Los Angeles Housing Authority

Federal auditors have called for the ouster of the Los Angeles County Housing Authority's director, saying his agency has not properly administered the $200 million federal housing voucher program for the county's poor and has sought to conceal its shortcomings. The unusual recommendations come in a report this month that criticizes the authority for failing to check annually, as required, on tenants' eligibility for subsidies under the federal Section 8 program.

I propose this addition to "50 Ways to Love Your Dodgers" [March 27], under the heading "Know Your History": Meet the Ghosts of Chavez Ravine: To appreciate where you are, you need to understand where you've been. Before Chavez Ravine became Dodger Stadium, it comprised the neighborhoods of Bishop, La Loma and Palo Verde, home to more than 1,000 people. The anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s derailed the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority's progressive ideal of building state-of-the-art low-income housing on the site, and the land was eventually sold to the Dodgers.

A coalition of public interest law firms and civil rights groups Tuesday filed a class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles Housing Authority, charging that the city agency broke the law when it effectively raised the rent for more than 20,000 poor residents.

Los Angeles County housing officials failed to hand out 3,500 housing subsidy vouchers even though poor families were sitting on a waiting list that was years long. "It makes me sad.... There are people who really need it," Carolyn Davis said Tuesday. Davis, 40, said she has been homeless and sleeping on her sister's floor while waiting for a subsidy. "I am bipolar times five," she said to explain why she can't work and needs a public subsidy to afford a place to live.

A high-level manager for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles directed nearly $800,000 in contracts to his brothers and three politically connected firms without competitive bidding or after rigged contests, a Times review has found. The manager, Victor Taracena, oversaw more than 150 contracts worth about half a million dollars that went directly to companies his brothers created, contract files show.

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn called for an audit of the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles, citing a Times report last week pointing to bid-rigging and installation of pricey toilets. "I am constantly fighting to get more funding for services, like summer jobs and community center hours, for the residents of our housing developments. Now I read in the L.A. Times" that the authority "has spent $2,500 on a toilet. This is frustrating and disturbing," Hahn said.

The chief investigator for the Los Angeles Housing Authority, Abel Ruiz, was abruptly fired this week after complaining that people inside the agency interfered with his efforts to get to the bottom of an $800,000 bid-rigging scheme, his attorney said Friday. Housing Authority Executive Director Rudolf Montiel said that he could not comment on a personnel matter but denied any coverup.

When Abel Ruiz was fired last month by the troubled Los Angeles Housing Authority, he said it was because he, as the agency's chief investigator, was asking too many questions about an apparent $800,000 bid-rigging scheme. Now his former bosses have hit back in a lawsuit, saying that Ruiz, who headed the agency's internal controls department, did not ask enough.

When Rudolf Montiel came from El Paso three years ago to clean up the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, he didn't know enough to be daunted. It didn't take long, however, for him to get a sense of the challenges ahead. Precious vouchers for the poor and disabled seemed to be for sale on the black market, allowing hundreds of newly arrived immigrants to jump to the top of a 10-year waiting list for housing subsidies.

The city Housing Authority filed a lawsuit Monday against its former executive director, Donald Smith, and a former assistant director, Lucille A. Loyce, alleging fraud and conspiracy stemming from contracts improperly steered to Loyce's friend Dwayne E. Williams II. The problem was discovered by a federal audit in 2005. Charles E. Slyngstad, an attorney for the agency, said the lawsuit seeks to recover an unspecified amount of improperly spent money that "is at least in the millions."