His crusade to house L.A.’s poor praised by Oprah Winfrey, Garcetti. But others have doubts
LA TimesHelices Peres paints the handrail in the staircase at the Hirsh Apartments in Los Angeles. The day after the Avalon opening, the nonprofit Inner City Law Center alleged in a suit that SoLa exposed tenants in one of its buildings to “health and safety threats on a daily basis” including “long-term infestations of rats and cockroaches, severe water damage destabilizing the walls and ceilings, rampant mold” while the company’s principals “have lined their own pockets with. “They took advantage of poor people who couldn’t protect themselves.” SoLa Impact Chief Executive Martin Muoto, left. “We had saved and were rehabbing 1,200 units, but we hadn’t added a single unit to the inventory in Los Angeles,” Muoto said. A Times analysis of Los Angeles Housing Department records shows that, within a year before SoLa’s purchase, 64 of its buildings had tenant complaints and orders to correct code violations.
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