HUD Evictions of Needy Criticized

The federal agency charged with putting low-income people into decent, affordable housing is itself trying to evict dozens of poor and elderly Los Angeles residents from homes they have rented for years but which are now in foreclosure.

Legal aid attorneys say the Department of Housing and Urban Development's local office is taking advantage of a loophole in the city's rent stabilization ordinance to try to force people out of their units and do it, in many cases, without paying the relocation funds that private landlords normally would provide.

The attorneys, who are fighting the evictions in court, say that scores of residents may be affected in rental properties where the former owner defaulted on HUD-backed loans and HUD has assumed the title. The agency is trying to resell many of the properties, which range in size from one to four rental units.

An official in HUD's Los Angeles office conceded that the actions might seem harsh, but he said that the agency is within its rights to evict residents at foreclosed properties. An empty dwelling, said area official Nelson Hernandez, is far easier to sell than an occupied one, and part of HUD's mission is to promote home ownership. By maximizing the sales proceeds, HUD says it then can finance more mortgages for working families.

Alex Sachs, a regional HUD spokesman in San Diego, said the agency has been working on a case-by-case basis with tenants to offer them rental assistance and more time to move.

"Some of these cases have been settled without having to use the full extent of the law to evict people," he said.

But Sachs did not have information on how many such cases have been settled or how much assistance the tenants were offered. City officials said such offers have been made only since they began protesting HUD's actions in recent weeks.

Legal aid attorneys contend that most of their clients have either not been offered assistance or been offered deals that are far below what a private landlord would be required to pay. One attorney said a client who should qualify for $5,000 was offered $500 by HUD's attorney.

Traditionally, HUD had shied away from taking over occupied buildings, leaving the unpleasant matter of evictions for banks to handle, said city and federal officials. Local HUD officials could not explain why that had changed.