Keeping Families in Their Homes Throughout Orange County

Action from PLC attorneys help families avoid homelessness

Earlier this year, PLC attorneys, lead by Lili Vo Graham, filed writ petitions on behalf of two single mothers with children against the Orange County Housing Authority (OCHA). In both situations, OCHA moved forward with the termination process without fully considering the situations for both families, which in one instance, resulted in homelessness.

“The fact that the housing authority took steps in both situations to remove the families from their homes for minor allegations meant we needed to do everything we could to help these families,” said Graham. “These families suffer extreme hardship when they lose their Section 8 vouchers and we took a great step forward in creating precedent and awareness for a fairer termination process.”

OHCA terminated a Section 8 voucher for one single mom with three young children based on allegations that her ex-boyfriend was an unauthorized occupant in her home. The evidence? Two male shirts in her daughter’s closet and a piece of his furniture out on the back patio. The client is a model Section 8 voucher recipient; she worked part-time to support her family and was in the process of completing graduate school.

PLC sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the termination of our client’s Section 8 voucher from taking effect the day before Thanksgiving. The Court granted our temporary restraining order, and a week later County Counsel convinced OCHA to reinstate our client’s Section 8 voucher.

In another situation, OCHA terminated a Section 8 voucher for a single mom with two children because the women allegedly failed to report her employment with CalWorks before her employment contract was actually approved.

Our client’s employment was babysitting her granddaughter for a mere $2 per hour while her daughter went to college. She timely and voluntarily reported her employment when her contract was approved, but OCHA claimed that our client committed intentional fraud by failing to report $422 in income before the contract was approved.

OHCA abused its discretion when they terminated her voucher because they did not consider the totality of the circumstances. A single mother of two children was forced into homelessness over what, at worst, was a simple mistake, not intentional fraud.

Our client was homeless with her two children while we were preparing her writ. After the opening brief in this case was filed, OCHA followed the advice of its attorney and reinstated our client’s Section 8 voucher. Recently our client was able to use the Section 8 voucher to find affordable housing for her family.

After the successful outcomes in the above described writs, Graham met with the head of the Section 8 voucher program for OCHA to advocate for a fairer termination process.