L.A. pushes for rent relief
Council members aim to provide funding and jobs, and further restrict evictions.
Renters who are struggling financially during the COVID-19 pandemic could get help from the city under an assistance program that Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez wants to revive and fund.
L.A. launched an “emergency renters relief” program last year as tenants complained of big increases just before a new law limiting rent hikes went into effect. The program provided payments for up to three months to help cushion the economic blow. In the face of the coronavirus crisis, Martinez wants to reinstate the program and get it running before the end of the emergency period.
Under a proposal introduced Tuesday, the council president would allocate $1 million from discretionary funds controlled by her office, Councilman Herb Wesson would contribute $150,000 from his discretionary funds, and the housing department would be asked to drum up other money for the program.
Wesson and Martinez also want to use federal stimulus money to establish a jobs program that would employ Angelenos once the immediate threat of COVID-19 has diminished, putting them to work on infrastructure projects, including rehabilitating abandoned or substandard housing, improving parks and building more affordable housing.
“Federal stimulus dollars could be utilized to create jobs for unemployed individuals in the communities where they live instead of offering public relief to large businesses and corporations,” the two wrote in a motion introduced Tuesday.
Council members also unveiled several other proposals Tuesday meant to help Angelenos weather the economic effects of the pandemic.
Councilman Paul Koretz wants to extend the deadline for tenants affected by COVID-19 to inform their landlords that they cannot pay April rent. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez put forward a motion seeking to halt debt collection during the emergency period. And councilmen David Ryu and Mike Bonin released a proposal to stop rent increases on all apartments, not just those covered by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, for which Mayor Eric Garcetti has already moved to halt rent hikes.
Ryu and Bonin are also renewing their push for a broader ban on evictions. The councilmen argued in their motion that “the holes in the eviction protections will allow many Angelenos to be kicked out of their homes during this public health and economic emergency.”
The council has already voted to bar landlords from evicting people who have been affected by the coronavirus, but tenant advocates argue that the existing restrictions are bureaucratic, confusing and don’t go far enough to help renters.
Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, is opposed to the proposal.
“A complete ban on evictions would merely turn up the heat on mortgage defaults and place housing providers in more financial distress than already exists,” Yukelson said in an email. Bonin and Ryu, he said, “have conceived this concept of virtually ‘no evictions’ to pander for votes from the city’s renters, knowing that for the next few months, the courts are, in effect, closed for hearing eviction cases.”