Palmdale settles suit alleging Section 8 housing discrimination

The city of Palmdale has agreed to settle a civil rights lawsuit accusing it of harassing and evicting nonwhite recipients of federal housing subsidies, officials announced Thursday.

The announcement came the same day a federal judge denied attempts by Palmdale and neighboring Lancaster to dismiss the lawsuit. In announcing the settlement, Palmdale officials insisted that they had done nothing wrong and said that settling would cost less than a court battle.

The lawsuit was filed in June by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. It claims that officials used housing investigators, who are partially funded by Los Angeles County, and sheriff’s deputies in a campaign to drive primarily black residents from government-subsidized housing.

Under the terms of the settlement, Palmdale will surrender all Section 8 compliance and policing responsibilities to the Los Angeles County Housing Authority. The city also agreed not to seek information on the identity of Section 8 participants.

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said the city had “always acted in a lawful manner,” and hadn’t agreed to “do anything of substance that it wasn’t already doing.” But Palmdale decided “it was better to agree to the status quo than waste further taxpayer dollars,” Ledford said.

Last week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to stop funding additional housing investigators for the High Desert cities and instituted other measures, including barring the Sheriff’s Department from sending deputies on housing compliance checks without good cause and agreeing to preserve the confidentiality of participants in the Section 8 program.

Catherine Lhamon, director of impact litigation at Public Counsel, the public-interest law firm representing plaintiffs, expressed disappointed at Palmdale’s refusal to acknowledge fault. She said the city’s agreement to settle the case was “unequivocal recognition that their actions had violated [Section 8] families’ civil rights.”

Litigation will continue against Lancaster, Public Counsel attorneys said. Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris has insisted the city has no intention of settling the lawsuit against it.

In his order denying the Antelope Valley cities’ efforts to dismiss the lawsuit against them, United States District Judge Otis D. Wright II said Lancaster, and not L.A. County’s housing authority, had been “the driving force behind the claimed discrimination.”

As for Palmdale, Wright said the city “did more than advocate for discrimination. It acted.”

But Ledford insisted his city’s actions had nothing to do with race and had always been about ensuring that Section 8 tenants play by the rules.

“Compliance — that’s what it’s been about,” Ledford said. “We have no other agenda.”

ann.simmons@latimes.com