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By Kevin Herrera
Editor in Chief
VENICE — The owners of the Lincoln Place garden apartments are being sued by current and former tenants for the alleged unlawful eviction of more than 50 households.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for the tenants claim that the defendant, Apartment Investment and Management Co. (AIMCO), engaged in unfair business practices and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on roughly 100 people who were locked out of their homes in December 2005 in what has been described as the largest mass eviction in Los Angeles history.
Tenants claim that AIMCO violated conditions of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, as well as an agreement with the city of Los Angeles to relocate tenants to other units on the property rather than evict them. They also claim AIMCO failed to properly notify tenants of their rights and threatened many of them.
Lincoln Place, which was built after World War II to help house veterans unable to find affordable housing, is located just east of Lincoln Boulevard near Rose Avenue.
Sheila Bernard, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and one of the few remaining residents of Lincoln Place, said she is suing for restitution because AIMCO “destroyed” her community.
“Seniors who lived there for decades were uprooted from their support network; children who went to school in the neighborhood were uprooted from their schools,” Bernard said.
“People were just fundamentally torn from the community that they had come to see as their home,” Bernard said. “A community where they were the eyes on the street and kept an eye on each other.”
There were more than 690 units at Lincoln Place. Now, just 12 households remain, Bernard said.
486,“There was a time when we had lots of celebrations over the holidays,” Bernard said. “This past season, it was way too quiet. It still is.”
Representatives from AIMCO said they have acted in full compliance with the law and “will be vigorously defending ourselves against what we view as a baseless lawsuit.”
Cindy Duffy, director of corporate communications for AIMCO, said the lawsuit and other legal challenges filed by tenants are “detrimental” because the property is sitting practically empty and no one is able to take advantage of the opportunity to build new affordable and market rate housing that is desperately needed.
“It’s in a holding pattern at this point,” Duffy said.
She was also quick to point out that the lawsuit involved only a handful of current and former tenants and that “90 percent of tenants” accepted relocation packages that helped them find other apartments, some of them owned and operated by AIMCO.
“People were just fundamentally torn from the community that they had come to see as their home.”
Sheila Bernard, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and one of the few remaining residents of Lincoln Place.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 8, 2008. Read the original PDF.