The Los Angeles City Council adopted an ordinance on Friday. Feb. 3, providing tenants who are behind on their rent with a one-month grace period before their landlord can begin eviction proceedings, but there were not enough votes for it to take effect immediately.
The ordinance is part of a package of renter aid that the council began discussing after it voted to halt the COVID-19 state of emergency at the end of January. The council’s decision to end the state of emergency also sunset the temporary tenant protections that have been in place since the start of the pandemic.
The ordinance allows tenants who are behind on rent to stay in their apartments for a month, unless they owe more than one month’s worth of fair market rent.
The draft ordinance included an urgency clause, but because it only received nine votes on Friday — three short of the 12 votes required to activate the clause — it will take effect in 31 days.
Councilmember Traci Park cast the lone dissenting vote. Two councilmembers, Paul Krekorian and Curren Price, recused themselves because they are landlords. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and John Lee were absent.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors extended by two months its tenant protections against eviction for those impacted by COVID-19, which will cover city residents as well.
The city council also previously adopted an ordinance providing universal “just cause” requiring legitimate reasons for evictions, and voted for an ordinance on Tuesday for relocation assistance to be provided by the landlord if a tenant cannot afford rent increases of a certain amount. That relocation assistance ordinance will return to the council next week for a final vote.
According to the city’s housing department, fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles is $1,747 and $2,222 for a two-bedroom.
Tenant groups feared a wave of evictions once the longstanding protections expired. The volume of eviction filings has begun to resemble pre-pandemic levels, according to Kyle Nelson, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA and a member of the LA Renters’ Right to Counsel Coalition.
Nelson, who has compiled data on evictions in Los Angeles County during the pandemic through court filings, said the number of filings could increase to levels not seen since the Great Recession — which contributed to more than 72,000 eviction filings in 2008.
According to the National Equity Atlas, there are 226,000 households in Los Angeles County who are behind on rent.