Rent freeze rejected, some tenants protections for fire victims advanced by LA City Council committee
A Los Angeles City Council committee rejected a proposed one-year rent freeze but approved moving forward with some tenants' protections for residents who lost their homes or jobs in the recent wildfires.
The motion for those rental protections will head to the full city council for a vote after being approved by the council's Housing and Homelessness Committee on Wednesday. It includes a prohibition on certain evictions, such as for non-payment of rent, for those affected by the fires — safeguards which require residents to provide documentation proving they experienced economic hardship. The initial proposal had mandated that tenants self-attest under perjury that they were affected by the wildfires.
A year-long moratorium on rent hikes for all apartments in the city was rejected by the committee. The initial proposal, which included the other tenants' protections, would have directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance barring all rent increases until Jan. 31 of next year. The proposal was introduced by Councilmembers Adrin Nazarian, Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez.
Last week, the city council sent it back to committee following a heated debate among councilmembers over how expansive protections for tenants should be — specifically a moratorium on all LA apartment rent rates — some arguing against what they called a blanket policy overburdening landlords while others said it's a needed measure particularly for those put out of work by the fires.
"We can't keep putting the city's problems on the backs of our housing providers who are still suffering from the devastating effects of the rent freezes, to blanket eviction protections without documentation, from the COVID era," Councilmember Traci Park said during last week's meeting.
Soto-Martinez defended the proposed rent freeze, describing it as "a narrowly tailored policy that is seeking to help people who have had economic hardship, or who have lost their jobs due to the fires."
"This is not an eviction moratorium," Soto-Martinez said. "This is an eviction defense...this gives the tenant the ability to defend themselves if they are being evicted, and there is a process for that... there is no blanket policy."
Another ordinance protecting tenants, allowing them to welcome unauthorized additional tenants or pets displaced in the wildfires, was approved by the city council on Tuesday.
