LA City Council to pass Laws to Protect Tenants against Eviction
Los Angeles: LA City Council asked the city attorney to draft two ordinances. These ordinances will aim to protect tenants against eviction on certain grounds. The request for the drafts was made on Tuesday.
The 1st draft as requested by the City Council, will provide qualifying renters a legal representation in the eviction cases. The first proposal asks the city to defend tenants facing eviction or losing their housing subsidies who make no more than 80% of the median income in the area.
The 2nd draft would allow the renters to keep the pets they brought into the rented property during the pandemic. The city attorney is directed to create an ordinance mandating landlords and building managers to permit the stay of “any companion animal” that was brought home during the pandemic in the second proposal.
The initiative was started by Councilmember Nithya Raman in February and was supported by several other council members. They wanted a right-to-counsel ordinance. They demanded that the ordinance would guarantee that low-income tenants facing eviction and unable to pay legal representation would receive legal services, as well as permanently establish a city eviction defense program.
Once the drafts are ready, the City Council will vote to make it an ordinance. The ordinance will likely be adopted in 2024. The exact date is not clear.
The most recent proposals coincide with the growing number of evictions reported by proponents of tenant rights, who point to the expiration of some COVID-19 protections for renters in the last year and the impending expiration of other protections.
It was suggested by the city’s housing department that the right-to-counsel program be phased in over five years, with residents in zip codes identified as having the highest concentration of “vulnerable” residents receiving priority.
The housing department projected that the program could serve 2,500 tenants in the first year of rollout and 10,000 Angelenos by the fifth year in a report to the City Council.
The housing department estimates that once the program is fully implemented, it will cost $67.8 million annually. Money for this would come from Measure ULA, a tax that voters approved in November 2022 on the sale of real estate properties valued at $5 million or more.
Despite the city’s COVID-19 state of emergency, the proposal seeks to protect pet owners who either adopted or fostered an animal or had someone move in with a pet while the rental unit is pet-free.
