Riot Victims Sue U.S. Over Denial of Aid : Rebuilding: Plaintiffs who say their applications were unfairly rejected want federal agency to provide disaster relief. They also want the application period reopened.

On the site of a burned-out storefront, victims of the 1992 Los Angeles riots announced Wednesday that they have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the Federal Emergency Management Agency exacerbated their problems by illegally denying them relief after the nation’s worst civil disturbances of the 20th Century.

The federal suit seeks to compel FEMA to provide aid to individuals who say they were unfairly denied help, including temporary housing assistance. The suit also contends that FEMA should be required to reopen the application period so that people unlawfully excluded from aid or discouraged from applying can request assistance.

A group of public interest lawyers said only half of the $330 million that was allocated for emergency assistance in Los Angeles has been disbursed thus far. “That money is waiting to be spent on cases of people who were hurt and have been unable to get their lives in order,” said Cynthia Robbins of Urban Recovery Legal Assistance, a legal services program launched last year to help riot victims.

“FEMA arbitrarily and restrictively interpreted eligibility requirements and required excessive verification and documentation beyond that required” by federal laws, according to the suit filed by half a dozen public interest law groups on behalf of potentially thousands of plaintiffs. Robbins said FEMA had denied 56% of all the applications submitted in Los Angeles.

The plaintiffs contend that FEMA violated the U.S. Constitution, the federal Administrative Procedures Act and the Stafford Act, the basic statute describing FEMA’s responsibilities. The suit also contends that FEMA officials failed to establish and enforce comprehensive standards to ensure the agency’s coordination of efficient and effective disaster relief to victims.

The suit also charges that FEMA’s procedures for handling appeals violated its own regulations by having appeals considered by the same person who initially denied an application for assistance.

Wednesday’s suit comes after months of criticism of the agency stemming from its performance in Los Angeles and in Hawaii after Hurricane Iniki. Sens. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) have introduced legislation that would require significant changes in FEMA’s procedures.

Frank Kishton, who was the deputy coordinator for FEMA’s efforts in Los Angeles, said he thought the agency had done a commendable job but said he could not comment on the suit because he has not seen it yet.

But W. Clark Brown, a Century City attorney who is one of the lead lawyers in the case, said FEMA officials acted with a tendency to deny legitimate claims of individuals who lost businesses and homes.

One example he cited was the denial of assistance to Margarito Juarez, whose home and business in the Florence and Normandie area were destroyed during the riots. FEMA officials rejected his request for help, without any inspection, after concluding from an erroneous survey map that his house had not been destroyed.

More than a year after the riots, Juarez said he has received no assistance from FEMA. Speaking through an interpreter, Juarez said that his home property is in foreclosure and that 17 members of his family previously dependent on earnings from his business have lived more than nine months in a trailer located near his former home.

Betty Holiday, whose paralegal and credit repair business was located at the site of Wednesday’s news conference, said she was very angry at how she has been treated by FEMA. After her business was destroyed in a riot-related fire April 30, Holiday applied for disaster aid.

She described a Kafkaesque nightmare of dealing with a bureaucracy that seemed unresponsive and incompetent. Holiday said that FEMA provided contradictory instructions about what information she needed to provide in support of her application, conducted shoddy investigations and erroneously denied her application.

In particular, she said one FEMA official told her she was ineligible for aid because she was working at Northrop Corp., even she though had documented that she been laid off from her job as a computer analyst a year earlier because of cuts in defense spending. Moreover, according to the suit, FEMA said her business was not generating any income despite the fact that she provided evidence to the contrary.

To date, Holiday said, she has received no FEMA rental assistance or a Small Business Administration loan or any assistance from the Individual and Family Grant Program, all of which the lawyers maintain she was eligible for.

What has happened to Holiday and Juarez is typical, said Carole E. Handler, an attorney with Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn and one of the pro bono lawyers working on the case.

“This action is imperative not only to protect the victims” of the Los Angeles riots “from being further victimized by FEMA’s woefully inadequate execution of its duties, but to provide future victims with the ability to file for and receive full, fair and equitable disaster relief in a timely fashion,” Handler said.

In that regard, the suit seeks to compel “long overdue changes in the administration and delivery of disaster relief benefits,” she added. These include development of criteria for disaster assistance programs; ensuring that applicants are notified of all available assistance and eligibility guidelines for each program; providing benefits to applicants without improper delay, and ensuring a fair and impartial appeals process.

The suit also seeks help for people who allegedly were unfairly denied food stamp benefits by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Hawaii after Hurricane Iniki.