Landlords agree to pay tenant and City Hall
Two landlords accused of discriminating against a single mother have agreed to pay $1,000 as part of a settlement with City Hall.
May and Alan Wong, owners of an apartment building at 1048 19th St., also have agreed to attend a management training course certified by the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and will face double penalties if they are found to discriminate against their tenants within two years, said Deputy City Attorney Eda Suh.
City Hall began investigating the Wongs in September of 2002 after Donna Thomas filed a complaint with City Hall that alleged the landlords wouldn’t rent her a one-bedroom apartment because she is a single parent.
Thomas said she had been turned away from four other apartments before finding the Wongs.
“It wasn’t blatant, but I could tell that they weren’t happy I had a child,” Thomas said. “But she was more blatant. I told her that I had a daughter, and she told me, ‘I don’t know if that would work.’”
Thomas said she found the one-bedroom vacancy on the Internet and set up an appointment to see the unit with May Wong. Wong asked Thomas how many people would live in the unit, and Thomas answered that she and her 7-year-old daughter would live there. At that point, Wong said she didn’t think the apartment would work for two people and hung up the phone, Thomas claims. Wong never showed up for the scheduled appointment and refused to return Thomas’ follow-up calls, City Hall alleges.
Thomas claimed that she then had a friend call Wong and say that he was interested in the one-bedroom for himself and his child, who would be living with him half of the year. When Wong hesitated, the friend said he would see if the child’s mother could take the child for the whole year. Wong encouraged him to do so. Later the friend called Wong and told her that he would have to have his child half of the year. Wong promised to call him back but never did, City Hall alleges.
“I was really upset, and I wasn’t going to do anything about it,” Thomas said. “But then I thought, that’s unfair for her to discriminate.”
That’s when Thomas filed a housing discrimination complaint with the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office. Within three days, the City Attorney’s Office investigated the complaint. The investigation included the use of two undercover “testers” from the Los Angeles Housing Rights Center. City officials also surveyed the Wongs’ existing tenants to see if other children lived in the building. The investigation confirmed that the Wongs strictly limited their one-bedroom unit to single occupants.
“Limiting one-bedroom units to single occupants is discriminatory and illegal,” Suh said.
Federal, state and local laws prohibit discrimination against families with children. Limits on the number of occupants in the rental unit raise discrimination problems if the effect is to ban occupancy by families with children. The courts have held that a policy of limiting one-bedroom units to one occupant is suspect because it has a disparate impact on single parents with children, Suh said.
“I hope that people know they have an option in Santa Monica,” Thomas said. “There are so many tenants that don’t know about the laws.”
The Wongs had been working with City Hall through their Santa Monica-based attorney Eric Meller for months.
“We discussed possible settlements, so we knew were going to settle it,” Suh said, adding the Wongs told city officials that they do allow children in their building, but when officials attempted to contact former tenants, they got no response. The Wongs also told city officials that they would provide paperwork to prove children lived in their building. However, the paperwork never materialized.
“We wanted to hear what they wanted say, and we gave them time, but it didn’t lead to any evidence,” Suh said.
Meller and the Wongs couldn’t be reached for comment.
Rather than face litigation, the Wongs last week agreed to settle the matter. They agreed to pay Thomas $500, which is the maximum fine under city law. The Wongs also will reimburse City Hall $500 for investigation costs from the housing rights center.
Had City Hall pursued litigation and won the case, the Wongs could have faced steeper penalties under state and federal housing discrimination laws, Suh said.
“Many people don’t know that it’s illegal to impose this kind of occupancy limit,” Suh said. “We encourage building owners to protect themselves by learning about the law.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.