Oxnard landlord to pay $200,000 to settle housing discrimination claims

On By Littum

(This story was updated to correct an error regarding rent increases on Section 8 tenants.)

An Oxnard landlord will pay about $200,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a tenant who said the landlord wouldn’t let him use a federal Section 8 voucher to pay rent for his apartment.

Attorneys for Bulmaro Mendez, a former resident of the Press Courier Apartments in Oxnard, announced Wednesday that they had reached a settlement agreement with his former landlord and property manager, ending a lawsuit Mendez filed last year in Ventura County Superior Court.

Press Courier Apartments is a 115-unit complex for tenants 55 and older in a former newspaper building in downtown Oxnard. It is owned by Aldersgate Investments, an Oxnard-based developer, and managed by an Aldersgate subsidiary.

Aldersgate and its management company did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, but agreed to “new policies across their rental properties” to ensure they do not violate fair housing laws, according to a statement from the Housing Rights Centrethe firm that represented Mendez.

“They denied all the charges and they are committed to complying with the law going forward,” said Erik Feingold, an attorney for Aldersgate.

Under a California law that took effect in 2020, landlords cannot discriminate against tenants or prospective tenants based on the source of their income, including their reliance on the federally funded Section 8 rental assistance program.

Elderly, disabled tenant says landlord refused his voucher

Mendez, who is 85 and uses a wheelchair, said in his lawsuit that he moved into a one-bedroom apartment at Press Courier in 2018 when the complex was brand new.

At first his daughter helped him financially, but for the past few years his only income has been $850 a month in Social Security. His rent was $1,395 a month, according to court documents.

Mendez began having trouble paying his rent in 2022, his lawsuit states. He began making partial rent payments of $830 a month, leaving only $20 each month for food and other necessities.

Then in August 2022, Mendez obtained a Section 8 rental voucher from the Oxnard Housing Authority. The voucher was for $1,263 a month, allowing him to pick up the remaining $132 of his monthly rent.

Under the Section 8 program, local housing authorities use federal funds to send money directly to landlords to help cover rent for the program’s low-income beneficiaries.

According to Mendez’s lawsuit, he asked the complex’s property manager if he could use the voucher to pay his rent, and the manager told him he could not. Instead, the manager told him he would have to move into another unit because only certain units at the Press Courier Apartments were reserved for Section 8 tenants. And he had to wait, because the Section 8 units had a waiting list that was 40 names deep.

In October 2022, Mendez’s Ventura County social worker tried to intervene and told the property manager that the county would pay the back rent Mendez owed if he could start using the voucher to pay for his current apartment.

According to the lawsuit, the property manager said the company would accept the back rent from the county but would not honor the voucher. Then, on November 10, 2022, Aldersgate served Mendez a three-day notice to pay what he owed or leave.

At that point, Mendez took his case to the Housing Rights Center, which began communicating with the landlord and property manager on his behalf. On Jan. 31, 2023, Mendez moved out to another apartment building, where the landlord accepted his voucher, his lawsuit states.

Mendez’s legal complaint says he “experienced a final humiliation” nearly a year later, in December 2023, when he received a collection notice from Press Courier Apartments for $3,401.50 in back rent despite the county’s offer to pay what he owed.

‘They must allow Section 8 in all their units’

Aldersgate denied in the lawsuits that it violated any laws, and it said Mendez was given three days’ notice because he was behind on his rent, not because he had asked to use a Section 8 voucher.

But in a motion filed with the court in June, Aldersgate’s attorneys said Press Courier Apartments had an “application/waiting list” process for Section 8 recipients “because PCA apparently had a higher demand for Section 8 housing than it could accommodate at that time (resulting in a waiting list).”

And in December 2022, when the Housing Rights Center was negotiating with Aldersgate on Mendez’s behalf, an executive at the property management firm told the center via email that “the owners decided last year not to accept any new Section 8 vouchers,” according to Mendez’s. lawsuit.

Under California law, landlords cannot treat Section 8 recipients differently than other tenants, said Jeff Lambert, executive director of the San Buenaventura Housing Authority. That means they can’t have separate units reserved for Section 8 recipients or put those people on a waiting list unless it’s the same waiting list for all potential tenants.

“Landlords can’t turn someone away just because their source of income is Section 8. They can’t say in their ads that they don’t accept Section 8 … and they have to allow Section 8 in all of their units,” Lambert said.

Lambert was not familiar with the Oxnard case, but said that in Ventura, complaints of discrimination against Section 8 recipients are rare. He was not aware of any recent lawsuits with such allegations.

“Lately we’ve had landlords asking us for referrals,” Lambert said. “For them, it’s a guaranteed income. We make a payment to the landlord every month, so they’re very reliable tenants.”

There are a few downsides for the landlord, he said. Firstly, there are limits to how much a landlord can raise the rent for Section 8 tenants. Second, local housing authorities also inspect units rented by Section 8 recipients, and landlords aren’t always happy about that—typically, an apartment building only has to meet the building codes that were in effect when it was built, but HUD can require that Section 8 units meet the most current codes, Lambert said.

“There are some burdens to being a Section 8 voucher landlord, but the reality is that the burdens are outweighed by the benefits,” he said.

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at [email protected]. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.