Housing experts can hear the sound of discrimination in Napa County. A recent study by a North Bay housing rights group found that rental seekers with an identifiable Latino voice will face discrimination or disparate treatment in Napa County 70 percent of the time.
For six months Rosalva Avalos-Cortes has resided in Napa without any form of identification. Simple tasks like opening a bank account, cashing checks or getting a book from the library eluded her, but that changed Saturday morning when she became one of the hundreds of Mexican residents who received a Matricula Consular ID, Mexican ID card, at a registration event held in Calistoga.