Sussex is a very rural area and one of the largest counties east of the Mississippi River. The fair housing need in this county has become a pressing one over the past decade. Housing development has concentrated on vacation and second homes in the eastern, shore part of the county, while the rural interior has faced slow growth in affordable housing for the most needy, plus the continuing burdens of the state’s highest rate of substandard housing, highest poverty rate, and lowest area median income. [Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997 Population Estimates; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website (www.hud.gov); Statewide Housing Needs Assessment: Executive Summary, Delaware State Housing Authority , 8/14/96, Legg Mason Realty Group.]

To all this has been added an influx of new families largely from Mexican and Central American countries, creating a perceived and a real scarcity of decent housing, and a situation where tenants, especially, are reluctant to assert their rights. Negative and ambiguous public and private pronouncements about the rising Hispanic population of the county have encouraged a situation where landlords feel unjustly entitled to charge exorbitant rents, treat Hispanic people and people of color as undeserving of fair housing bargain, and expect them to claim less than their full rights. Language and cultural differences contribute to making these unfair arrangements even more unfair.

In March of 2002, the Wilmington News Journal reported that the new census figures show the state grew almost 18% in population. Sussex County grew 38.3%,