Low Income L.A. Tenants Score $1M & Strengthened Rights In Discrimination Settlement Against Hotel, City

In Los Angeles, California, Daily Journal reports:

• A group of current and former low-income tenants of the Alexandria Hotel who claimed they were victims of discrimination, deplorable housing conditions and illegal evictions will receive nearly $1 million under a settlement reached with the building's owners and the city of Los Angeles. The settlement also will require sweeping changes to policies at both the Alexandria and the city's redevelopment agency governing how tenants should be treated when the buildings they live in undergo publicly funded renovations.

***

• The lawsuit, filed in December 2007 after local housing advocates noticed an influx of Alexandria tenants at Skid Row housing clinics, alleged widespread disability and race discrimination, illegal evictions and the systematic violation of multiple redevelopment laws at the residential hotel in downtown Los Angeles.(1)

For more, see Low-Income Tenants Win Rights, Money In Housing Case (Lawsuit Alleged Discrimination, Illegal Evictions and Violations Of Redevelopment Laws).

(1) Attorneys at McDermott Will & Emery who handled the case pro bono, and several agencies - the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Disability Rights Legal Center, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Los Angeles Community Action Network - filed the suit against the Alexandria Housing Partners, Logan Property Management Inc., the City of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency. Woods, et al. v. Alexandria Housing Partners L.P., CV07-08262 (C.D. Cal, filed Dec. 20, 2007).