With the end of significant COVID-era tenant protections this week, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and some City Council members are hoping to stave off evictions that could worsen L.A.’s crippling homelessness crisis by urging Angelenos to stay informed about their rights as tenants and the resources available to them.
Thursday, Feb. 1, is the deadline for Angelenos who owe rent debts accrued between October 2021 and January 2023 to pay those debts — or face possible eviction.
It’s also the day when tenants in rent-controlled housing units could see their rents increase by up to 4% if they pay their own utilities, or by up to 6% if gas and electricity are covered as part of their rent.
Tenants in units covered under the city’s rent-stabilized ordinance benefited in recent years from a freeze on rent hikes that went into effect after the coronavirus pandemic hit. But that freeze will sunset after Wednesday.
With these protections ending, Bass and other city officials worry that more renters will be evicted at a time when L.A. is already under stress from its homelessness crisis. On Tuesday, the mayor’s office, as well as the office of City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, issued announcements that encouraged tenants to tap available resources that could include financial or legal assistance.
“In order to confront this crisis, we must do all that we can to prevent people from falling into homelessness in the first place,” Bass said. “Together with locked arms, we will continue our work to provide resources for the people of Los Angeles.”
The mayor’s office on Tuesday reminded tenants that they cannot be evicted without “just cause,” or a legal reason justifying the eviction.
Her office also encouraged tenants who get an eviction notice or who are being harassed by their landlord to:
- File your answer to the eviction notice within five days. Here is a free online toolkit at tenantpowertoolkit.org, that can help.
- Reach out to the L.A. Housing Department.
- Reach out to StayHoused LA, a partnership between the county and city of L.A., as well as local community groups and legal service providers who assist tenants.
- Reach out to your local L.A. City Council office. You can find out which council district you live in by entering your address through the city’s Neighborhood Info webpage.
Tuesday’s announcements followed a vote by the L.A. City Council last week to provide new relief to tenants who have been approved for funding through the city’s Emergency Renters Assistance Program (ERAP) but are waiting for the money to be disbursed. The money is intended to help them pay back rent that residents owed during the city’s COVID-19 emergency.
For those tenants, the council voted to give them an extra 120 days of protection before their landlords can evict them.
“With the February 1st rent debt deadline looming and thousands of tenants at risk of eviction, it’s incumbent on us to do everything we can to stop the eviction-to-homelessness pipeline and keep people in their homes,” Hernandez, who introduced the motion, said in a statement. “This ordinance will ensure that the spirit of (Measure) ULA is realized by extending protections to people who are simply waiting on their approved applications to move through the process.”
According to the motion the City Council passed, 31,362 tenants or landlords applied for more than $472 million to cover back rent – hundreds of millions of dollars more than the approximately $30 million the city has set aside for short-term rental assistance.
The deadline to apply for ERAP funding was in October. But as of last week, only $7.9 million had either been paid out, or was being paid out, to about 3,200 applicants – about a tenth of those who applied. The $7.9 million represented only about a quarter of the money available for emergency assistance and less than 2% of all dollars requested, the motion stated.
In a press release sent later on Tuesday, Hernandez’s office reported that at least 3,300 renters have been approved for ERAP funding but are waiting for the money.
“Tenants who have already been approved for emergency rental assistance should not be evicted while they’re waiting for their checks,” said Council President Paul Krekorian, who joined Hernandez in introducing the motion. “Those landlords are going to get paid, so they shouldn’t be putting tenants out just because the city took a little longer to deliver payment.”
The motion that came before the council on Friday was amended before elected officials adopted it.
Initially, the motion called for every ERAP applicant waiting to hear on the status of their application – not just those approved for funding – to be covered under the extended tenant protection. It also did not specify a certain date for how long tenants could be protected from eviction, stating simply that they would remain protected until a decision had been made on their application and funds distributed to their landlord, if applicable.
But due to opposition from groups including the California Apartment Association, the motion was amended to apply only to tenants whose applications have been approved, and to limit the extended period during which they can’t be evicted to 120 days.
Fred Sutton, senior vice president of local public affairs for the California Apartment Association, said his organization is pleased the council narrowed the scope of who would be covered under the extended tenant protection and for how long. But he continued to criticize elected officials for bringing forth last-minute motions.
Motions are usually introduced and vetted through a council committee – during which the public can comment and request changes or raise concerns – before the matter is voted on by the entire City Council.
This particular motion was not introduced until last Wednesday, Jan. 24. Faced with this week’s deadline for tenants to repay COVID-era back rent, the motion skipped the committee review process and went straight to the full council on Friday.
“We are happy that the council made significant amendments to the original motion. But we are really concerned with the process that the council continues to take on landlord-tenant issues,” Sutton said. “The original motion was incredibly broad and was introduced and rushed to a vote in under 48 hours. … People need to have time to digest and the council needs time to review complicated policy items.”
Last week’s City Council vote was the latest in recent efforts to provide additional or extended protections to renters.
In a separate vote last week, the council also codified into law a policy allowing tenants who took in animals during the height of the pandemic from being evicted for keeping unauthorized pets.