The Brief

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved an ordinance requiring hotels and short term rentals like those offered through AirBnb to obtain a police permit in order to operate.

Under the new ordinance, short term rental owners will have to submit information such as business and tax details and building and safety information to Los Angeles police to obtain a permit. Owners will also have to divulge any previous criminal history.

Proponents say the requirement will help the city better manage short term rentals and address public safety concerns over rental party houses, human trafficking, drug sales and prostitution. But opponents, including the Los Angeles Police Commission, small businesses and some hotel owners, say the permits will be too onerous.

To that end, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson requested a report within 45 days from the city attorney, housing and planning departments on an alternative to the police permit.

Issues with the police permit process

According to a report by the police commission, the new law is expected to push the current annual batch of about 5,000 permits to 14,000.

“Current staffing is insufficient to handle this additional burden,” the report states.

Ray Patel of the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners also called the language regarding the requirements “vague.”

“The police department or the police commission can make those requirements up as time goes along,” he said. The ordinance, he added, puts the onus on the hotel owner for violations by a guest.

“What does the city do with a big building or even a limited service small building sitting in the middle of the town that is empty that can no longer operate as a hotel?” Patel said. “And from the owner's perspective, you know, if they had a loan on their mortgage, well, how are they going to pay that loan down now?”

Ed Colman, a 71-year-old who’s been an Airbnb short term rental host for nine years, said the police permitting process is unfair and would add “a whole other layer of bureaucracy.”

“I'm not open to the public. I'm not a hotel. I'm not like a hotel,” Colman said. “No one can walk off the street and rent the room in my home. It's by invitation only. These are our private residences by law. That's what the Home Sharing Ordinance states.”

Under the city’s Home-Sharing Ordinance, hosts have to submit a federal or state issued ID plus two forms of documentation showing that the home they want to rent out is their primary residence. Some of the criteria to get a permit also include no pending citations from law enforcement or city agencies. The permitting process also states that “hosts must not engage in any commercial uses for purposes of a party or an event.”

Colman said adding a police permit requirement to the list will just squeeze him even more.

“I've been living in this home for 40 years and I depend on the income from my guest room to allow me to remain in my home,” he said.

Heather Carson, co-founder of the Homeshare Alliance Los Angeles, said the city is already behind in issuing permits under Home Sharing Ordinance.

“The idea of adding an additional permit makes absolutely no sense when they can't even process the current permits properly,” she added.

The city council voted unanimously earlier in the week to move the proposal forward with the addendum, even though some members expressed concerns.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said during a hearing on Tuesday that police permits work for some businesses that serve hundreds of people on a daily basis, but those aren’t the same as something like an Airbnb, “where someone would sleep for a couple of nights.”

And Councilmember John Lee, who echoed the concerns of the Asian American Hotel Association, said he thought the process of developing the ordinance had moved too quickly.

“Stakeholders have not been aware of this proposed expansion of the police permitting process until a few weeks ago,” he said.

How the police permit came about

The new ordinance was part of a deal that the city council struck with the local union, Unite Here Local 11, last month. Under the proposal, new hotel developers would be required to replace any housing that is demolished during construction, either by buying new housing or constructing new projects. Also included in the deal were provisions “to address nuisance hotels and prevent the use of short-term rentals as ‘party houses,’” according to council president Paul Krekorian’s office.

“We need hotels to welcome the thousands of visitors we receive, but new hotel construction cannot come at the cost of our current housing stock,” Krekorian said. “Irresponsible hotel and short-term rental operators cannot be allowed to endanger the public safety or impair the quality of life in our neighborhoods.”

The new deal between the council and the union is meant to replace a March 2024 ballot measure that would have required hotels to have vacant rooms made available for unhoused people.

Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said the ballot measure was born out of members’ “inability to pay rent.”

“This replacement ordinance will replace that housing one for one at the same affordability levels, which means that no more housing will be displaced by luxury hotel developments,” he said. “And that's a major gain, not just for our members, obviously, but for all Angelenos.”

The police permit requirement for short term rentals and hotel owners, Petersen said, was included “to curb the abuse of Airbnb and others in taking housing that's meant to be for residents and illegally converting it into hotels.”

Airbnb did not immediately comment on the ordinance.

A program that aimed to bring thousands of Angelenos living with serious mental illness under court-led care remains far below initial participation projections, a review of county data shows.

LAist reported earlier this year that participation in the CARE Court program in Los Angeles County was relatively low — a little more than 380 petitions more than a year after its launch.

Now that the program has hit the two-year mark, there have been roughly 700 local petitions filed with the court, according to officials. That’s in a region where there thousands of people are estimated to be living with severe mental illness. And it's about 18% of the number the state projected for CARE Court’s first two years.

As of late November, six participants in L.A. County graduated from the program, according to data from the L.A. County Department of Mental Health.

Sergio Tapia, presiding judge of the Superior Court of L.A. County, said that number represented a kind of success.

“Did it meet the unrealistic expectations that were set up before CARE Court opened? Obviously it didn’t meet those expectations,” Tapia told LAist. “But I think those expectations were not realistic.”

He said it took up to six months just to get the first participants into the program.

But the low numbers and other concerns have caused some advocates for people with mental health diagnoses to doubt the program is viable.

“The program is not working,” said Monica Porter Gilbert, associate director and senior counsel of public policy at Disability Rights California.

She told LAist state data show that about half of participants statewide last year did not receive at least one of the services ordered for them, including therapy. (Tapia said he was not aware of any shortfalls in carrying out the CARE Court plans in L.A. County.)

Porter Gilbert also said she’s concerned about the expense.

An analysis from the state Assembly Committee on the Judiciary on CARE Court found that the cost per participant statewide during fiscal year 2023-24 was $713,000.

L.A. County officials working with CARE Court say the numbers are low because the work takes time, in some cases months just to locate people who may be unhoused.

And some state authorities agree.

Anne Hadreas, supervising attorney with Judicial Council of California, which organizes training programs for judges, said those who have started the program are making progress.

“Maybe the numbers aren’t what people expected, but there’s still been a lot of successes there,” she said.

How it’s supposed to work 

CARE Court allows family members, behavioral health workers, first responders and others to ask a court — by way of a petition — to step in with a voluntary care agreement for someone living with serious mental illness, like schizophrenia. If the agreement fails, a judge could order the individual to sign on to a treatment plan.

Between Dec. 1, 2023, and mid-December of this year, there were about 700 petitions filed in L.A. County, far below the roughly 3,800 state officials projected for the first two years of the program.

San Diego County, the second most populous in the state, received 445 petitions between October 2023 and November of this year. Orange County, the third most populous, received 206 petitions, according to our media partner CalMatters.

As of October, statewide data for the first two years of the program show that courts throughout California had received a total of 3,092 petitions, according to CalMatters. That’s still about 700 petitions short of what was expected just for L.A. County.

Martin Jones, a program manager with the county Department of Mental Health, said the six local graduations don’t tell the whole story. At least another 16 participants chose to stay in the program for an additional year.

Jones noted one recent CARE Court graduate who was subsequently able to get an apartment and a job.

“When you think about the impact on the individual — on their family, on their loved ones, on the community — the success is multiplied probably many times over,” he said.

But Porter Gilbert said family members of some CARE Court participants have told her they were sold false hope.

“Because many believed that their loved ones would finally get connected with meaningful services,” she said. “And instead they’re getting court dates that don’t lead to immediate housing or recovery-oriented clinical care.”

Data from the state’s CARE Act Annual Report showed that about 56% of participants statewide between October 2023 and June 2024 did not receive at least one mental health service that was ordered for them. The most common services ordered but not provided included medication supports and therapy services.

Porter Gilbert said CARE Court is failing to hold counties accountable for providing the services, even after they appear before a judge. And she said compelling participants into treatment through the court system can feel punitive for some participants.

“It’s blaming individuals for the failure of the system,” Porter Gilbert said.

Expanding eligibility

Next year, a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will expand eligibility for CARE Court to include people living with bipolar disorder who experience psychotic symptoms.

CARE Court currently only applies to people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and a limited list of other psychotic disorders.

Marco Saenz, program director of the Independent Defense Council’s Office of L.A. County — which is tasked with representing CARE Court participants throughout the process — said the expansion is a good move.

“Hopefully these changes in the law that extend eligibility will see more people participating and getting the services that they desperately need,” he said.

Saenz also said the county and state need to do more outreach to increase the number of CARE Court petitions from first responders and other eligible petitioners.

About 67% of all petitions in L.A. County were filed by family members who sought to get their loved one into the program, according to data from the Department of Mental Health. Authorities said the county is working to get other eligible petitioners — like first responders and social workers — to file more requests.

“Many of these individuals are known to... fire or ambulance or other first responders. So it’s a matter of leveraging those relationships to really access the help that many of these individuals would benefit from,” said Jones, the program manager.

He and Hadreas at the Judicial Council said the program was still a work in progress, and they noted that while numbers remain far below what the state expected, many people are finding a door into mental health care through the petition process, even if CARE Court isn’t a good fit.

Hadreas said CARE Court was not intended to be a fast process, as many county workers must take time to build relationships with vulnerable people dealing with some of the most difficult times in their lives.

“It’s not an emergency process," Hadreas said. "It is about outreach and engagement and that can take months."

Californians will see the minimum wage increase to $16.90 per hour starting Jan. 1. The adjustment — a boost of 40 cents per hour — was calculated in August by the Department of Finance as part of its minimum wage annual review required by state law.

California has been raising its minimum wage over the past decade. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 signed a watershed law to increase minimum wage from $10.50 per hour to $15 per hour, plus annual adjustments for inflation.

The current rate of $16.50 per hour suggests that a minimum wage worker needs to work 98 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental at fair market rent in California, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

California is one of 19 states to raise minimum wages in 2026, according to payroll company ADP. Cities and counties can also set their own minimum wages. This year, over two dozen local jurisdictions have increased local minimum wages. West Hollywood will have a $20.25 minimum wage starting in January — the highest of any California city, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Voters last November narrowly rejected a ballot measure that would have increased the minimum wage to $18 per hour. But some low-wage workers this year have successfully lobbied for bumps in pay in specific industries.

Under laws Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023, fast food workers earn a minimum wage wage of $20 an hour and health care workers are on track to make $25 an hour.

That momentum extended to Los Angeles hotel and airport employees. Labor organizers in May secured a city minimum wage increase to $30 per hour for those workers by the 2028 Olympics. Large businesses fought back, arguing that wage hikes will only increase challenges for the tourism industry, which is still struggling to find its footing after the pandemic.

After failing to gather enough signatures for a ballot measure to repeal the new minimum wage, business groups later filed a different measure that could gut millions of dollars of revenue from the city’s general fund.

Following the move, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson this month introduced a motion to delay the full wage increase from taking effect until 2030, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times.

Labor leaders rebuked the motion, calling it “repulsive.” 

“You can’t threaten to blow a hole in our budget and then the only way to stop it is on the backs of workers,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the union that represents many hotel workers, UNITE HERE Local 11. “That kind of raw extortion and shakedown has no place in our city.”

According to Peterson, a coalition of community organizations and unions are beginning to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour for all workers in Los Angeles.

“The power is everyone together,” said Peterson. “Working people need help and raising wages is the easiest, most straightforward thing to do. Going up 40 cents per hour in 2026 doesn’t move the needle at all.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The Los Angeles Angels have settled with the family of pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died of an overdose in 2019, as first reported by The Athletic. The terms of the settlement have not been made public.

The 27 year-old pitcher was found dead in a suburban Dallas hotel room shortly before a road game against the Texas Rangers. A toxicology report found a mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone in his system.

The illegal drugs that led to Skaggs' death were provided by former Angels communications director Eric Kay. Kay has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for his role in the death. His trial included testimony from five other Major League Baseball players who said Kay supplied them with oxycodone.

The case playing out in Santa Ana was a civil, wrongful death lawsuit brought by Skaggs’ widow and parents. They argued that the Angels should have known Kay was providing drugs to Skaggs and other players on the team. The family said the franchise should be held responsible because drug dealing was essentially part of Kay’s job, which included acting as a so-called “gopher” for the players and otherwise keeping them happy.

Skaggs' family is seeking close to $100 million in lost earnings, along with compensation for pain and suffering, and punitive damages against the Angels.

In the wake of Skaggs’ death, Major League Baseball began testing players for opioid use and guiding players to treatment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is a developing story and will be updated.