Housing Council in Turmoil as Its Future Is Weighed

The entire staff of the quasi-public agency that investigates housing discrimination complaints in the area between the San Fernando Valley and Palmdale has resigned amid a threatened funding cutoff and continuing complaints that the troubled organization has been ineffective.

A Los Angeles City Council committee last week endorsed a recommendation that the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council, which has had four executive directors in less than three years, receive a temporary reprieve and be given $89,000 for the 1990-91 fiscal year.

The council’s parent organization, the Fair Housing Congress of Southern California, had suggested that the council should lose its funding because of charges that housing discrimination complaints were not being adequately addressed. The congress had also criticized the council for what it said was the mishandling of an employee’s on-the-job injury. The City Council is expected to act on the recommendation this week.

Holly Azzari, president of the council’s board of directors, said continuation of the city’s contribution to its budget of about $125,000 would allow the hiring of a new staff. Since July 6, when most of the four-person staff resigned, the council has been operated by volunteers, members of the board of directors and people required to do court-ordered community service.

The council’s job is to investigate housing discrimination complaints by sending trained volunteers as checkers. The volunteers, of various races and ages, attempt to buy houses or rent apartments from owners or managers who have been accused of discrimination. The council also mediates landlord-tenant disputes and seeks to inform the public about housing issues.

The San Fernando Valley council’s service area extends from Glendale and Burbank on the east to the Ventura County line. The area stretches north to Palmdale and includes the Santa Clarita Valley.

Mary Lee, president of the congress’s board of directors, said the board voted to terminate the council’s contract and funding “due to problems with service delivery.”

“Our bottom line is, ‘Who’s helping the people who are being victimized by discrimination?’ ” Lee said.

People seeking to file discrimination complaints “were being turned away” by the Valley council, Lee said. “They were being told, ‘There’s no one here to help you.’ ”

Marcella Brown, the congress’s executive director, said the Valley council handled only two housing discrimination complaints in the quarter that ended June 30. The council had handled an average of 14 complaints per quarter for the previous three quarters.

Five additional complaints originating in the Valley council’s area during the April to June period were actually handled by the congress, which distributes city and county grants to six housing councils in the county.

The congress first placed the council on probation two years ago because of rapid staff turnover and charges that the council’s budget was in disarray. The congress informed the council April 25 that it was being taken off probation.

But then the congress began hearing complaints from the public and from a civil rights agency that discrimination complaints were not being resolved.

The congress informed the council by letter in May that its funding would be cut off, Azzari said. The letter also charged that a council employee’s on-the-job back injury had been mishandled.

Last week, the city’s Community Development Department, which supplies most of the council’s funding, stepped in to mediate the simmering dispute. The department staff recommended that the council receive its city budget allocation for 1990, but it also recommended that probationary status be reinstated for six months while the congress’s charges are investigated. The City Council’s Community Redevelopment and Housing Committee endorsed the department’s recommendation and forwarded it to the full City Council for consideration.

“It just happened so suddenly, and we were not aware of any problems until the end of June,” said Agnes Kwan of the department. “This is a compromise.”

Kwan said that the congress did not provide any evidence to support its claims against the council and that the city has not received any complaints about the council’s performance.

Council workers and members of its board of directors dispute claims that the council’s performance has faltered. Mary Miller, the council’s former executive director, said she believed that the housing council had fulfilled its obligations.

“We had a contract with the congress, and we certainly complied with that contract,” Miller said.

The reputation of the Valley organization, once widely regarded as one of the most active and effective councils in the city, had been tarnished in recent years by a range of problems, including the rapid departure of three executive directors.

The hiring of Miller, who had worked for 23 years for the National Urban League, the influential civil rights organization, was expected to bring an end to those problems. Although dozens of others had applied for the job, she was the only candidate seriously considered, and members of the council’s board of directors said at the time that they were confident in her ability.

But now Miller is at the heart of the renewed controversy. Azzari said “the most serious” charges leveled by the congress regarded an incident that involved former housing coordinator Juan Solis. The congress claimed that Miller had failed to obtain medical treatment for Solis when he suffered a back injury April 30.

“I was talking to a person on the phone about housing discrimination and . . . my back just popped,” Solis said. He said he remained on the floor for several hours. Eventually, an ambulance was called, and Solis stayed in the hospital for four days. He was bedridden for nearly a month and never returned to work.

Miller said she was not in the office at the time of the incident and declined to comment further. But Azzari complained that the congress took information from Solis “as if it were fact” and that Miller “was not given a fair hearing.”

But Lee, of the congress, said the decision to terminate the contract was based solely on the deterioration in the council’s performance after Solis’ departure and not on Miller’s handling of the situation.

Azzari declined to comment on Miller’s performance as director but said in the past that the group has “had an extraordinary stream of bad luck in selecting executive directors.”

She said “there is unequivocal evidence” that the two directors who preceded Miller “were incompetent. . . . It’s really scary because you see this incredible failure rate.”

Brown, the congress’s executive director, said the council’s performance has failed to improve.

“They’ve had two years to do it, and they didn’t,” she said. “There were problems with the staff, but the board of the San Fernando Valley housing council chose the staff. I think they need a whole new reorganization.”