The Brief

The Los Angeles city council voted Tuesday to let landlords increase rents in the city’s rent-controlled apartments up to 6% for the first time since March 2020.

The proposal will allow rent hikes of 4% beginning on Feb. 1 with additional 2% increases permitted for landlords who cover their tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The 10-2 decision came after fierce debate among council members, caught between pleas from tenants to keep low-income residents housed by continuing the pandemic-era ban on rent hikes and demands from landlords to end a nearly four-year rent freeze that blocked increased maintenance costs from being passed on to renters.

If the council hadn’t taken action, the city’s existing rules would have allowed landlords with rent-controlled properties to increase rents by 7% to 9% starting on Feb. 1.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who voted in support of the lower limits, said, “If we increase rent, people are going to get evicted, and we’re not going to stop this eviction-to-homelessness pipeline.”

Traci Park, one of the council members who voted against lowering the rent increases allowed on Feb. 1, said, “We’ve already asked an awful lot of our mom-and-pop landlords, and I just can’t imagine how much more we’re going to continue to expect them to give.”

Councilmember John Lee joined Park in voting no. Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Curren Price recused themselves from the vote because they are landlords. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy was absent from the vote.

The proposal will now move to the city attorney’s office for drafting and return to the council for another vote before it is finalized.

The backstory to L.A.’s rent freeze

By the time increases resume in February, L.A. will have banned rent hikes in most of the city’s apartments for just shy of four years, far longer than other parts of the country.

The ongoing rent freeze started when COVID-19 public health restrictions first began. City lawmakers saw the ban as a way to protect renters facing financial and personal hardships caused by the pandemic.

The policy applies to nearly 600,000 apartments covered by the city’s rent control law, which generally includes apartment buildings built before October 1978. These older buildings make up nearly three-quarters of the city’s apartment stock. Newer buildings are subject to state law, which currently allows rent increases in L.A. and Orange counties of up to 8.8% annually.

The city’s rent freeze has helped many L.A. tenants — who tend to pay rents that exceed 30% of their income — balance their household budgets during a period when inflation surged. Housing researchers say even small rent increases have been shown to increase homelessness among the lowest-income renters.

The ongoing ban on rent hikes has enraged many of the city’s landlords, who think it should have ended years ago. They’ve long said that rising utility and maintenance costs, coupled with the inability to raise rents, have created financial hardships.

How the council came to this decision 

Last month, councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez moved to extend the rent freeze until August 2024. Landlords quickly mobilized to strike down that proposal.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield instead suggested allowing rent hikes to return on Feb. 1 as planned, but at increases of 4% to 6%. His proposal cleared the council’s housing committee, but a vote scheduled last week in the full city council was delayed in his absence.

During Tuesday’s meeting, council members proposed dueling amendments to alter the rules on rent hikes moving forward.

• Councilmember Tim McOsker moved to allow small landlords with 12 units or fewer to raise rents 7% to 9%, while preserving the lower 4% to 6% limit for larger landlords. 
• Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez moved to keep the 4% limit in place for all landlords, with no additional 2% for landlords who cover utilities. 

Neither amendment received enough votes to pass.

Landlords say repairs will have to wait

Landlords were happy to see the six-month rent freeze extension rejected, but many had hoped for higher allowable increases.

Daniel Bleiberg with L.A. property management company G-B Investment Services said that by not allowing landlords to keep up with rising costs for years through modest rent increases, city leaders have worked against their own affordable housing goals.

“Rental property needs to be a viable business or it’s only going to get worse,” Bleiberg said, adding that some owners have already asked him if they’d be better off selling their property to a developer. “The more [city council members] don't make it a viable business, they're just going to lose more and more of this housing.”

Geza Tokes owns and manages 18 rent-controlled apartments in the city of L.A.

“When the rent freeze started, we had no problem with that,” Tokes said. “It was shaky times and it made sense.”

But Tokes questioned the city’s decision to keep the ban on rent hikes in place for years. He said stagnant rents make it difficult to keep up with rising maintenance costs for gardening, pest control and plumbing. Until the rent freeze lifts in February, he said larger repairs are on hold.

“I’ve got to put a roof on a property in Echo Park — it's $14,000,” Tokes said. “Last winter's rains got us. It's leaking, and we put a Band-Aid on that … I want to take the roof off and get permits and do it legit. But I can't throw $14,000 down right now.”

Tenants say they’re already living on the edge

Many tenants say they can’t afford to see L.A.’s already high rents climb even higher.

Studio City renter Cindy Sanders said, as a retiree, Social Security is her main source of income, and there isn’t much left after she pays rent. She said an increase of up to 6% could spell the difference between staying in her apartment of nearly 30 years, or having to move out.

“With Social Security raises not being high … it's going to really have an effect,” Sanders said. She said she could not afford a similarly sized apartment in L.A. if she’s forced to move.

Delia Cardona said most of her income from cleaning homes and offices goes straight to rent for the Koreatown studio apartment she shares with her two sons. With her budget already strained, she said any increase will force her to cut back on basic necessities.

“Obviously it would affect me and make it harder to buy food and pay my bills,” Cardona said through a Spanish interpreter. She has organized with the Los Angeles Tenants Union to advocate for continuing the city’s rent freeze.

What comes next 

Now, city officials will have to spread the word about the new rent increase rules. The L.A. Housing Department has already told landlords that rent increases of 7% to 9% will be allowed on Feb. 1. Officials will now have to contact them again to note the change to lower limits.

During the pandemic, tenants experienced confusion over the rent freeze, as well as a lack of compliance from some landlords. By early 2023, illegal rent increase complaints had eclipsed pre-pandemic levels. Some tenants also reported that “discount” rent clauses buried in their leases allowed landlords to pass on large rent increases.

With allowable increases of up to 6%, the city of L.A. will have some of the highest permissible rent hikes among all of the cities in Southern California that have local rent control. Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Santa Ana have all set allowable increases below 3%. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted last week to approve allowable rent increases of up to 4% in rent-controlled housing starting next year in unincorporated areas.

The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.

Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.

The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.

"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."

The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.

But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.

"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.

"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers." 

LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.

According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.

"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.

The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.

Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.

The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.

Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.

What we know about the criminal case

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.

Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.

In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

What's next

Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.

Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.

Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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