Archives for July 2020

AHF seeks to apply and enforce the federal Fair Housing Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act to stop the discriminatory effects of four Hollywood developments: Sunset Gordon Tower, Palladium Residences, Crossroads Hollywood and one planned at the Amoeba Music site

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) filed a ‘petition for review’ with the Supreme Court of California in litigation it first filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles in August 2019 against the City of Los Angeles, the L.A. City Council and several luxury property developers. The petition was filed Monday, July 27^th (Case No. S263550).

AHF has asserted violations of both federal and state housing laws intended to eliminate housing discrimination, barriers to minority housing and integrated communities in the permitting, planning and construction of four luxury mixed-use residential, commercial and/or entertainment development projects within the Hollywood area.

AHF’s petition to the Supreme Court now seeks to overturn the Appellate Court ruling in order to allow for enforcement of the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) inasmuch as AHF believes and asserts it should apply to the four Hollywood development projects: Sunset Gordon Tower, Palladium Residences, Crossroads Hollywood and one planned at the Amoeba Music site.

The four upscale developments are within a one-mile radius in Hollywood, putting economic pressure on lower income residents in the area. Three of the four stretch along Sunset Boulevard. AHF’s lawsuit asserts these four buildings will predictably displace people of color from their homes and neighborhoods and were approved without providing adequate measures to prevent such displacement. The fair housing laws protect minorities who are disproportionately impacted by a city policy or practice that is facially neutral.

In its filing, AHF outlines the crux of its reasoning for submitting a petition for review:

“The primary issue presented in this petition is whether state and federal fair housing statutes will continue to address the practical reality of disparate-impact discrimination and reach this latter form of discrimination, or, as the Court of Appeal held in its published decision, these fair housing statutes are to be narrowly construed to bar such claims based on a newly announced standard for pleading a prima facie case of disparate-impact discrimination.”

“Not a single one of these luxury property developments in Hollywood has nearly enough housing units set aside as affordable for very-low or extremely-low-income families and they collectively continue the gentrification and wholesale displacement of low-income, largely minority communities from Hollywood,” said Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. “We believe the courts were incorrect in their interpretation of the laws and respectfully are seeking reconsideration before the Supreme Court of California.”

AHF’s petition notes and poses another question:

“As recent events confirm, centuries of discrimination have created ongoing and significant disparities for communities of color seeking their rightful place in the American dream. This petition raises a fundamentally important question of whether historically discriminated against minorities have any remedy under fair housing law for policies that effectively drive them out of certain communities.”

It also states that:

“Affordable housing and racial justice are issues of obvious statewide importance. This case involves both, because the Court of Appeal’s published opinion imposes new barriers for communities of color and other victims of discrimination to challenge housing policies that force minorities to leave ‘desirable’ neighborhoods for good.”

Studies show that large scale, high end market-rate housing development without sufficient affordable units is linked to the mass displacement of neighboring low-income residents. These low-income residents are disproportionately people of color.  AHF offers a prime example of such low-income and minority displacement in its initial lawsuit and the current petition—the Crossroads Hollywood development, which will demolish over 80 existing rent stabilized apartments, displacing a decades-old, tight-knit community of largely low-income, predominantly Latino residents.

The Hollywood Center neighborhood is approximately 50% white, 32% Hispanic/Latino, 12% Asian, and 6% Black or African American. However, Hispanic/Latino residents are disproportionately lower income, with both median household and per capita income far below the County medians.

The four Hollywood projects in development targeted in AHF’s lawsuit and petition include:

• Sunset Gordon Tower on Sunset Boulevard, a 22-story, almost entirely market rate apartment complex by development company CIM.
• Hollywood Palladium Residences, by developer Crescent Heights, twin 28-story towers that will house 730 residential units.
• Crossroads Hollywood, by Harridge Development Group, a project set to include 950 apartments in 3 high-rise buildings, over 100 of which apartments will be set aside for very low-income families. However, Harridge will demolish over 80 units of existing rent stabilized apartment housing, so the net gain of new affordable housing units is just 20 or so housing units.
• And, the as yet unnamed 26-story, 200-unit luxury residential and commercial development that provides almost no below market housing by GPI Companies for the site of Amoeba Music on Sunset Boulevard.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.4 million individuals in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us @aidshealthcare

In a recent NPR interview Joe Biden’s Senior Advisor Symone Sanders tried to convince listeners that Biden’s 1994 Crime Bill was a good thing, but the facts show that it was a damaging piece of legislation that led to the mass incarceration of thousands of Black Americans which hurt families, communities and generational wealth.

“Much ink has been spilled about the crime bill and I think if we are going to talk about the crime bill we have to ensure that we are putting it in perspective of the times,  that crime was rampant and many folks across the country — you know African American pastors Mayors, African American mayors,  the members of Congressional Black Caucus were urged, and were urging for something to happen and that is how the crime bill came about. There were lots of things in the crime bill that folks would say are good…” –Symone Sanders (NPR 6/22/20)

“So, when you take a look at my record, people talk about the crime bill. Crime bill didn’t increase mass incarceration, other things increased mass incarceration and the reason why, if you go back and look, and I know you talk about it, you go back and take a look. That’s why you had the vast majority of the black caucus at the time, supporting the crime bill.….Almost every major city with black mayors supported the crime bill because blacks were getting killed overwhelmingly as well…” -Joe Biden (The Breakfast Club 5/22/20)
EVEN LIBERALS DISAGREE WITH JOE BIDEN ON HIS HORRIBLE CRIME BILL

• “A crime against the American people.” –NAACP (Christian Science Monitor, 4/28/94)

• “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” he said of the trend toward increased incarceration, “and I want to admit that.” –President Bill Clinton (NAACP, 7/16/2015)

• “That crime bill was shameful, what it did to black and brown communities like mine [and] low-income communities from Appalachia to rural Iowa. It was a bad bill.”-Senator Cory Booker (The Huffington Post, 5/30/19)

• “…The hundreds of thousands of Americans unjustly sent to prison for long periods of time, the families torn apart, the effects of mass incarceration we are feeling to this day in New York and all over this country, and look, the crime bill was the foundation of that horrible era of mass incarceration…look at the fact that the bill had a disproportionate impact on African Americans and Latinos…that bill was a huge mistake…” –New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (CBS News, 5/30/19)

• “It destroyed entire neighborhoods, destroyed entire communities and we’re still paying the price and suffering from it.” -Patrisse Cullors, Black Lives Matter Co-Founder (LA Times, 6/26/19)

• “The 1994 federal crime bill that created tough new criminal sentences and incentivized states to build more prisons and pass truth-in-sentencing laws is getting new scrutiny during this 2020 election cycle.” – Udi Ofer, Deputy National Political Director and Director of Campaign for Smart Justice, ACLU (ACLU, 6/4/19)

• “Many consider the crime bill to be one of the cornerstone statutes that accelerated mass incarceration. But the law’s negative effects did not end there. States and localities were incentivized through a massive infusion of federal funding to build more jails and prisons and to pass so-called truth-in-sentencing laws and other punitive measures that simultaneously increased the number and length of prison sentences while reducing the possibility of early release for those incarcerated. It has been well-documented that these policies were failures.” Ed Chung, Betsy Pearl, Lea Hunter, Center for American Progress (The Center for American Progress , 3/26/19)

DESPITE TEAM BIDEN’S “THE BLACK COMMUNITY MADE ME DO IT” EXCUSE FOR HIS CRIME BILL

HERE ARE THE FACTS

• Joe Biden Played A “Central Role” In Writing And Passing The 1994 Crime Bill  (Joe Biden, Press Release, 10/25/07)
• The 1994 Crime Bill “Remains the Most Extensive Federal Crime Legislation Ever Passed.” (The Brennan Center, 9/9/19)
• The Biden Crime Bill Included Measures Many Experts Now Say “Helped Give the U.S. The Highest Incarceration Rate in The World.” ( The New York Times, 8/21/15)
• After Biden’s Crime Bill, The Incarcerated Population in America Doubled, from 1994 To 2009, With 12 Percent of People Incarcerated in U.S. Jails Reporting Regular Use Of Opioids. (Politico, 5/23/19)
• The Most Significant and Long-Lasting Impacts of The Legislation Was the Authorization of Incentive Grants To Build Or Expand Correctional Facilities Through The Violent Offender Incarceration And Truth-In-Sentencing Incentive Grants Program. (The Brennan Center, 9/9/19)

o    This Fueled A Prison Construction Boom, For A Period in the 1990s, A New Prison Opened Every 15 Days on Average. (The Brennan Center, 9/9/19)

Joe Biden’s 44-year record is finally being fully examined. His record of making bigoted comments and his long legislative record of advocating for policies that actually hurt Black Americans should be contrasted to President Trump’s four years in office working to advance, support and empower the Black community.

Now, Team Joe Biden is trying to convince Black American voters that his 1994 Crime Bill really wasn’t that bad for the Black community, and Black leaders were really the ones responsible for it instead of taking responsibly for his poor leadership and policy judgement.