LA County housing authority to pay out $2 million in race discrimination case

The L.A. County Housing Authority will pay out $2 million and restore some benefits to African-American residents of the Antelope Valley who were discriminated against by housing authority employees, local officials, and law enforcement during the past decade.

The settlement stems from a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into harassment of participants in the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8, by local and county officials in Lancaster and Palmdale. 

Housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, are meant to help families find homes in neighborhoods that provide greater opportunities for them and their children,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a statement.  “No family living in Los Angeles County should fear having housing authority or law enforcement personnel show up at their homes simply because they are African American and use vouchers to pay their rent.”

According to the DOJ, local officials in the two cities were upset about a growing population of African Americans moving to the Antelope Valley and blamed the Section 8 program. That program, an alternative to public housing, gives low-income families a voucher to pay a portion of their rent and can be used with any private landlord.

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Officials in the two cities "teamed with HACoLA and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department in a targeted campaign of discriminatory enforcement against African-American voucher holders in order to discourage them and other African-Americans from living in the cities," the DOJ said in court filings.

Housing inspectors called in sheriff's deputies to help on frequent "compliance" checks to make sure voucher-holders weren't violating any program rules, discouraged landlords from participating in the program, and terminated African-Americans in those two cities from the program at higher rates than anywhere in the county.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department settled their piece of the lawsuit for $725,000 earlier this year.

Under the DOJ agreement with HACoLA, those who were wrongfully terminated from Section 8 will have their records wiped clean. In addition to paying out $1,975,000 to victims, HACoLA will also have to reissue vouchers to some who lost them due to discrimination. Another $25,000 will go to the DOJ.

The department will also have to stop making unannounced visits to Section 8 sites in the Antelope Valley and subject them to the same sorts of inspections and regulations as elsewhere in the county.

In a statement, HACoLA Executive Director Sean Rogan said the department hasn't done unannounced inspections since 2013.

“This agreement will allow HACoLA to put the matter behind us and focus efforts on our goal of providing quality housing assistance to low-income families, seniors and veterans,” he said.

HACoLA employees, along with city employees in Palmdale and Lancaster will undergo anti-discrimination training and formalize ways of taking discrimination complaints from Section 8 voucher holders.

Meanwhile, Lancaster and Palmdale will be barred from passing any laws that discriminate against voucher holders or their landlords.