Why HOAs Are Just Like "Voluntary" Servitude, Which is Rightly ILLEGAL!

As we here at Peachtree Village are in the middle of transforming to a new community where the HOA is conforming to an association that RESPECTS the sovereignty of each and every single home owner and lessee, it's necessary to explain why HOA disrespect and repression of a home owner/lessee's SELF-EVIDENT right to control their own homes was an IMMORAL and system from the get go, meaning, IT DOES NOT MATTER IF PEOPLE WERE CONNIVED INTO "AGREEING" TO THEM!

With a little historical research, we look back to see how millions of people who were languishing in poverty, "agreed" to covenants (which just means "contracts") of indenture in order to become a slave for a number of years in exchange for a master's payment of the "voluntary" indentured servant's passage to the British colonies on the North American continent (which eventually became the United States of America), usually for 7 years. It was also very common, not only during the colonial era and for a long time afterward, to "offer" debtors who could not pay their debts to "agree" to indentured servitude in order to avoid being sent to a debtor prison.

However, the conditions of "voluntary" indentured servitude were brutal and often no better than it was for "involuntary servants," that is, slaves who could only hope to be freed if their master chose to do so. Female indentured servants were commonly raped. Both males and females were subjected to harsh, physical punishments if they were deemed lax in their duties. It was quite easy for the masters of voluntary servants to find all sorts of excuses to prolong the period long beyond whatever was originally agreed to, such as, for supposed, additional compensation due to the servant having a baby, or was merely accused of having damaged the master's property (they had no rights to any court to be proven innocent). The only thing that eventually led to a decline in the use of voluntary indentured servitude was the African slave trade, which proved less expensive for the masters.

A lot of people assume indentured servitude was ended by the Emancipation Declaration of 1863 and the 13th Amendment which was passed in 1865, but these measures only addressed involuntary servitude. For many more decades, the practice of supposed "voluntary" servitude continued, largely as a way to constrain debtors to work for free in order to pay off their debts. But as one State after another began to outlaw debtor prisons, the practice of voluntary servitude gave way to low wage labor. It wasn't until the late 20th Century when "voluntary" servitude was finally and formally made illegal on the basis that is was just, plain wrong for a person to be a slave of another, regardless of whether the slave had signed a covenant of indenture!

Fast forward to 21st Century, where we find ourselves facing a very similar abuse of power--HOA covenants! The HOA Movement can be traced as far back as the early 1800s, but it never really took off until after the US Supreme Court declared Segregation unconstitutional in 1964 Civil Rights Act. Terrified at the prospect that white neighborhoods could no longer keep black and other minorities from moving into their communities, they resorted to other means to keep them out, such as "red-lining" (the denial of credit and insurance to minorities, making it financially impossible to buy a home in a white neighborhood) and establishing HOAs. By insisting everyone who wants to buy a home in a community where an HOA has been established, must also sign an HOA covenant, whites circumvented the new laws against housing segregation by using a vast array of conditions and restrictions on how a house may be appear, maintained or altered, usually granted almost unlimited authority to HOA Boards of directors to decide who was or was not in "violation" of the "CCRs" (covenants, conditions and restrictions). In this way, they could harass any homeowner they don't like and, over time, pile on so many "fines" for "violations" they would move away.

Today, HOAs have expanded their expansive lists of what homeowners may or may not do to make it easy to harass anyone they don't like, though race is still the prevailing motive. If someone is white or "white enough," an HOA will grant exceptions to the home owner so they may do mostly all they please. But whenever one is deemed "undesirable," they are held to very strict adherence to the "covenants," and are repeatedly reminded, "Remember, you signed the Covenant when you bought your house!"

But just like so-called voluntary servitude was, eventually, recognized for the evil it was, so now the notion that someone who does absolutely nothing to pay for any of the costs of purchasing and maintaining a home must also be formally banned, regardless of whether a home owner signed an HOA agreement or not!

Here at Peachtree Village, as of March 29, 2025, we, the resident owners, non-resident owners, and lessees turned out in a record number to declare our independence from the abusive and overreaching HOA covenants that have been used, discriminately, by its former Boards of Directors for 40 years in order to preserve de facto segregation! It's no accident that our neighborhood of 97 homes has only 4 black families/individuals living here! Just as it was morally, ethically and, then finally, declared by law, that enslavement is wrong, for any length of time, for any reason, and regardless of whether or not a person "agrees" to be a slave, we have now declared it is also immoral and unethical for anyone or group of people to assert they have control over another's home, for any length of time, for any reason, and REGARDLESS of whether or not the home owner "agreed" to indenture of their home!