The Brief

Tenants in the city of Los Angeles could soon face eviction over unpaid rent from early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far, the city of L.A.’s COVID-19 regulations have given renters protections from eviction over pandemic debts. But rent was never canceled — only delayed. And landlords have long complained about financial hardships stemming from unpaid rent.

Now, tenants have until Tuesday, Aug. 1 to pay landlords all of the rent they missed between March 1, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021. If they don’t pay those debts in full, they could face eviction.

“I am very worried about the deadline,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told LAist. “I'm concerned that we're going to have another spike in homelessness.”

In the interview with LAist, Bass deferred questions on actions the city will take to help renters before the deadline to the head of the city council’s housing committee, and the CEO of the Mayor’s Fund, a nonprofit aligned with the Bass administration’s housing goals.

The city has put funding toward programs that provide legal aid and limited rental assistance for tenants facing eviction. And the Mayor’s Fund is pledging to step up ongoing homelessness prevention efforts. But other funding through the city’s new “mansion tax” will not be available to tenants by the Tuesday deadline.

Eviction filings have already been rising across L.A. County for many months. And landlord advocates say more are coming after the pandemic rent debt protections go away.

“We're doing tons [of eviction cases] now, but there will be many new evictions that we have in the pipe to start on Aug. 2,” said prominent L.A.-area eviction attorney Dennis Block.

Block said the city’s COVID-19 restrictions have unfairly prevented many of his clients from taking action over debts that in many cases stretch back more than three years.

“When does it stop?” Block said. “And why is it the landlord's responsibility to be financially responsible for someone else's debt?”

Tenant advocates worry thousands of L.A. households — including those who applied to the state’s COVID-19 rent relief program but got caught in bureaucratic limbo and have yet to receive aid — could soon end up struggling to defend themselves in eviction court.

“There are still a lot of people, especially in the L.A. area, who are waiting on the government relief to pay off the debt to their landlords,” said Legal Aid Foundation of L.A. staff attorney Jonathan Jager. “They're not going to get the check before next week.”

For many renters, 'trying to rebuild is not easy'

Many tenants who struggled to pay rent in earlier phases of the pandemic are in the clear, because they applied for and received rent relief funding from the state. California’s $5.2 billion program to cover pandemic rent debts up to April 2022 delivered almost $1.4 billion to tenants just within the city of L.A.

But other L.A. renters are still shouldering debts that in some cases run into the tens of thousands of dollars. According to recent U.S. Census Bureau survey data, about 339,000 households in the L.A. metro area have rent debt totaling close to $1.3 billion.

“The economic impacts definitely aren't over,” said Cesar Alvarez, a camera operator for documentary film and TV projects who has about $18,000 due on Tuesday. “We're still crawling out of holes. Trying to rebuild is not easy.”

Alvarez remembers the day in March 2020 when all his work suddenly disappeared.

“Everything dried up, all within less than 24 hours,” he said. “My phone wouldn't stop ringing. Emails were coming and talking about all projects being canceled until further notice.”

Cesar Alvarez stands outside his Highland Park bungalow. If he’s evicted over COVID-19 rent debt, he said, “There's no way I could afford Highland Park again.”

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After his income vanished, Alvarez informed the landlord of the Highland Park bungalow — where he has lived for the past seven years — that he would need to use the city’s protections allowing tenants to defer rent because of pandemic hardship.

He went to apply for rent relief, but by then work was picking up again, and he said the state’s website suggested he wasn’t eligible for assistance under the program’s income limits.

Alvarez is now back to regular work and paying his full rent. He adds a couple hundred extra dollars each month to chip away at his debt. But he said for tenants in his situation, repaying all of their past-due rent in one lump sum is impossible. He worries about what comes next.

“It's going to lead to a wave of massive evictions,” Alvarez predicted. “It's going to lead to a wave of massive homelessness. If you think it's bad now just give it three more months.”

Second repayment deadline is coming next year

The city’s rules give tenants with more recent pandemic rent debt additional time to pay back their landlords. Unpaid rents from Oct. 1, 2021 through Jan. 31, 2023 must be paid by Feb. 1, 2024. Other parts of L.A. County have different COVID-19 repayment rules.

For tenants still struggling to pay off rental debt, limited rental assistance is available to some living in the city through the city-funded StayHousedLA.org program.

In addition, the nonprofit Mayor’s Fund For Los Angeles recently launched a $6.5 million homelessness prevention effort called “We Are L.A.” that aims to give thousands of vulnerable tenants legal assistance and get them signed up for health care, food and other public aid programs.

Mayors Fund leaders said the program does not directly pay down COVID-19 rent debt, but it has already connected more than 10,000 tenants with caseworkers who know how to buy renters more time in legal proceedings to find solutions.

“It's another way that, at very low cost and very efficiently, the whole outreach and case management process can help avoid evictions,” said Conway Collis, chief executive officer of the Mayor’s Fund.

But other funding that could be used to clear tenants’ remaining COVID-19 debts won’t be available by the Tuesday deadline.

The city’s housing department expects to help about 3,000 households with about $20 million in emergency rental assistance during the first year of funding from Measure ULA, the voter-approved tax on property sales valued at $5 million or more. That funding could cover up to six months of back rent for eligible tenants. But the portal to apply for that funding will not be online before Tuesday’s repayment deadline.

Existing ULA tax revenue has been lower than expected. Supporters of the ballot initiative originally projected it would raise up to $1.1 billion per year. But wealthy homeowners scrambled to sell their properties before the tax took effect on April 1, and only about $38 million in revenue has been raised so far. The measure also faces legal challenges that could put funding in jeopardy.

City lawmakers are restricted under state law from pushing back the Tuesday repayment deadline. But tenant advocates say city leaders could have done more to deliver rent relief ahead of time in order to stop evictions over pandemic debt.

“They had years of time to do something like set up a local rental assistance program to help tenants pay off these debts that were not covered by the state rental assistance program, or to look at other potential ways of mitigating the harm of having all of this due on the same day,” said Jager with the Legal Aid Foundation.

Tenants rally to call for relief

Tenants like Julia Orozco fear they could soon slip into homelessness. As a street vendor, Orozco saw her income evaporate during the pandemic. She isn’t earning enough to cover the approximately $5,000 in debt coming due on Tuesday.

Orozco attended a rally this week outside the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown L.A. She and other tenants called on L.A. leaders to stop the rising number of eviction filings across the city.

Speaking in Spanish, Orozco said, “It affects me a lot because my daughter asks me every day if we are going to sleep at home or if we are going to sleep on the street.”

Julia Orozco brought her daughter to a rally where tenants called on city leaders to address evictions over COVID-19 rent debt.

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Councilmember Nithya Raman, chair of the L.A. city council’s housing committee, said she has been working with the mayor’s office and the city’s housing department to coordinate efforts around the looming deadline. She said new renter protections passed by the council earlier this year, as well as the city’s existing Eviction Defense Program, could help many tenants.

"My hope is that the impending Aug. 1 rent debt repayment deadline actually pushes us to reshape and transform our current system into one that proactively supports vulnerable tenants to stay housed, not just at this moment but over the long term,” Raman said in a written statement.

But local landlords say their patience is wearing thin.

“Renters should have known this day was coming,” said Daniel Yukelson, executive director of The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. “If a renter has not made at least some attempts to pay down some of this rental debt these past three years, there’s a strong likelihood that they're not going to be able to make a lump sum payment when the due date comes.”

Yukelson said most landlords in the city are not hopeful about recovering unpaid debts. As for eviction, he said going to court for many landlords is a last resort. He said in some cases, tenants who followed all of the city’s requirements for notifying landlords about COVID-19 hardships each month may not be subject to eviction, only debt collection.

What to do if you're at risk of eviction

The mayor’s office, in conjunction with Raman’s office, released a list of resources available to tenants on Thursday. They recommended tenants at risk of eviction reach out to the city’s housing department through appointment-only public counters or by calling 866-557-7368. They also encouraged tenants to contact their local councilmembers and sign up for tenant rights workshops put on by StayHousedLA.org.

After months of pushing back on the Trump administration’s attempt to stop youth gender-affirming care nationally, California is establishing its own safety net for vulnerable patients and families.

California approved $26 million in one-time funding aimed at protecting access to health care for transgender youth in the state’s budget package for its 2026-27 fiscal year. It also includes $30 million earmarked for providers of reproductive and transition-related care.

This was welcome news to many LGBTQ+ advocates, families with trans youth, and health care providers. Over the last year, many California families with trans youth have either seen their providers stop youth gender-affirming care or announce plans to do so.

About the funding

The one-time fund will be distributed to health care providers across the state through targeted grants. The money will give providers “meaningful resources” to continue and expand their gender-affirming care offerings, according to TransFamily Support Services, one of the organizations that lobbied for the bill.

Advocacy organizations say the fund will expand the network of trans youth health care providers and insulate the provider network from federal funding cuts.

Meanwhile, the $30 million fund for uncompensated care will help providers deal with funding gaps due to cuts to Medi-Cal and other federal programs.

Newsom’s approval followed months of back-and-forth as California looked to balance its budget after years of budget shortfalls. Newsom’s initial version of the budget did not include the gender-affirming care fund. The legislature then added it back, and it stayed in the final version.

The budget also includes other provisions aimed at helping California’s struggling health care industry, like delaying cuts to Medi-Cal. Newsom has also approved similar funds to protect reproductive health care and abortion access this year.

The response

Trans advocacy organizations celebrated the news this week.

“This historic investment will help keep care accessible, support the providers doing this lifesaving work, and remind trans young people that California will not abandon them,” Kathy Moehlig, TransFamily Support Services’ director, said in a statement.

Many advocates highlighted the importance of this fund during a critical moment for trans health care.

“We must continue to work together to ensure the well-being, health, and autonomy of all people in our state,” Bamby Salcedo, president and CEO of the L.A.- based TransLatin@ Coalition, said in a statement.

The current threats

As the Trump administration continues to restrict trans youth health care nationally, hospitals and health care providers are seeing the federal government try a new tactic to obtain records of trans youth patients: criminal subpoenas.

“It's a worrying tactic that indicates that there might be future efforts to try to criminalize trans healthcare,” said attorney Megan Noor of the Transgender Law Center.

In California, Stanford Children’s Hospital received one such subpoena, which led patient families to sue the federal government. Attorney General Rob Bonta was one of 19 attorneys general who filed an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit, which Noor said can be part of a “symbiotic relationship” between states fighting against federal policy and the people affected by drastic policy shifts coming from Washington, D.C.

Previous subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice last year were largely struck down.

Meanwhile, Rady Children’s Health, the parent company of Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, will continue offering gender-affirming care to youth under 19 at least until January while a lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta plays out.

More than a week after fire broke out in a cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles Fire Department announced it had finally stopped burning. But neighborhood residents whose homes were enveloped in smoke for days may feel the health and environmental effects of the blaze for weeks or even months.

The fire sent thick plumes of black smoke into the air from Downtown Los Angeles to the San Gabriel Valley. In Boyle Heights, residents — some who live just across the street from the block-long warehouse — told Capital & Main that they were struggling to breathe and access basic assistance such as home air purifiers.

In an email to Capital & Main, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said that hospital emergency room monitoring data showed an increase following the fire in certain types of visits by people who lived within 10 miles of the warehouse. Visits in which smoke inhalation or the warehouse fire were mentioned in the week after it sparked were three times higher compared with the previous two weeks. The number of visits for throat pain were nearly twice as high on June 21 compared to normal levels.

The Boyle Heights warehouse was built less than a decade ago, but residents had little understanding of what was behind its walls or what risks it could pose. That’s not unusual in this dominantly Latino community and many others like it in Southern California where working-class residents live in close proximity to rail lines, factories, auto shops, rendering plants and many other pollution hazards.

The nearly 500,000-square-foot warehouse is operated by Michigan-based Lineage Inc., the largest cold storage firm in the world and a company with a record of dozens of health and safety and environmental violations. The cause of the fire is still unknown, said LAFD spokesperson Jamie Stewart, but the company believes it started on the warehouse roof as workers from another company serviced rooftop solar panels. That company, Pearce Services, confirmed that four of its workers were on site the day the fire started.

A runoff stream from firefighting efforts flows along Union Pacific Avenue on June 22.

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Five days after the fire erupted, Juan Juarez and neighbor Francisco Carriel stood in their yards speaking over a cinderblock and iron fence. Their homes on La Puerta Street, with cement stucco walls painted white, were awash in relentless waves of toxic haze. Less than a block away, a brown stream of runoff and a row of twisted metal panels and charred foam piled up as firefighters used excavators to pull apart the warehouse and spray water into it.

“Está de la chingada” — Spanish for “it’s fucked up” — they both said nearly in unison as a reporter approached. Pulling his cartoon character mask under his chin, Juarez explained that several of his children and nephews were in his house, sweltering and without access to air conditioning.

A few houses down the street, resident Wendy Ramirez said she sent her two children, who both have asthma, to stay elsewhere. Since the fire began, she had experienced stomach pains and diarrhea, which she said her doctor blamed on the smoke.

“For them to say it’s not toxic, it’s such a lie, it’s such a lie,” Ramirez said, referring to a widely reported statement from the South Coast Air Quality Management District that particulate matter readings in the smoke were “generally near” normal levels.

Wendy Ramirez, a resident of the Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles.

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The fire has highlighted the environmental and health hazards of the rapidly expanding cold storage industry, which have largely flown under the public radar. Most cold storage warehouses use anhydrous ammonia for refrigeration, which can be fatal if inhaled. The warehouses are insulated with thick layers of combustible foam that contain the potentially carcinogenic material polyisocyanurate. They also store huge quantities of highly flammable plastic-wrapped food products.

The blaze also brought immediate attention to Lineage, the world’s dominant cold storage company, with more than 500 warehouses in 18 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. California — with 42 Lineage warehouses — is home to more of the company’s warehouse space than any other state or foreign country except New Zealand. In its statement on the fire, Lineage highlighted the strategic importance of its Boyle Heights facility because of its proximity to the Port of Long Beach and its access to millions of people in Southern California.

According to company documents, lawsuits and other records, Lineage — which operates as a real estate investment trust — has expanded rapidly over the last decade as demand for cold storage has increased. The company has a history of environmental and health violations. Lineage did not immediately respond to Capital & Main’s emails inquiring about its record of citations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In Boyle Heights, determining what burned, and what kinds of particle pollution fouled the air for days, will take weeks as the fire department and city and county agencies investigate, officials said.

The harm for residents could be severe, said Rima Habre, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern California. Short-term consequences for those nearest to the warehouse could be asthma and even heart attacks, but other effects will take time to surface. Much of it has to do with what’s in the smoke, which is hard to trace retroactively.

“The larger problem is when these things happen, they’re so dependent on exactly where the smoke is going,” Habre said, adding that heavy metals and industrial chemicals are likely part of the atmospheric mix.

Firefighters walk through smoke alongside the burning Lineage cold storage warehouse.

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Lineage said it’s assisting with firefighting efforts and has contributed $2 million to the California Community Foundation to assist affected communities. It has also launched a damage control effort with the help of a prominent L.A.-based lobbying firm.

Lineage was founded in 2008 by former investment bankers Adam Forste and Kevin Marchetti, who began their careers at Morgan Stanley, where Forste specialized in mergers and acquisitions.

Lineage, then known as Lineage Logistics, began with the purchase of a single Seattle warehouse in 2008. Since then, Lineage has acquired dozens of regional cold storage companies and added hundreds of warehouses that now store and distribute 400 billion pounds of food a year.

Forste and Marchetti took the company public in 2024 with the largest initial public offering that year, raising more than $4 billion. Currently the partners appear on the Forbes billionaires’ list, each with an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion. The company also established a nonprofit, Lineage Foundation for Good, which distributed $8 million in charitable grants in 2024, the last year for which online IRS records are available.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Mario Guillen told Capital & Main that both Lineage, which runs the cold storage warehouse, and the warehouse property owner collaborated to remove potentially hazardous ammonia from the building and obtain water cannons and water dropping helicopters. Chill Build LLC is listed as the owner of the warehouse property, according to public records. Lineage didn’t answer Capital & Main’s emailed questions about the amount of money it spent on the firefighting effort.

Lineage has also invested in damage control.

Two days after the fire erupted, Lineage hired a lobbying firm with deep ties to Los Angeles City Hall for “crisis communications and work related to the impact of facility fire.” M Strategic Communications was engaged to lobby various city officials including the mayor, as well as the Department of Building and Safety and the Los Angeles Fire Department, on behalf of Lineage through the rest of the year.

Smoke billows from the Lineage cold storage warehouse.

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Last year Lineage also hired Veritas Public Affairs to lobby city officials for a “remedy related to a rapid shutoff device alternative.” Rapid shutdown devices are safety mechanisms designed to protect firefighters from high-voltage electricity when they access roofs with solar panels during fires or other emergencies. Veritas didn’t specify which city agency it was hired to lobby. Reached by phone, Lineage’s Chris Thurston, who is listed on the lobbying disclosure form, said, “I can’t comment on that.”

The company has also maintained an active lobbying presence on the federal level. Lineage spent $60,000 in 2025 to lobby Congress on proposed tax increases for U.S. companies that would be levied by other countries’ governments.

The fire could damage the company’s reputation, but it’s unclear whether it will affect its bottom line.

In 2024, a Lineage cold storage warehouse in Benton County, Washington, burned for 60 days before it was demolished. The following year, the company reported in its annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the fire produced a net gain of $107 million in 2024 and 2025 from insurance reimbursements, even after accounting for costs, including $29 million in clean-up costs.

However, earlier this year in the rural communities surrounding the Benton County warehouse, more than 100 people filed lawsuits alleging their health and the environment was damaged as result of negligent actions by Lineage and others in responding to the fire. In one of the lawsuits, residents said runoff from the firefighting effort contained contaminants that seeped into the water supply and the soil. Residents also alleged that they suffered “acute physical symptoms” including “burning eyes, throat irritation, coughing, difficulty breathing, headaches, nausea, dizziness and cognitive defects.”

Federal regulators have found Lineage in violation of dozens of health and safety and environmental regulations in recent years. For example, the company agreed to pay $172,000 to settle with the EPA over Clean Air Act violations at an Altoona, Iowa, facility where it allegedly failed to comply with requirements designed to prevent accidental releases of hazardous substances. In 2020, a contractor at a Statesville, North Carolina, facility was killed and others were injured during an ammonia release.

Armando Millan, a disabled and unhoused resident of Boyle Heights, sits across the street from the Lineage warehouse. A representative for Councilmember Ysabel Jurado reached out to Millan about assistance with evacuation, but he was reluctant to leave his belongings behind.

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In response to the Boyle Heights fire, both Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom issued emergency declarations to facilitate aid to affected Angelenos and aid in firefighting efforts. A Federal Emergency Management Administration spokesperson wrote in an email that the agency is “monitoring” the situation in Boyle Heights, adding that response to the fire “is being led by local and state authorities.” EPA spokesperson Julia Giarmoleo said the agency is “performing ongoing air monitoring and sampling.”

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, said in a statement that she plans to introduce city council motions calling for the public release of air quality and environmental testing results in English and Spanish, and a report on materials that were present at the facility, including what burned. Noting that Boyle Heights “carries significant environmental burdens,” Jurado said the neighborhood “deserves the same urgency, transparency and protection as any other community in Los Angeles.”

Supervisor Hilda Solis said in an emailed statement that Lineage “must take responsibility for the impacts on affected communities,” including “providing immediate support such as air purifiers, masks, and other essential assistance for residents.” On June 23, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved her motion to investigate the company’s role in the fire.

But so far, little help — from the company or government agencies — has reached Boyle Heights residents.

As smoke inundated his house, Juarez explained that he hasn’t even been able to obtain an air purifier from city officials. He said he tried calling the city, but has been unable to reach anyone. Leaving his home isn’t an option because he fears the house will be burglarized.

“This part of the city is very neglected,” Juarez said. “Like they think, ‘Oh, it’s Boyle Heights. It’s fine. Let them be.’”

This story has been updated to include data about emergency room visits related to the fire compiled by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Syndromic Surveillance Project.

Research assistance provided by Kani’ya Davis.

All photos by Aaron Cantú.

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Residents in a two-block area of Koreatown are being told to boil their tap water after routine testing found E. coli bacteria in a water sample, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced Wednesday. 

The boil water notice covers the area bounded by South Ardmore Avenue to the west, South Mariposa Avenue to the east, West 5th Street to the north and West 6th Street to the south.

Anyone in the affected area should use boiled tap water or bottled water for drinking and cooking until further notice, the utility announced in its advisory. The department will deliver bottled drinking water to customers within the affected area while the advisory remains in effect.

LADWP said the bacteria was detected in a routine water sample collected Tuesday at one water quality testing location in Koreatown. Based on preliminary findings, the department believes the issue is limited to that location and does not affect the rest of the city’s water system.

The utility also said the notice is not related to the recent warehouse fire in Boyle Heights and that no fire-related contaminants were found in the water samples.

Residents in a two-block area of Koreatown are being told to boil their tap water after routine testing found E. coli bacteria in a water sample, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced Wednesday.

What should affected residents do?

While additional testing is underway, residents are being asked to bring tap water to a rolling boil for one minute before letting it cool and using it. 

The same guidance applies to water used for brushing teeth, making ice, washing fruits and vegetables and preparing food.

The presence of E. coli can be a sign that water has been contaminated by human or animal waste, according to the utility company. That contamination can contain bacteria, viruses or other germs that may cause illnesses such as diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea or headaches. Infants, young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems face the greatest risk of becoming seriously ill.

Anyone experiencing those symptoms should contact a healthcare provider.

LADWP said it will notify customers as soon as follow-up testing confirms the water is safe to drink and the boil water notice can be lifted. 

Residents with questions can call the LADWP Water Quality Hotline at (213) 367-3182 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday or (800) DIAL-DWP for 24-hour assistance.