For nine months, Nash Stavorito has been trying to organize a tenants' union with fellow residents of the Skid Row Single Room Hotel and neighboring properties owned by his landlord. Stavorito has photos of cockroach droppings lining the doors of his own building, the Baltimore Hotel, mold-like spores dotting the walls, and dead rats in the rooms next door. Tenants of other Single Room Hotels have made similar complaints. Stavorito thinks things can be improved if residents work together.

But Staborito said his landlord, the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has stymied his unionization efforts by banning his fliers, preventing union meetings in the building and not responding to repair requests he has submitted on behalf of other residents.

So Stavorito said he was “blown away” to learn this month that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the foundation $10 million to promote tenant organizing in low-income developments across the country.

“I started swearing,” said Stavolio, 50. “I can't believe it. They're fighting me at every turn.”

HUD's award is the latest high-profile case between the foundation's attempts to act as both a tenant advocate and a Skid Row landlord. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit took in $2.5 billion in revenue last year, mostly from pharmacy chains, and is one of the nation's largest funders of tenant rights campaigns, including sponsoring November's tenant rights campaign. Statewide efforts to expand rent control At the same time, the foundation has faced long-standing problems at more than a dozen low-income housing developments it owns in Los Angeles.

In recent years, the Foundation Resolved several lawsuits Submitted by the tenant, Elevators that break down frequently Last week at the Madison Hotel Class action lawsuit Madison claims the property is riddled with mold, pests and plumbing and electrical problems. A Times investigation last fall Foundation-owned facilities have been found to have widespread evictions, non-compliance with rules, public health complaints and drug overdose deaths.

Under the HUD program, the Foundation will be responsible for distributing $10 million over the next two years to low-income apartment tenant advocacy groups. The grants will: HUD News ReleaseThe purpose of is to help tenants work with their landlords and hold them accountable for remedying the situation.

HUD spokesman Ramsey Smith did not respond to questions from The Times about the department's vetting of the foundation or its eligibility for the grant. In a statement, Smith said the foundation was part of a coalition that manages the funds.

“As a highly qualified and accomplished team of award recipients, we are confident that these collaborative efforts will enable us to play an active role in ensuring renters have the safe, quality, affordable housing they deserve,” Smith said.

Foundation spokeswoman Jackie Scheffner did not respond to questions about the foundation's stance on unionization in its buildings and related issues, but said the organization has about 100 active federal grants across the country.

“As the largest AIDS organization in the United States, AHF has been a highly-respected federal grant recipient at the global, national and local levels for 35 years,” Schechner said.

The foundation began buying low-income housing in 2017. Foundation co-founder and president Michael Weinstein has boasted that the foundation can provide homeless housing more cheaply and quickly than public agencies and other nonprofits. The foundation charges a minimum rent of $400 in its SROs and eschews many of the government subsidies favored by other low-income homeowners.

Because the foundation does not own the building, which was fully subsidized by HUD, it was allowed to apply for a tenant organizing agreement.

The funding from the HUD program is intended to help tenant associations participate in managing their buildings, advocate for the preservation of their housing and pay for training, staffing and supplies, according to a department statement.

The role of the Foundation is to: Massachusetts-based tenant advocacy groupThe Foundation's mission is to fund and oversee approximately 30 eligible residential organizations within HUD-subsidized developments. HUD provides funding to the Foundation. First reported by Reason.

Stavorito has written to foundation management, including Weinstein and nonprofit officials, asking for a union meeting and formal recognition, which has been ignored. Nearly 40 tenants at the foundation's four Skid Row properties — Baltimore, King Edward, Madison and New Hope — are actively involved in unionization efforts, Stavorito said.

Beyond livability issues, Staborito said tenants want improved communication with landlords. Tenants haven't received any explanation for the day-long power outage in Baltimore this month, he said. Some tenants believe the foundation hasn't accurately calculated the rent they're paying, and they'd like the union to act as a mediator, he said.

“We don't trust them at all,” Staborito said of the foundation's operations, “and with this money coming in, we trust them even less.”

At his Baltimore apartment last week, Mr. Stavolito showed a Times reporter and photographer what appeared to be mold growing on the ceiling of his private bathroom. Michael Conlon, a 57-year-old who lives across the hall and uses an electric scooter, said it took the foundation two years to fix his apartment's broken shower.

Conlon said it's “absolutely impossible” to get timely repairs.

Tenants union leader Nash Stavorito read a coroner's seal in September showing rooms at the Baltimore hotel had been vacant since June.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The building showed other signs of management indifference. A man in his 80s who lived on the second floor died of cardiovascular disease in his room in June, said Kelly Vail, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. More than three months later, the coroner's office's blue sticker was still on the door. The body was removed, but investigators have yet to find any next of kin, Vail said.

Landlords can request The seal is brokenBut that didn't happen in this case, she said.

“At this point, we have no indication that any landlords or property management companies have contacted us,” Vail said last week.

A three-day eviction notice was posted on the door next to a coroner's seal. The foundation's administrators claimed the tenants had not paid $7,800 in back rent. The notice was dated mid-May.

LA City Law Require landlords to provide eviction paperwork The housing department was contacted, but the foundation has a history of not reporting information, and the city had no record of any notification.