Former tenant sues Morgan County Housing Authority over eviction process
A former MCHA tenant says officials blocked him from his Jacksonville apartment before a court move-out ended, sending the eviction fight into federal court.
A former Morgan County Housing Authority tenant has taken the agency and Joe O'Neal to federal court, accusing them of denying due process during an eviction and blocking him from his Jacksonville apartment before a court-authorized move-out was finished. Randall E. Ford filed the complaint June 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois as case 3:26-cv-03213.
Court records classify the suit as a civil-rights housing and accommodations case, with a Fair Housing Act cause listing. That framing matters because Illinois Legal Aid Online defines an eviction as a court case brought by a landlord to get a tenant to move out, and Illinois housing-rights resources say renters can seek help if they believe they have experienced housing discrimination.
Morgan County Housing Authority serves Jacksonville and the broader county from 211 S. Fayette St. The agency says its monthly public housing board meeting is held the second Thursday of the month at 3:30 p.m. at 120 Gilmore Estates. It has provided housing in Jacksonville since 1965, and a 2020 profile said it operated 408 public housing units and 74 units of non-profit and tax-credit housing.
The lawsuit lands against a history of earlier scrutiny at the authority. In 2021, the housing authority board met after executive director Debra Walters was suspended, Walters was later terminated in March, and Melissa Marsh later replaced her. That record gives the new federal case more weight locally, because the dispute is not just about one lease or one tenant, but about how a public agency handles notice, access to a unit and the steps that come before a person is displaced.
For Jacksonville tenants who rely on Morgan County Housing Authority units, the complaint puts everyday housing rules into the open: who gets notice, when a hearing happens and whether a resident can still enter a unit while a court case is pending. The filing now leaves those procedures to be tested in federal court.
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