Aug. 26 (UPI) — The city of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $38.2 million to resolve allegations that it failed to meet federal accessibility requirements when it used federal grant funds for affordable housing, prosecutors announced Monday.
The settlement resolves a complaint the Justice Department filed in 2017 as part of a whistleblower action brought by a wheelchair user that accused the city of discriminating against people with disabilities by failing to make its affordable multifamily housing program accessible to those with various impairments, including mobility as well as visual and auditory impairments.
The federal prosecutors specifically alleged that Los Angeles failed to make the housing “structurally accessible” to people with disabilities, including creating slopes that were too steep and counters that were too high.
So-called thresholds also did not meet wheelchair access, the prosecutors said, while further accusing the city of failing to maintain a publicly available list of accessible units and their accessibility features while informing the Department of Housing and Urban Development that it complied with all grant requirements.