After three Berkeley residents voiced concern that a proposed subsidized housing project would attract drug abusers, alcoholics and crime (as had several such projects in the past), they were accused of "housing discrimination" against the handicapped and threatened by lawsuits by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD investigators demanded every article, flier and letter to the editor they had written, as well as minutes from every public meeting at which any of the three spoke, or face a $100,000 fine or jail time.

In New York City, HUD launched a similar investigation of the Irving Place Community Coalition, a group opposed to placing another home for the mentally ill in a neighborhood already saturated with such homes. HUD demanded to see membership lists, memos, and even the diaries of the plan's opponents.

†