Reported by: Jerard Wright, GLAR Government Affairs Director

On Friday February 14th, The LA City Council failed to reach the required eight votes needed to pass the amended versions of the Rent Freeze-Eviction Moratorium motion introduced by Councilmember (CM) Heather Hutt and CM Eunisses Hernandez motions. At the end of the 6-5 vote, because the vote failed yet not reach the required eight votes to defeat it, the Council has the ability of bringing an amended version back to the full City Council.  It was announced on Tuesday that the vote will be heard on Tuesday, March 4th.  

The 6-5 Valentine’s Day vote came after a strong showing from housing providers spoke to Councilmembers lasting over two hours. I want to give kudos to CM Bob Blumenfield, CM Katy Yaroslavsky, CM Monica Rodriguez, CM Traci Park and CM John Lee. For their strong ‘No’ votes and sound arguments against the proposals.

Once again CM Traci Park asks LA Housing Department precise questions asking for specific date on “How many actual evictions (not 3 day notices) have been filed and why the ULA dollars that were promised to voters are not used as rental relief for housing providers and tenants?”

The best quote of that day came from CM Monica Rodriguez;

“This motion on Valentine’s Day is a love letter to the larger corporate landlords as this will cause heartache to our smaller housing providers who provide the bulk of naturally affordable housing in the city.”  

I want to thank all of our GLAR members who submitted comment letters, testified in-person and/or called their respective councilmembers addressing our concerns. Our own Region 2 Chair, Stacy Harris Green was quoted in the following LAist article.

CLICK HERE TO READ: Eviction protections for renters who lost jobs after the fires fails key LA City Council vote | LAist

In addition, I want to thank our coalition partners with California Apartment Association, Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, LA Area Chamber and Valley Industry Commerce Alliance (VICA) for testifying and mobilizing the business community on this effort.

However, that LA City Council victory was short lived as a few days later the LA County Board of Supervisors (BOS) tried to push through an emergency motion on the following Tuesday by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath under the title of “Keeping Impacted Wildfire Workers Housed”. 

As the motion was originally written – if approved – would have forced a one year blanket eviction moratorium throughout all cities in the entire LA County that would have ended on January 31, 2026. In addition, only tenants would have received any funds to cover rent with which they can self-attest for any hardship, leaving housing providers more anxious that Horvath’s motion would create another set of repeated eviction moratoriums as was done during COVID-19.  

After a marathon session at the LA County Board of Supervisors, where housing providers showed in full force out testifying the tenants rights advocates by a four-to-one margin. 

Behind the scenes, Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Janice Hahn expressed strong concerns about the blanketed nature of the original motion as there were no guardrails that would ensure that the housing providers will receive the funds, sharing our concerns that this will be another COVID-19 eviction moratorium.

One of the first amendments that were accepted was reducing the timeframe from one year to six months in which the moratorium would end on July 31, 2025.

During intense BOS discussion where amendments were being suggested, Supervisor Kathryn Barger asked outright, “If this is about ensuring that these workers stay housed and providing resources for them to pay rent, what don’t we give the resources directly to the housing providers?” 

That question and the agreement by Supervisors Mitchell and Hahn led to Supervisor Horvath amending her motion to striking the original suggestion of resources being given to tenants and now given directly to the housing providers. 

The BOS an amended version of Horvath’s resolution was approved on a vote of (4-0-1) Supervisor Barger abstained her vote. 

CLICK HERE for the amended resolution was approved by the BOS.

This will come back to the BOS on Tuesday, February 25th at 9:30am for full adoption as this requires some answers from the LA County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs on how the funding to the housing providers of tenants impacted by the wildfires would be administered.  

One lingering concern within the resolution is that tenants are allowed to self-attest with no requirement for specific documentation as proof of financial impact and instead wrongly relies on a mere “self-attestation” by renters. This will lead to rampant fraud and abuse as was seen under COVID-19. 

We learned during last week’s BOS discussion, that if a tenant were to lie about having financial impact that this will not impose criminal penalties or civil penalties.  Self-interested parties will not be able to overcome the strong financial incentive to lie. 

Instead, the County must ensure that renters are required to provide verifiable proof of financial impact. As the resolution already references application for rental assistance as an obligation, such written applications forms should be required to be furnished to rental housing providers or their agents by renters claiming financial impact due to the fires.  This will help encourage renters to obtain available rental assistance, stay current on their rents and avoid accruing more rental debt.  It will also safeguard the program against fraud and abuse.