The nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation will pay current and former tenants of a Skid Row residential hotel $575,000 to resolve a long-running class-action lawsuit over living conditions at its property.
Residents of the Madison Hotel have reported pervasive problems in the building, including mold, vermin, plumbing and electrical problems that they say the foundation has failed to address.
The case was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2020 and the deal was reached Monday, just as the trial was set to begin. A series of rulings by Judge William F. Highberger had limited the tenants’ claims to living conditions in the building’s common areas. Most of the roughly 200 residents of the century-old, single-occupancy hotel share bathrooms on each floor.
Jennifer Kramer, an attorney representing the tenants, did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives for the foundation could not immediately be reached for comment.
In addition to the financial settlement, the agreement reached Monday calls for the foundation to consult with experts and receive training on maintenance and management issues at the Madison. The foundation also agreed to hire a consultant to evaluate the building’s elevator.
Last year, the foundation paid at least $832,000 to settle a separate lawsuit Elderly and disabled tenants at the Madison said they were trapped in their apartments or had to sleep in the lobby because of elevator malfunctions. Since the settlement, the elevator has continued to malfunction.
The Madison was the first property purchased by the foundation in 2017 as part of its efforts to combat homelessness and improve housing affordability in Skid Row and throughout California.
The nonprofit, which took in $2.5 billion in revenue last year largely from its drugstore chain, has since acquired more than a dozen underutilized low-income buildings in Los Angeles and worked to renovate them and rent rooms to tenants.
A Times investigation last year Many of the foundation’s more than 1,300 residents were found to be living in squalid conditions, with dozens facing eviction.
The foundation still faces multiple lawsuits from tenants over living conditions at the Madison and elsewhere.
The foundation is involved in multiple initiatives on the national ballot in November. It sponsors Proposition 33that would expand rent control in California after two similar initiatives failed in 2018 and 2020. He is also defending himself against Proposition 34a measure funded by the California Apartment Assn., the foundation’s opponents in the rent control fight. If passed, Proposition 34 would effectively ban the foundation from funding political and housing campaigns.
