Los Angeles will pay $38 million for not making affordable housing

The city of Los Angeles will pay $38.2 million to settle a 2017 lawsuit after it “falsely” stated on federal documents that its affordable multifamily housing units built with federal funds were accessible to people with disabilities.

The complaint was filed by the US Department of Justice on behalf of Los Angeles resident Mei Ling, who uses a wheelchair, and the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council, a disability rights group. Their share of the settlement has not been determined.

Ling, 57, had used a wheelchair since January 2006 — and was either homeless or in housing without accessibility features, the lawsuit states.

It claimed that the city of LA has not made its multifamily housing options accessible to people with disabilities for at least six years. Some problems were slopes that were too steep, counters that were too high and entrances that didn’t allow wheelchair access, officials said.

The suit also alleged that the city failed to maintain a publicly available list of affordable units and their accessibility features and that it “knowingly and falsely certified” to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that it complied with those requirements. In doing so, he violated the False Claims Act, the suit says.

“The city denies violating the False Claims Act,” LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said in an emailed statement. “However, we are pleased to have reached this $38.2 million settlement, particularly in light of the federal government’s initial claim that it was entitled to more than $1 billion in damages.”

When the Department of Housing and Urban Development gives grant funds to local governments to build and rehabilitate affordable multifamily housing units, they must comply with federal affordability laws, officials said. This includes a mandate that 5 percent of all units in certain types of federally assisted housing be accessible to people with mobility impairments, and another 2 percent be accessible to people with vision and hearing impairments.

They must also maintain a publicly available list of accessible units with a description of their accessibility features, among other housing-related accessibility requirements.

In the six years before the lawsuit was filed in 2017, LA received nearly $1 billion in various funds from the federal housing agency that went to at least 28 multifamily housing projects, according to the plaintiffs. None of them contained the minimum number of affordable units required by law.

Meanwhile, the city “led HUD and the public to believe that it was in compliance with all federal obligations related to the receipt of federal housing and community development funds,” the suit says.

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