Judge Refuses To Evict Families- OHA Treats Tenants Like Criminals

Judge Refuses To Evict Families At OHA's Lockwood Gardens

Oakland Housing Authority Still Treats Public Housing Tenants Like Criminals

By Lynda Carson September 24, 2006

On Thursday September 21, Winifred Y. Smith, Judge of the Superior Court in Alameda County, rebuffed the on-going attempts by the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) to evict around 20 families from their public housing units at Lockwood Gardens, a Hope Vl project in Oakland.

In a rebuke of the OHA's attempt to publicly demonize the families they are trying to evict from Lockwood Gardens, Judge Smith states in her Sept. 21 ruling that the OHA has not alleged in their Forcible Detainer (eviction notice) that the families have engaged in fraud to move into their housing units. In addition, the judge further states in her ruling that the OHA has accepted rent payments from the families. Therefore, the Demurrer submitted in defense of the families facing eviction is "Sustained Without Leave To Amend," according to Judge Smith's ruling.

The Eviction Defense Center including Oakland attorney Bob Salinas, has been defending 9 families that were facing eviction, and the East Bay Community Law Center has been defending 11 more families facing eviction at Lockwood Gardens. The attorneys' believe that many more families were actually evicted from Lockwood Gardens, who did not have any legal representation to defend themselves with.

The mass eviction case gained local media attention during late April 2006, when the OHA issued a press release accusing one of their own former clerks of committing 34 counts of fraud and theft, while moving 34 families into their housing units at Lockwood Gardens in Oakland.

The OHA believed that these same 34 families were somehow involved in the corruption that was allegedly taking place at their East District Office in Oakland, and that the families must face eviction because they may be in some manner responsible for the alleged corrupt activities of their own former clerk.

"Right now, I have a sense of relief," said Lockwood Garden tenant Chanteel Holoman. "I feel there was a bit of justice in the judges latest ruling, however I feel it's not over yet. The Housing Authority never seems to stop in their attacks against us."

"This is always on our minds. It's all very emotional. We never know what to expect. We don't know when the next attack against us will occur, or what the next notice placed on our door will mean for the existance of our lives. I have a small child, and this makes it especially hard on me."

"It's really unfortunate that our names have been tarnished by the OHA, and our credibility ruined by the public attacks expressed against us in the media by OHA officials. I plan on staying where I am at, and it's no secret about the OHA's attempts to evict myself and others. It's all over the news, on tv and in the papers. Most people I know speak out in support of us who are fighting to stay in our housing. But, theres still that bunch who feel we are criminals because of the way the OHA has portrayed us in the press," Holoman said.

Indeed, since April 27, 2006 the OHA has been on a crusade with their press releases and public statements to demonize the families facing mass eviction at Lockwood Gardens. The OHA has implied that 34 families or more have been involved in fraud to obtain their public housing units at Lockwood Gardens, that the families are squatters, and that they must face eviction. Leading the charge in this devilish campaign to assasinate the character of the families accused of being unlawful occupants, has been OHA spokesperson, David Lipsetz.

Regardless of the attempts by the OHA to demonize the families who are fighting against their evictions at Lockwood Gardens, the attorneys' defending these bright and courageous souls from homelessness are very pleased by Judge Smith's most recent rulings.

"This is a huge victory," said Jorge Aguilar an attorney with the Eviction Defense Center. "Judge Smith's ruling vindicated what the tenants have been saying all along. They are not squatters, they are legal occupants! Hopefully, the OHA will work with the tenants to put this matter behind them. We want the OHA to treat them as the legitimate tenants they are with full rights and priveleges."

Not so fast, says the upper-management in the OHA, who hope that Judge Smith will eventually rule that the leases of the tenants are not valid under Measure EE, in spite of the judges ruling in favor of the families residing at Lockwood Gardens.

Since the ruling favoring the tenants took place on Sept. 21, the OHA moved quickly as possible to continue in their efforts to demonize the families at Lockwood Gardens, no matter what Judge Smith may have to say about the situation.

Calls to OHA spokesperson David Lipsetz have not been returned for this story, but in recent quotes found in the SF Chronicle and Oakland Tribune, Lipsetz has been publicly spewing out his venom against the tenants at Lockwood Gardens, and is engaged in another campaign to demonize the families all over again, while a question over the validity of their leases proceeds in the courts.

In a recent Sept. 23 Tribune article, Lipsetz is quoted as saying, "(If the leases are) valid, then the people who paid her off will become 'tenants' as defined by EE," Lipsetz said. "Until then, the Authority will continue to treat them differently."

In a Sept. 22, SF Chronicle article, it states, "The case is not over, however. Smith has to rule on the legitimacy of the leases. And housing authority officials are hoping that that will settle the case in their favor."

In her Sept. 21 ruling, Judge Smith pointed out that the OHA did not allege in their cause of action to evict that the families were involved in any kind of fraud. In addition, the D.A.s office of Alameda County has not charged any of the tenants at Lockwood Gardens with fraud or anything other crime. And yet, heres OHA spokesperson David Lipsetz way out on a limb, implying once again that the tenants have been involved in some kind of wrong doing and will be treated differently as a result.

To the many families that were just vindicated by Judge Smith's ruling, they can only wonder what the OHA really means, when the upper-management at the OHA publicly claims that they will be treated differently than others are being treated at Lockwood Gardens.

To some this may mean that there will be more OHA Police pounding on their doors late at night, with more threatening notices to be served to the tenants. To others, it may mean that the OHA Police may come around again to ask more questions for their so-called investigation.

This does not sound like justice has just been served, and sounds more like the OHA plans to subject the families to more cruel and unusual punishment, no matter what the outcome in the courts may be.

Contrary to Judge Smith's ruling which also pointed out that the OHA has accepted rent payments from the families at Lockwood Gardens, including the fact that the tenants themselves have receipts revealing how long the OHA has accepted rent payments from them before they were accused of being squatters, a September 22, SF Chronicle article quotes OHA spokesperson Lipsetz as saying, "his agency has not cashed any of the 28 tenants' rent checks, as they aren't considered legitimate tenants."

Indeed, regardless of whether OHA spokesperson Lipsetz is telling the truth or is fabricating a false impression about the rent checks, it must be pointed out that investigative documents shed some light on this very same matter.

Investigative documents indicate that the OHA has been accepting rent payments from some of these same legal occupants facing eviction, as far back as August, September, October, November and December of 2005. In addition, the families have stated that the OHA did not start refusing to accept their rent payments until sometime in March or April of 2006.

"We're very pleased with the outcome of the ruling by Judge Smith," said Laura Lane an attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center. "All the actions filed by the OHA to evict the families at Lockwood Gardens, have been rejected by the courts. They are legal occupants, just as the tenants have said throughout all of the eviction proceedings that have taken place against them. Five causes of action were filed by the OHA against the legal occupants at Lockwood Gardens, and three of the demurrers filed in defense of the legal occupants (tenants facing eviction), have been sustained without leave to amend, by Judge Smith."

"There was not a shred of evidence to show that the tenants did something wrong, or even knew that something was wrong when they went through the process of moving into their public housing units at Lockwood Gardens," said Lane.

"The judges ruling shot down the attempts by the OHA to evict with such actions as Forcible Detainers, Ejectment, or Tresspass, and clearly the ruling upholds the rights of the tenants as legal occupants. We do not know what to expect next from the OHA. We feel that the OHA will continue their attack against these legal occupants. The OHA is not known for doing things right," said attorney Laura Lane in closing.

In addition to the courts latest rulings, this alleged case of fraud and corruption in the OHA took a new twist during the week of July 10, after Carolyn Wilson a former employee of the OHA who was arrested on July 6, and charged with 65 felony counts by the Alameda County D.A.s office, declared that the 34 families facing eviction at Oakland's Lockwood Gardens were not aware of any wrong doing or irregularities while moving into their housing units.

During a phone call from St. Tammany Parish Jail, in Louisiana, without admitting any guilt on her own part, Carolyn Wilson said, "I want people to know that the 34 families facing eviction by the Oakland Housing Authority at Lockwood Gardens were not aware of any wrong doing on their part, while moving into their public housing units."

Wilson was arrested in Covington, Louisiana, while working at a service company called Protocol, by the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department. "The Police came into our company and contacted the manager, and then they called Ms. Wilson away from her desk and arrested her," said Protocol's Human Resource Director, Cortney Toledo.

Wilson is still sitting in St. Tammany Parrish Jail, fighting extradition back to California, while proclaiming her innocense to any involvement of wrong doing that may have occurred at the OHA's East District Office while she was employed there.

"The Oakland Housing Authority has been claiming that I fled the state," Wilson said. "This is not true! I quit my job at the Housing Authority last December, and hung around the Bay Area till sometime in January 2006, before moving to Ponchatula, Louisiana. I gave the OHA a forwarding address and had them mail my last pay check to me there. They knew where I was at, and knew where to find me at any time."

"I am fighting extradition back to Oakland," Wilson says. "Their case against me was so weak that the local Covington Police declined to arrest me, and they had to go through the Sheriff's Department to find someone else to arrest me. In an effort to convince me to waive my rights, they have been trying to scare me, and their telling me that it may take up to 6 months before I get an extradition hearing, and that I will not get any credit for time being served while I wait for the hearing."

During a July 14, interview with William Tingle, a prosecutor with the Alameda County D.A.'s office, he said, "Ms. Wilson has been arrested in Louisiana and facing extradition. She is the only one charged with any wrongdoing, and theres a range of sentencing options if she is found guilty of any of the charges against her. I can't say that there will be any charges against any of the tenants, because this is still under investigation."

When I pointed out that it took the OHA Police investigators 5 months to seek a search warrant for the computer used by Carolyn Wilson after it was discovered that someone altered the files in the computer system, I asked if this was really a serious investigation into what had occurred inside the OHA. William Tingle refused to make any further comments and ended the interview at that point.

It must be noted that the OHA has also repeatedly stated that they are evicting all of the families they wrongfully accused of being unlawful occupants at Lockwood Gardens, so that they can give the housing units to those who were allegedly bumped off of the public housing waiting list, by their former clerk Carolyn Wilson.

In an April 27 OHA press release describing why the mass evictions at Lockwood Gardens were taking place, OHA Executive Director Jon Gresley stated, "We want to serve the families who have legitimately applied for help and waited their turn."

Contrary to Gresley's statement in the press release, it appears that no one was facing eviction so that Labrinina McDougle could move into Lockwood Gardens, even though she applied for help, waited her turn, allegedly was bumped out of line in the public housing waiting list by Carolyn Wilson, and was the first person involved in exposing the alleged corruption at the OHA last December, which led to the mass evictions now being blocked by Judge Winifred Y. Smith.

As it turned out, McDougle was dumped completely from the public housing waiting list by the OHA, despite all the hoopla by OHA's upper management about the need to serve those on the waiting list.

"I was shocked when I went to the OHA and learned they lost my files," said McDougle in a June 17 interview. "They lost my files in the computer and all the documents I signed. When they ran my client number in their system, someone else's name and information would turn up. No one in the office could explain to me why that was happening, and they said they would have to get back to me.

"I feel like I lost my identity somehow. I still have not been able to move into public housing, and have since been told by an OHA supervisor named Ms. Miller that I would have to sign up all over again if I wanted to get on the public housing waiting list. I've already signed up three times to get on the waiting list for public housing and was on the Section 8 waiting list for 12 years. I do not want to sign up and start all over again," said Labrinina McDougal.

As recent as Sept. 22, in an article of the SF Chronicle, as an excuse as to why the OHA was still pushing for the mass eviction's of the legal occupants at Lockwood Gardens, OHA's spokesperson David Lipsetz was quoted as saying, "We're obligated to serve the people who signed up to be on the waiting list."

Regardless of the treatment suffered by Labrinina McDougal or all the others that may have been mistreated by the staff of the OHA, as incredible as it may sound, the OHA is still claiming that it wants to evict all the legal occupants that were facing eviction at Lockwood Gardens, so that it may serve those such as Labrinina McDougal, who have signed up on the public housing waiting list, for low-income housing in the City of Oakland.

For more on the mistreatment of tenants by the Oakland Housing Authority, just run a search on Google with the search terms; Oakland Housing Authority and One Strike Policy , or try another Google search again for; Housing Authority abuses citizenship question .

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com