Florida Civil Legal UPDATE

By: Jeffrey Hearne, LSGMI

In August 2007, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would take control of the Miami Dade Housing Agency (MDHA) because of financial and operational mismanagement.  After HUD’s takeover, MDHA’s Section 8 voucher program became completely dysfunctional — tenants’ housing assistance was terminated before MDHA held termination hearings, tenants could not timely obtain paperwork required to move with the housing assistance, the Section 8 office was closed without notice, and tenants were being terminated from the program without fair hearings.  MDHA’s failures created financial and emotional turmoil for many Section 8 participants, and in the worst cases, resulted in homelessness.

Despite numerous demands by attorneys from Legal Services of Greater Miami, MDHA and the HUD Oversight Administrator failed to take action to correct these significant problems.  In July 2008, LSGMI and Florida Legal Services filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of three single mothers who were improperly terminated from the Section 8 voucher program.  The lawsuit asked the Court to order MDHA to restore the women’s rental assistance and to order MDHA to make permanent changes to the operation of the Section 8 program.  The lawsuit also sought to recover money for the clients’ economic and emotional damages.

Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, MDHA agreed to restore the clients’ rental assistance.  After an early mediation, the parties reached a settlement which included $60,000 for our clients.  The settlement also included several systemic changes to the program’s operation.  These changes include specific timeframes for MDHA to process the paperwork which allows participants to move, specific timeframes for MDHA to approve new housing, and administrative safeguards to ensure that the housing subsidy will not be terminated without due process.  The county also agreed that this settlement will apply to the private company it recently hired to operate the Section 8 program.  This settlement will ensure that Section 8 participants in Miami Dade County will no longer have to worry about whether their housing assistance will stop without notice and they can be confident they will continue to benefit from this valuable government housing program.  This case was handled by LSGMI Senior Attorney Jeffrey Hearne and Charles Elsesser from Florida Legal Services.

In these tough economic times one thing’s for sure: they’re not building any new affordable housing.  And in rare instances when they do, what passes for new “affordable” housing is often out of the financial reach of our clients.  For this reason, preserving existing stock of truly affordable housing is an important piece of our work.

Some families can’t move because they don’t have the money. The school district and social service agencies are collaborating to keep them from ending up homeless. Legal Aid has filed a lawsuit against the town of Davie for allowing the park to close, and against the owners for closing it.

The suit claims the town didn’t follow state procedures that say there must be plenty of affordable housing available before the closure of a mobile home park.

”Mobile homes may not be our dream affordable housing. I’d rather see them in permanent structures. But when you close a mobile home park, you’re destroying affordable housing,” Legal Aid attorney Janet Riley said.

And in Pahokee, there’s a similar attack on affordable and fair housing.  There, a landlord is trying to force all families with children from an apartment complex, in violation of federal Fair Housing laws.

An advocacy group has filed a discrimination complaint with Palm Beach County’s Office of Equal Opportunity against a company that forced some of its Pahokee-area renters to move to make way for a ministry for ex-prison inmates.

The group, Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, along with the Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches, is also trying to help the renters file fair-housing complaints against Alston Management Inc…

Guerrier could say this much: “This is a fair housing issue. The issue is families with children are being targeted.”

Legal Aid Society paralegal Rick Collier said his group filed its complaint Friday.