A federal class-action lawsuit alleges the Omaha Housing Authority constantly violated the authorized rights of low-income tenants during the last seven years.
Present and former tenants suing OHA declare the general public housing supplier illegally overcharged them for lease, denied them the fitting to contest lease hikes and sought in addition them once they couldn’t pay.
In some circumstances, the federally funded company tried to evict extraordinarily poor tenants as an alternative of providing lease exemptions entitled to them by federal regulation, the 54-page complaint alleges.
The contents of the lawsuit filed Thursday mirror the findings of a Flatwater Free Press investigation revealed in December.
OHA CEO Joanie Poore declined to touch upon the lawsuit citing pending litigation.
The company ought to pay again tenants it harmed and reform its insurance policies to make sure residents know their rights sooner or later, mentioned Diane Uchimiya, director of Creighton College’s Abrahams Authorized Clinic, which filed the lawsuit together with native agency Automobile & Reinbrecht and the San Francisco-based Nationwide Housing Regulation Undertaking.
“Individuals have suffered with these violations of regulation … and so they have mainly paid lease and paid late charges or been topic to eviction circumstances and so they shouldn’t have been,” Uchimiya informed the Flatwater Free Press on Thursday.
OHA’s “predatory and illegal actions” threatened a few of the metropolis’s most susceptible renters with homelessness, Nationwide Housing Regulation Undertaking lawyer Kate Walz mentioned in a press release.
The seed for the lawsuit got here from former Creighton clinic director Kate Mahern, a veteran legal professional who beforehand sued OHA in federal court docket 4 instances.
Whereas voluntarily representing OHA tenants in eviction court docket final 12 months, Mahern seen {that a} letter informing her consumer of a $400 lease enhance made no point out of the tenant’s proper to problem the choice as required by federal regulation.
That consumer, Rhonda Moses, is now one of many 4 named plaintiffs within the case introduced Thursday.
After Mahern identified the lacking grievance clause, OHA dismissed the eviction case in opposition to Moses and added the clause to its template for rent-change letters, Flatwater previously reported.
Moses moved out anyway, fearing it was solely a matter of time earlier than the company would attempt to oust her once more. The licensed nursing assistant believes OHA now owes her hundreds of {dollars} — cash she must hold a roof over her head.
“My lease ought to have stayed the identical for the entire six years (I lived there) as a result of they by no means let me dispute it,” Moses mentioned on Thursday. “I simply really feel I bought robbed.”
The lawsuit alleges OHA did not adequately inform tenants of their “grievance rights” from way back to October 2016 via September 2023.
Two different plaintiffs, Shernena Bush and Samantha Hansen, symbolize a separate class that alleges OHA failed to tell them of exemptions to paying lease.
The housing authority prices a “minimal lease” of $50 a month to tenants with no or very low incomes, however federal law and OHA’s personal insurance policies say the company should grant a “hardship exemption” to households unable to pay the minimal lease.
Final 12 months, OHA filed to evict Bush and Hansen for nonpayment of lease two instances every, however the circumstances had been settled or dismissed and each nonetheless reside in public housing.
The lawsuit alleges that OHA workers by no means informed the 2 minimum-rent tenants of their skill to use for a hardship exemption even after they repeatedly requested how they may pay $50 a month with none revenue.
Bush bought her plasma to remain up together with her lease invoice however needed to cease after her blood’s iron degree fell under acceptable ranges, the lawsuit says.
Six present and former minimum-rent tenants told Flatwater last year that OHA by no means supplied them a chance to use for a hardship exemption earlier than they acquired eviction notices.
In Illinois, minimum-rent tenants won a settlement final 12 months that required the Chicago Housing Authority to offer qualifying tenants lease credit and to erase unpaid minimal lease prices going again years.
It’s unclear what number of present and former OHA tenants may qualify to be a part of the class-action lawsuit however they could quantity within the hundreds, the grievance says.
The plaintiffs are asking the court docket to require OHA to correctly inform tenants of their rights to grievance hearings and hardship exemptions. They’re additionally asking that OHA pay again tenants like Moses, Bush and Hansen who had been allegedly overcharged.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys hope to settle the case with OHA, however they’re ready to go to trial, Uchimiya mentioned.
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This story was initially revealed by Flatwater Free Press and distributed via a partnership with The Related Press.
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