the children. "They're doing a great job keeping their kids in school, which is really hard for a homeless family," she said. The four older children, ages 10, 9, 7 and 6, have been attending White City Elementary School for the past year. They stay with friends in a trailer park during the week. On the weekend, they rejoin their parents and the four younger children, ages 4, 2, 1 and 2 months. Dow met the family through the federal Healthy Start program, which sends public health nurses on regular home visits to families of newborns. The program's goal is to reduce infant mortality rates and improve the lives of the entire family. The Burleighs have the money to move in, Dow said, "the only real block is the available houses that size and a landlord letting them in." Sandy Burleigh, 35, said, "I feel like we're being discriminated against because we do have a family and kids." She can understand some landlords' concerns for their property, but said, "my kids are well-mannered, behave and are not destructive." Over and over, property managers have told her, "the law only allows two per bedroom," she said. Not true, said Medford attorney Doug Gard, who specializes in landlord-tenant law. Two persons per bedroom is the most restrictive standard a landlord can apply under the law, Gard said. Nothing in the law prevents any landlord from allowing three or even more people per bedroom. "The discriminatory impact on this family is enormous because they have eight children," Gard said. The law allows landlords to restrict occupancy as long as the restriction is reasonable and not discriminatory, Gard said. "Some of the landlords are refusing to consider the reasonableness factor," he said, especially if they have rentals with bedrooms over 70 square feet, the minimum size for a bedroom. Norton Cabell, president of the Oregon Rental Housing Association, is a landlord and teaches seminars on fair housing guidelines. He said the two-person-per-bedroom rule "certainly has the effect of discriminating against a large family." But, he said, landlords can set a maximum occupancy limit as long as it is reasonable in terms of the size and number of bedrooms. Cabell himself looks at each of his rentals and asks what is the reasonable occupancy for that particular unit. He also uses a former federal housing guideline of 50 square feet per person per bedroom. "In my opinion, if you have a bedroom smaller than 150 square feet, then an occupancy standard of two is still defensible," Cabell said. "The problem is, there is no right answer and there are no answers that the law has come down with, and landlords have to use judgment," he said. "The 50-square-feet-per-person is not a bad rule." He also pointed out that many landlords, especially in metro areas, do not count children under age 2 in their occupancy standards. In the Burleighs' case, that would mean they would need room for only five kids or a total of seven people. Three of their kids are 2 years old and under. "It's going to be hard anywhere in the United States of America," Cabell said, for large families to find housing. "We don't build housing for large families, because they're such a small market." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA