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.

Spectators in L.A. this summer for the World Cup could pay up to $209,000 for a private suite for just one match, but union workers at SoFi Stadium are worried they'll miss out on the action.

Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the events held at the stadium since it opened, from the 2022 Super Bowl and NFL games every fall to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts. That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay top dollar for private rooms, food and drink.

But FIFA has brought in another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans. The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official "hospitality partner," offering those that can afford it exclusive seating, special gifts and meals. Their packages can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Luxury suites for fans attending the World Cup at SoFi Stadium cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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Workers at SoFi say they're worried that FIFA's relationship with On Location means jobs that would typically go to union workers — and the wages and tips that go with them — will instead go to subcontractors without union protections. It's one reason they're threatening to strike when the World Cup comes to town.

 "We have so many wonderful workers who've been here season after season," said Kay Blake, a bartender from Inglewood who works at SoFi Stadium. "I don't see why they would partner with someone else to bring an experience that we can bring ourselves."

Workers also want to be paid a higher rate that reflects the sky-high ticket prices for the eight World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium. They're asking for double pay for major events including the tournament — an arrangement that the food service workers at Dodger Stadium have for the World Series, according to Unite Here.

"We're trying to ensure that there is no disparity between the profits of the company as opposed to our labor," Blake said. "We don't want to be exploited."

How does the World Cup affect labor negotiations?

Unite Here Local 11 represents around 2,000 workers at SoFi, and they're currently negotiating a new contract with Legends Global, the company that runs the stadium's bars and food services. Their old contract expired last year.

The union is leveraging its role in the coming World Cup to push for higher wages, especially at mega-events. Its workers also want protections from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, after the agency's head said that ICE will play a key role in security for the tournament. Unite Here filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, saying ICE's planned presence at the World Cup threatened the union's ability to collectively bargain.

But the battle over subcontracting could also lead workers to the picket line. The union says the use of subcontractors will determine who will benefit from the riches that FIFA brings to Inglewood.

"Subcontracting is supposed to be rare," Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen told LAist. "So in this contract, we're saying no more. It needs to end and especially needs to end at the World Cup because we want those jobs to be good jobs."

How common is subcontracting?

Petersen said the World Cup isn't the only event where jobs have been threatened. He said that union members lost out on more than 100,000 hours of work in 2025 that was instead given to subcontracted workers.

Kay Blake, the bartender, offered LAist an example: an external company paying to operate a suite or two for an event at SoFi.

"If you bring in a subcontractor, they're going to want to bring in their people," she said. "Let's say that this subcontractor usually buys one to two suites… We have a group of people called suite attendants, and so now there's one to two suites less from their workload."

Blake said that she and her co-workers are scheduled by seniority, and fewer suites could mean people work fewer hours. She also said more short-term workers at the stadium for the World Cup could dilute tips for the workers who are at SoFi year-round.

A spokesperson for Legends Global declined to comment on ongoing negotiations with Unite Here Local 11. A representative for Hollywood Park, the site of SoFi Stadium owned by Stanley Kroenke, deferred to Legends Global. FIFA also did not respond to emails requesting comment on the ongoing negotiations.

Luxury packages are the new normal

The dispute between SoFi workers and their employer comes as high ticket prices for the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games face scrutiny and mega-event organizers emphasize luxury experiences for the very wealthy.

On Location is also the hospitality partner for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The company supplied the same service in Paris in 2024 — the first time the Olympics had such an official luxury service, according to the New York Times.

"The higher end can run well into the tens of thousands of euros: bespoke multiday all-inclusive packages that might include stays in five-star hotels, meals cooked by Michelin-starred chefs, seamless car service between venues and the best seats at the most in-demand events," a Times reporter described in the summer of 2024.

LAist reached out to On Location via email, requesting an interview on the services they provide and their workforce. The company didn't respond.

Isaac Martinez, a cook at SoFi Stadium who lives in Inglewood, said he's still waiting to learn what his schedule will be for the World Cup and he's worried about his hours.

Martinez told LAist that since World Cup prices are so high, he and his co-workers should get a slice of the pie.

"The people that are able to afford those tickets and those suites, they're not people like us," Martinez said through an interpreter. "They're not the people that are gonna make the food or make the experience."

The World Cup kicks off in Los Angeles on June 12 with the first U.S. men's match against Paraguay. If there's no resolution to negotiations, attendees could arrive to a picket line.

State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin.

The company says the project would reduce the region’s reliance on methane gas.

Southern California Gas estimates it would cost about $266 million to study and plan the project — called Angeles Link — and asked the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover those costs through customer rates. The company had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years.

The commission unanimously rejected the request, saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers. The decision effectively halts the project for now, and comes amid a stall in federal funding for hydrogen projects under the Trump administration.

Local environmental groups involved in the community advisory process had also grown frustrated by negotiations that they said, in a letter to state regulators, “does not prioritize genuine community engagement.”

As global pollution levels continue to climb, the commission’s decision also highlights the growing challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy supply amid rising utility bills and open questions about the safety and true environmental cost of largely untested technology.

Why hydrogen?

Hydrogen is a colorless gas that is considered "clean" because it doesn’t involve carbon, which — when burned to create energy — becomes carbon dioxide, a major planet-heating gas.

But it takes energy to produce hydrogen, and most hydrogen these days is created by burning fossil fuels. “Green” hydrogen is created by using clean energy sources like solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

SoCal Gas said the Angeles Link project would prioritize green hydrogen.

Most experts see green hydrogen as an important clean-burning fuel for hard-to-electrify industries, such as long-haul trucking and gas-fired power generation. The city of Los Angeles, for example, wants to retrofit its Scattergood Power Plant near El Segundo to burn hydrogen instead of methane gas to generate electricity.

There are many open questions about how safe the highly-combustible gas is for proposed uses and how much water it will require to make. At the same time, extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity and fuel also takes water — a growing problem as climate change drives longer and hotter droughts.

Experts say, if done right, hydrogen can reduce that water intake and not have a major impact on water supplies.

Also, burning hydrogen could actually worsen local, lung-damaging nitrogen-oxide air pollution, at least with the technology as it currently stands, according to energy researchers.

Reactions to the decision

SoCal Gas will now have to turn to shareholders or other sources of funding if the company wants to proceed. The company did not directly answer LAist’s questions about whether it would.

“We continue to believe that hydrogen—including clean renewable hydrogen—can help advance California’s energy and climate goals while supporting the long‑term affordability, security and reliability of energy service for customers,” SoCal Gas spokesperson Brian Haas wrote in an email to LAist.

Environmental groups celebrated the vote, while emphasizing they see green hydrogen playing a role in the state’s future.

“Residential customers should not subsidize speculative infrastructure for large industrial users,” said Michael Colvin, director of the California Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.

“We look forward to working with regulators, utilities and large customers to build a credible, cost-effective strategy to cut climate pollution from sectors that are hardest to electrify,” the statement read.

Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles.

L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world. So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.

Sports 

“LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher.
- Where to find it: 328 First St., Los Angeles

“Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela.
- Where to find it: 1647 Blake Ave., Los Angeles

A mural honoring Winter Olympics Gold Medalist Alysa Liu in Gardena.

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California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
- Where to find it: 15532 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena

A mural of L.A. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna can be found outside Hardcore Fitness L.A.

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“City of Angels!” pays tribute to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi.
- Where to find it: 400 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

Music

Whitney Houston, Rihanna, Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse and Selena are memorialized on this Hollywood mural.
- Where to find it: 7677 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 

“Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.
- Where to find it: 43rd St. and Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single.
- Where to find it: 1201 Rosecrans Ave, Compton

Historic to LA

A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.

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“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” is one of the largest murals in the world, and it’s supposed to get bigger. The half-mile art piece depicts California’s rich history.
- Where to find it: Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. 

“The Blessing of the Animals” at La Placita Olvera depicts the Catholic tradition of blessing one’s animals.
- Where to find it: 115 Paseo De La Plaza, Los Angeles

“El Grito” depicts a scene that sparked Mexican independence from Spanish rule.
- Where to find it: Placita de Dolores at 831 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles

When you take a bite of the lomo saltado burrito from Merka Saltao, a fast-casual Peruvian restaurant in Culver City, one of the first things you'll notice is the sauce.

The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans.

It's a beautiful confluence of flavors. It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage.

Standing on business

The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move. Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023. The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu.

Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025.

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The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works. But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner.

(Ceviche, for all its cultural cachet, is raw fish with raw onion — a harder sell for a weekday lunch. Lomo saltado, Franco noted, is steak and fries — basically a hamburger.)

The backlash

The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City. It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A., the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito.

Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected. Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito.

Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in Peru

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Christopher Mortenson

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Courtesy Merka Saltao

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The comments turned quickly. "No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?" — roughly, "what the hell is this?" — wrote one commenter. Another said "Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”. Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation. "There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said, "thinking, I've made a mistake." But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense.

He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this? The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after.

Fusion by default

This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit. The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone from Pablitos Tacos in North Hollywood to Le Hut in Santa Ana, run by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version. Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of the Studio Catering Co. food truck as recently as last year.

The lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity.

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Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago. "Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito." What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.

Where things stand

Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food. He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.

In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak. "Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors."

The burrito, it turns out, was never the point. It was just the door.