On Tuesday, June 10, a federal court order fortified the rights of tenants whose federal housing vouchers are terminated by the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA). Under new rules, SHA hearing examiners must consider special circumstances such as disabilities; the examiners must have legal training (none was required before); and the examiners will be appointed in with input from tenants.

“The Seattle Housing Authority was terminating tenants on the basis of very problematic and illegal reasons,” says Tenants Union organizer Emily Paddison. For example, she says, a tenant could lose a voucher for having too many people in his home even if he was disabled and required assistance from visitors. But under the old SHA rules, hearing examiners couldn’t acknowledge complicating circumstances—such as failure to respond to letters because tenants couldn’t read English, were victims of domestic violence, or were mentally ill—instead relying strictly on SHA and federal housing regulations.

Although the SHA is accepting the new rules gracefully—SHA spokeswoman Virginia Felton said agencies officials “welcome these changes”—that seems a little disingenuous. After the case was filed in King County Superior Court, SHA moved it into federal court. Why, if SHA accepts the changes, did the agency push to move the case to a higher court? “We felt a lawsuit wasn’t the right way to go,” she says.

The SHA administered about 8,200 federal housing vouchers last year, and 108 were terminated for rules violations, Felton says.

The case originated with Tina Hendrix, who was informed by SHA in March 2007 that she would lose her Section 8 housing voucher for failing to report that her teenage daughter had moved. Eric Dunn, an attorney who litigated the case for the Northwest Justice Project, counters that Hendrix’s daughter suffered from a mental disability and had run away, temporarily.

“We had been observing these hearings for year and had lawsuits before,” says Dunn. He believed that SHA “wouldn’t recognize [Hendrix’s] arguments.” So rather than go to the hearing examiner, Hendrix filed her case, claiming the SHA appeals system violated her right to due process under the 14th Amendment.

Ultimately, this case illustrates the need for independent organizations to keep government-funded agencies in check. The Tenants Union, along with other groups representing low-income renters, has been haggling with SHA for the past couple of years to provide additional translation services, increase protection for domestic violence survivors, and increase Section 8 tenant representation on committees.

“Our people are working very hard to serve clients,” says SHA’s Felton, “and we make mistakes, but we’re working with Tenants Union and we’re making progress there.”