Renters in the Eye of the Storm Need Help from Politicos

What could be bothering tenants the most right now is “how can I pay my rent?” when their workplaces may have been shut down, their paychecks are in jeopardy, and their savings accounts are diminishing. 

The U.S. Labor Department reported that national initial unemployment claims shot up to 3,283,000 for the week ending March 21, which is almost double the 1,803,000 for the week ending March 14. National unemployment is currently at 3.6%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 3.9% in California as reported by the California Employment Development Department. Both stats may skyrocket in the coming weeks as the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic expands. 

This is a time when politicos must do all they can to help the people they serve who are suffering. 

A $1,200 federal government “stimulus” check will only go so far when the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles  is $1,370 ($1,760 for a two-bedroom), according to the March 2020 Rent Report.     

Several days ago, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a freeze on rent and DWP increases. 

Councilmember David Ryu (CD4) got the ball rolling immediately, saying that he would enter a rent freeze motion, stating that “Coronavirus is not just affecting our public health, but also our economy and our very way of life. We must focus on the working families who are hurting right now. Issuing a ‘Safer at Home’ order was the right thing to do -- but it must come with a freeze on rent increases and LADWP bill increases.” 

Ryu hit the nail on the head when he said what many have echoed: “We can’t order people to stay in their homes without easing the financial strain that comes with it.” 

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a 1-2-3 legislative process: first, identification of the issue by the Mayor or a City Councilmember, then a motion made by Councilmember and a full Council vote on it, and finally the Mayor signing an ordinance turning the motion into law. 

But that would require the City Council to be in session. 

Between Ryu’s statement on Sunday, and the next scheduled City Council meeting two days later on Tuesday, March 24, City Council President Nury Martinez (CD6) canceled City Council meetings until April, based on the legitimate fear for the health and safety of her Council colleagues and their staffs.

With so many people on edge, it's not surprising that one group of activists, KTown for All, launched an online petition calling for Nunez to resign as Council President because she cancelled the Council meeting. 

However, Martinez outflanked her attackers by using Tuesday and Wednesday to work out a way to have a “remote call-in” City Council meeting on Friday. “I'm the one that made the decision” to cancel the scheduled Council meeting,” Martinez told her Council colleagues, “and I took a lot of flak for it.” 

A spokesperson for Martinez added a relatable dimension by saying, “She knows very well what people are feeling, because she has felt it herself. She grew up in poverty.” 

Renters are an important component of both the local economy and electorate: the city’s Housing and Community Investment Department reports that nearly 60% of all Los Angeles residents live in rental housing. That’s a lot of voters with their eyes on our politicos, and the pressure on City Councilmembers, judging from the several hours they deliberated at the emergency Council meeting on Friday, March 27, is considerable. 

Missing rent payments is for many just the tip of the iceberg. Having to pay-up missed rents burdens low-income tenants who did nothing wrong to deserve eviction for non-payment of rent. Their livelihoods evaporated when businesses were shut down by a Mayoral Order due to the global pandemic. 

The inequality between tenants who have no income and landlords who expect to receive their own income from those tenants, is glaring. 

As one public speaker said at the Council meeting: “a landlord that did not receive rent from a tenant that falls behind could always try to get a job” so that they wouldn’t be solely dependent on collecting their rents at a time when that income may slow down dramatically. 

Landlords also have economic assets in property they could refinance or sell. Tenants do not have those options, which represents another economic inequality. In addition, accounting maneuverings such as depreciation and appreciation over the cost basis can also be a benefit to landlords. 

An advantage for renters was introduced at the March 24 Council meeting by Councilmember Herb Wesson (CD10), who amended the proposed eviction moratorium motion to allow twelve months from the end of the crisis, instead of the original six months, to pay back rent. That amendment, one of several offered, was approved by a simple majority, but the motion itself needed 8 votes to pass and only got seven. 

Councilmembers Paul Krekorian (CD2) and Curren Price (CD9) (photos above), like the rest of their Council colleagues, receive an annual salary of $184,610 plus guaranteed job protection for their terms in office. This protects them from the fears and anxieties that now haunt low income and suddenly unemployed renters. 

Although Kerkorian and Price participated in the first eight hours of the emergency council meeting, they ultimately recused themselves (as the clerk stated when calling for the vote) without giving a public explanation concerning their conflicts of interest that interfered with voting on an eviction protection matter. Both consciously missed -- and impacted -- a crucial vote that would have protected low-income wage-earners if it had passed.   

Later, it was revealed that both councilmembers own rental properties. Their CD 2 and 9 constituents who may be in the eye of the eviction storm did not get the help or the empathy they needed from these two politicos.

(Tim Deegan is a civic activist whose DEEGAN ON LA weekly column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appears in CityWatch. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.