A federal district judge has issued a preliminary injunction that requires the City of Los Angeles and its Community Redevelopment Agency to provide relocation assistance to the low-income tenants of the Alexandria Hotel, including more than 100 tenants who were evicted over the course of the last year. Judge Margaret Morrow's ruling also requires the owners of the hotel to provide habitable living conditions for all tenants and reasonable accommodations to tenants with disabilities.

The owners of the hotel have received community redevelopment funds to rehabilitate the hotel, and the federal government has approved federal funds for the project. The tenants assert that in the guise of rehabilitation the owners have sought to remove the poorest of the tenants, particularly African-Americans and tenants with disabilities. Since August 2006, more than 100 tenants, many who had been longtime residents, have been displaced from the hotel. Residents also experienced interruptions in a number of services: inoperative elevators have stranded elderly residents with disabilities on upper floors and water shutoffs have left tenants without potable water or flushing toilets for days at a time. Most residents are currently without hot water in their rooms.

Our co-counsel in the case are the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Disability Rights Legal Center, and McDermott Will & Emery LLP. To see an LA Times story about the decision, go to http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-alexandria28-2008may28,0,2560562.story.