Los Angeles Housing Authority

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.

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.

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 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.

A Los Angeles city agency was so badly run that it could not account for $70 million in federal funds meant to help poor people get housing and jobs, including money that was steered to a friend of a top executive for bogus work, according to a lawsuit filed by the city.

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."

The Los Angeles Housing Authority will begin reissuing rent subsidies to hundreds of families whose aid was abruptly terminated more than a year ago when the agency found it had no more money, officials announced Thursday. "Praise God," said Doris Young, whose voucher was canceled shortly before she and her two daughters, ages 12 and 16, were to move into a South Los Angeles duplex. "This is like a dream come true.

Los Angeles' low-income housing agency, the target of a federal audit after a $24-million operating loss last year, has made significant strides toward improvement, a federal official said. "A year ago, things were in crisis here," said Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary Michael Liu, who delivered the progress report during the dedication of a public housing community center in Boyle Heights on Thursday. "HUD is very happy with what you have [done] here with the Housing Authority."

A former executive with the Los Angeles Housing Authority has sued the city, claiming she was discriminated against and was fired in retaliation for being a whistle-blower. Lucille Loyce, former assistant executive director, alleged she was ousted a week after telling the mayor's office it was illegal to transfer funds intended for housing the poor to pay for Police Department patrols of city housing projects, her attorney said Monday. Loyce was the No.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn has named the former head of the El Paso housing authority to head the city's troubled Housing Authority. Rudolf Monteil, who was in charge of the $70-million El Paso agency for three years, will head a $500-million housing authority that manages more than 45,000 housing units and housing vouchers. The authority is under investigation by the U.S. attorney's office for alleged financial mismanagement. Monteil will earn $225,000 a year, the mayor's office said.