Fighting Section 8 Racial Discrimination

In 2011, as part of the effort to preserve access to safe and affordable housing, NLSLA and its partners sued the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale for discriminating against Black and Latino families participating in the Section 8 program. The successful lawsuit secured unprecedented protections for Section 8 participants, preventing individual municipalities from targeting black and Latino families using the federal housing subsidies and effectively ending years of discrimination for black and Latino Section 8 participants living in the Antelope Valley area. The lawsuit also led to a Justice Department civil rights investigation that resulted in additional protections for Antelope Valley residents as well as $2.6 million in damages for African American families in the Section 8 program who experienced discrimination.