HACLA has withheld records on Section 8 housing choice vouchers from public
LOS ANGELES – On Monday, the Law Office of Peter Bibring and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California filed a lawsuit against Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) for refusing to provide public records concerning waiting lists for housing vouchers distributed by the agency.
In 2023, the ACLU SoCal submitted CPRA requests concerning Section 8 voucher waiting lists to numerous public housing authorities in California. Unlike HACLA, the majority of other housing authorities around the state have produced the legally required records.
“Housing Choice Vouchers are a life-changing and highly effective way to decrease housing instability, extreme poverty, and racial inequity,” said Kath Rogers, senior staff attorney at the ACLU SoCal. “The public deserves to know how this program operates—especially individuals or families who wait for years on a list for a voucher, only to find they have been dropped without their knowledge or consent.”
The City of Los Angeles is home to 38% of all unhoused Californians and HACLA manages the most housing choice vouchers of any authority in California.
The ACLU SoCal submitted these requests as part of a larger inquiry into the implementation of the Housing Choice Voucher program in different jurisdictions across California. Only 1 in 4 households eligible for housing choice vouchers receive them, and waiting lists can last for over 10 years.
“The Public Records Act exists to let organizations like ACLU SoCal dig into how government actually operates and shine a light on any problems,” said Peter Bibring, lead counsel on the case. “HACLA has neither provided any records on waiting lists nor any justification for their stonewalling.”
The suit asks the court to declare HACLA in violation of the CPRA, to compel the agency to perform its duties under the CPRA, and to immediately produce all non-exempt, requested public records in their possession in response to the ACLU’s CPRA request.
Read the complaint: https://www.aclusocal.org/app/uploads/2026/01/2026-01-12-1-Petition-ACLU-SoCal-v-HACLA.pdf
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