FAIR HOUSING?; DISPUTE FORCES PAIR FROM HOME.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

For 30 years, John and Cecilia Matt were exemplary tenants: helpful, clean and prompt to pay their rent.

Now fair housing experts say the ailing, elderly couple exemplify a growing form of discrimination targeted against the disabled. Their landlords deny they have discriminated against the Matts.

A year and a half ago, their landlords revoked the Matts' privilege of parking in a covered garage space and switched them to a spot in the back alley. In their 70s and disabled, the Matts found the new location treacherous to traverse, and John Matt was injured in a fall trying to reach it.

After their landlords at the Palms Apartments refused to restore their original space, the couple sued the building owner, Sherman Oaks-based PHD Ltd., and agreed to settle for $67,000. But their victory was clouded: In exchange for the settlement, they had to agree to leave their longtime home.

``Imagine you've lived somewhere for 30 years, you've kept your place clean, never done anything, never asked for anything, and all of a sudden they ask you to move your car into the alley,'' Cecilia Matt said.

``We lost sleep over it, we got sick over it because we could not understand it. And no one ever gave us a reason.''

Disabled bias up

Thirty years after Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act, experts say housing discrimination is still widespread, and in many cases, is subtler and harder to prosecute than more blatant, earlier forms.

While the largest number of cases still concern racial discrimination, authorities report sharp increases in complaints by disabled people.

In 1995, disability discrimination complaints made up 12 percent of the total number reported to the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, said Regional Administrator Beth Rosen-Prinz. By 1997, they made up 18 percent of the agency's case load.

``Since the Fair Housing Act was amended in 1988 and went into effect in 1989 to protect families with children and people with disabilities, we have seen an increase in the number of mostly white families with children and white people with disabilities'' filing discrimination cases, said Shanna Smith, director of the National Fair Housing Alliance.

The increase in cases in California is more puzzling because the state has provided disability protection through the Unruh Civil Rights Act since 1987, and through judicial case law since 1959, according to Rosen-Prinz.

The number of disability complaints in Los Angeles is lower than the statewide average, constituting 7 percent of total fair-housing cases for the years 1995 through 1997.

But those cases are definitely on the rise throughout the city, said Don Smith, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of the San Gabriel Valley, last week during a news conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act.

``They went from virtually none (in the early 1990s) to that 7 percent figure. Familial status and disability are the two fastest-rising complaints.''

The Fair Housing Council of the San Fernando Valley, which also covers the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys and Simi Valley, received 11 disability discrimination complaints in 1995 and one in 1996, said chief investigator Sharon Kinlaw. That leapt to 34 in 1997. This year they've already seen 20 disability cases.

Among those rising numbers, Kinlaw said, the Matts' story stands out as a glaring case study in the new demographics of discrimination.

``It was heartbreaking to see what they had to go through, the loss of their dignity,'' she said.

Relaxing in the apartment they will soon have to leave, the Matts showed snapshots of pool parties they had organized, recalling happier times.

``For many years we acted as assistant managers,'' John Matt said. ``When the manager went on vacation, we did the gardening, watering and kept the keys for lockouts.''

The good life turned sour in August 1996, when the Matts were notified that their parking space of three decades had been reassigned to a new tenant. The Matts would have to park in an alley space, accessible only by traversing an asphalt drainage trough.

Cecilia Matt, who suffers from a degenerative disc disease and a painful, diabetes-related nerve ailment, could not reach the parking spot at all. John Matt, hobbled by an artificial hip, tripped and crashed on the pathway days after the space was changed.

``After the injury, I realized that by the minute I was getting worse,'' he said. ``My knee started to swell up, eventually like a football. My arm swelled up.''

His rotator cuff and knee were torn, and his wrist and elbow injured. The blow shocked his body into rigid muscle spasms. He spent the next six weeks confined to his living room armchair.

What's reasonable

The Matts briefly kept their car in the original space with permission of on-site manager Antonia Visnak. But the next month the property supervisor, Bill Atkins, threatened to tow the car if they didn't move it immediately.

Visnak declined to comment on the case. Atkins did not return several phone calls from the Daily News.

The couple enlisted an attorney to seek their old space, but when management ignored that plea, they filed a complaint with the Van Nuys Branch of the Fair Housing Council.

Kinlaw explained in letters to the managers that the Matts, both disabled, were entitled to ``reasonable accommodations'' - simple adjustments for their physical impairments. Failure to provide that constituted discrimination under federal law, she warned.

Atkins wrote back, ``There has been no discrimination of any kind toward Mr. and Mrs. Matt. We do not feel that they meet the standard as defined by law for persons with disabilities.''

At a stalemate, the Matts filed a joint lawsuit with the Fair Housing Council in April 1997, alleging violations of the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act.

But the stress of the dispute, along with their worsening health, took its toll.

In January, John Matt had congestive heart failure. In February, the couple settled their suit for $67,000, to cover their own damages, attorneys fees and damages won by the Fair Housing Council.

As a condition of the settlement, the Matts must move out within 90 days.

``It was traumatic,'' John Matt said. ``Now we'll be glad when we're out of here.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Chart

PHOTO (Color in Bulldog Edition only) An apartment complex parking dispute is forcing Cecilia and John Matt from their home of 30 years.

David Sprague/Daily News

CHART: HOUSING BIAS

Racial discrimination is the most common fair housing complaint, but disability cases are raising.

Daily News