The Region - News from Jan. 5, 1987

As a result of a ruling by Superior Court Judge Jerry Fields, indigents whose hotel rooms are paid for by Los Angeles County may demand a new one if theirs is unsafe or unhealthy. The ruling affects 168 hotels, most of them in the downtown area, which participate in a system financed by the Department of Public Social Services. The judge’s ruling settled a suit filed by a coalition of legal aid groups that maintained that the county, in effect, was subsidizing flophouses where owners kept rooms in substandard conditions.