5/27/2008

Los Angeles - Low-income tenants of the century-old Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, who have suffered from unlawful displacement, as well as shutoffs of heat, water and elevator service, have received a preliminary injunction that requires the City of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency to provide relocation assistance to the tenants of the hotel, including those individuals who were evicted over the course of the last year. The ruling also requires Alexandria Housing Partners, defendants named in the lawsuit, to provide habitable living conditions for all tenants, and reasonable accommodations to disabled tenants.

“This decision tells both the City of Los Angeles and developers that they cannot simply push out poor people in order to gentrify redevelopment areas when public funds are supposed to be used to improve conditions for those very residents,” said Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA-CAN).

McDermott Will & Emery LLP, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Disability Rights Legal Center, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty filed the original lawsuit, Woods, et al. v. Alexandria Housing Partners, L.P., et al., United States District Court of the Central District of California Case No. CV07-08262 MMM (JWJx), on December 20, 2007. The lawsuit seeks to redress violations of the tenants’ rights, which occurred during the rehabilitation of the Alexandria Hotel. These include violations of civil rights, disability discrimination, community redevelopment, relocation, and housing condition laws. The plaintiffs included six current and one former resident of the Alexandria Hotel and one organizational plaintiff, CANGRESS (LA-CAN), a California non-profit corporation serving low-income and homeless residents in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles.

Defendants in the lawsuit included Alexandria Housing Partners, Logan Property Management, the Community Redevelopment Agency and the City of Los Angeles.

Housing Partners and its property management company, Logan Property Management took over operation of the Alexandria Hotel on August 10, 2006. Since that date, more than 100 tenants, many who have been longtime residents, have been displaced from the Alexandria Hotel. Residents also experienced interruptions in a number of services; Inoperative elevators have stranded elderly residents with disabilities on upper floors, and water shutoffs have left tenants without potable water or flushing toilets for days at a time. Most residents are currently without hot water in their rooms.

Background
The Alexandria Hotel, a 102-year-old residential hotel located at 501 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles, was designed by famed architect John Parkinson, who also designed the Los Angeles City Hall, Union Station and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The hotel became a community redevelopment project in August of 2006. Alexandria Housing Partners received community redevelopment funds to rehabilitate the Alexandria to continue its use as affordable housing. The City also applied for federal (HOME) funds for the hotel. When the defendants assumed control of the property, approximately 350 of the 461 units were occupied. Currently only about 220 are occupied, including renovated units described on the hotel’s website www.thealexandria.net as “micro-lofts” leased to new tenants. Contacts:
Matthew Oster, McDermott Will & Emery, (310) 551-9341
Becky Dennison, LACAN, (213) 228-0024
Barbara Schultz, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, (213) 640-3823 Shawna Parks, Disability Rights Legal Center, (213) 736-1477 Andrea Luquetta, Western Center on Law and Poverty, (213) 235-2625