The Brief

Rent gobbles up more than 30% of income for most tenants in the city of Los Angeles, putting 59% of L.A. renters in the federal government’s “cost-burdened” category. In a few weeks, many of those tenants could see their rent rise again.

New rent caps are scheduled to take effect next month for apartments covered by L.A. rent control. Increases could be as high as 5% — unless the City Council acts quickly on a pending proposal that would lower rent caps to 2%.

It’s been more than one year since an independent rent control study was submitted to the city, recommending changes that would reduce annual rent hikes. But so far, no council votes have been scheduled.

Tenant advocates say they’re frustrated by the delays on updating a formula that is now more than 40 years old.

“Other things have been prioritized, with the wildfires ... and the budget crisis,” said Pablo Estupiñan, a coordinator with the Keep L.A. Housed coalition. “There's a lack of commitment from council offices on moving forward.”

The report was commissioned by the City Council in 2023. It was submitted to the city in May 2024 by the Economic Roundtable, a local nonprofit research group. LAist made the study public after obtaining it through a public records request.

The 193-page report highlighted provisions in L.A.’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance that have benefited landlords at the expense of tenants. Based on the report’s findings, the L.A. Housing Department issued recommendations that — if passed — would lower allowable rent increases to 2% starting July 1.

A politically charged debate 

A spokesperson for Councilmember Nithya Raman, chair of the council’s Housing Committee, said her office is working to schedule a vote this month on updating the rent control rules. But it’s unclear if the full council can pass an overhaul before council members begin their four-week summer recess on July 2.

Throughout this process, landlords have urged elected leaders to not further limit their ability to offset rising costs of property ownership.

The city "is creating a stifling environment,” said Fred Sutton, spokesperson for the California Apartment Association. “You had a four-year rent freeze. You had eviction moratoriums under COVID... The City Council is continuously sending signals to the entire world that it is not a safe place to do business.”

There were significant challenges for L.A. landlords during the pandemic, according to the Economic Roundtable report. Local restrictions on rent hikes and evictions for non-payment of rent came at a time when building maintenance, utility and insurance costs were rising faster than inflation.

Coupled with broad economic pressures, the city’s policies have convinced some landlords to leave the L.A. rental market. Bruce Painton told LAist that after owning a 33-unit rent-controlled apartment building for 11 years, he recently sold.

“Some months I had no income — it was all expenses,” Painton said of his experience during the pandemic. He said he now plans to buy real estate in Texas.

“They don't have all the fees and problems that we have in Los Angeles,” Painton said.

Will the City Council be able to vote on the new rent control rules before their summer recess begins?

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Balancing landlord and tenant interests 

The Economic Roundtable report found that many landlords were able to absorb the shock of the pandemic because of turnover rates in rent-controlled apartments. About 40% of units became vacant between 2020 and January 2023. Under the city’s rent control rules, landlords are allowed to raise rents to higher, market rates when new tenants move in.

On the other side of the equation, the report found a significant number of L.A. renters are living on a financial knife’s edge. About 1-in-10 L.A. tenants are spending more than 90% of their income on rent alone.

Council members have been hearing from tenants like Cristina Campos, who told LAist she can’t afford the city’s current annual increases. She and her husband have lived for 23 years in a rent-controlled South L.A. apartment, where they raised two children who are now in college.

Campos said she already struggles to pay rent, and other units in their neighborhood are now renting at cost far out of her family’s reach.

“I always say, I don't want to go live with my neighbors under the bridge,” Campos said, speaking in Spanish. “But I might have to leave the unit if they keep raising the rents so high.”

Cristina Campos has joined organizers with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment to call for lower rent control caps in L.A.

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Other tenant protections have stalled

The L.A. City Council passed some of the longest-lasting tenant protections in the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. But recently, votes affecting tenants and landlords have become more politically fraught inside City Hall.

A proposal to temporarily freeze rents and limit evictions after the Palisades and Eaton fires failed after weeks of heated debate in council chambers. Similar protections were instead enacted by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.

Dan Flaming, co-author of the Economic Roundtable report, said rent control policies are technically complex and politically charged. The issue directly pits the interests of landlords against those of renters, he said.

“It's contentious,” Flaming said. “It’s challenging for the council to parse this and enact changes to the status quo.”

How rent control currently works in L.A.

Rent control in L.A. generally applies to apartments built before October 1978. Those older units make up about 70% of all apartments in the city.

With about 64% of L.A. households renting rather than owning their homes, the city’s rent control policies play a huge role in housing affordability for hundreds of thousands of families.

Existing tenants in rent-controlled units can only have their rent raised by a set percentage each year. The limits change every year, ranging from 3% to 8%, depending on how high inflation is running in the L.A. area.

Landlords who pay for a tenant’s gas and electricity can add another 1% for each utility they cover, bringing L.A.’s maximum allowable rent hike to 10%. That’s much higher than in most other Southern California cities with rent control policies.

By comparison, rent hikes are capped at 3% in Santa Monica and Santa Ana, and up to 5% for certain units in unincorporated L.A. County.

A "For Rent" sign hangs outside an apartment building in northeast Los Angeles.

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Where do council members stand?

LAist contacted all 15 City Council district offices to ask where council members stand on updates to L.A.'s rent control policies. Only three took a firm position.

Spokespeople for Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez said they support capping rent hikes at 3%, in line with demands from Keep L.A. Housed.

A spokesperson for Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said he supports the recommendations from the L.A. Housing Department, which call for a new range of 2% to 5%.

Councilmembers Imelda Padilla, John Lee, Ysabel Jurado and Tim McOsker did not take a clear stance on the issue. Neither did Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson or Housing Committee Chair Raman.

A spokesperson for Councilmember Curren Price noted that he recuses himself from votes on the city’s rent control policies because he is a landlord.

The offices of Councilmembers Adrin Nazarian, Katy Yaroslavsky, Monica Rodriguez, Heather Hutt and Traci Park did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Why this matters now

The lack of clarity from city leaders comes just weeks away from new rent caps taking effect, despite acknowledgements from L.A. housing officials that the formula used to determine those limits is out of step with other rent control policies across the state.

Increases of up to 3% are scheduled for July 1, with the utilities bump bringing the maximum rent hike to 5%. That’s slightly down from the 4% to 6% range last year, when inflation was higher.

The authors of the Economic Roundtable study identified L.A.’s 2% utilities surcharge as a policy heavily weighted in favor of landlords. Those extra annual rent increases are higher than the actual increased costs of providing gas and electric service each year, the study found. Over time, the increases can exceed landlords’ total cost of providing those utilities.

Building on the study’s findings, the L.A. Housing Department recommended doing away with the 2% utilities bump. Housing department officials also agreed with the study’s recommendation to base annual rent hikes on a different measure of inflation, one that measures rising consumer costs but excludes shelter from the equation.

The Keep L.A. Housed proposal would further lower annual rent increases. Under the L.A. Housing Department’s recommendations, landlords would get at least a 2% increase each year. But the tenant advocacy group wants to let the city’s allowable increases go as low as 0% in years with flat or negative inflation.

Keep L.A. Housed also wants to end the current 10% bump landlords are allowed to charge when tenants bring additional residents into their household. The Housing Department did not recommend eliminating the increase for additional occupants.

Tenant advocates and some city councilmembers rallied outside L.A. City Hall last year to call for lower increases in rent-controlled housing.

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Under proposals from both the L.A. Housing Department and Keep L.A. Housed, allowable rent increases would be 2% starting on July 1. If the council fails to act, rents will be allowed to rise between 3% and 5%.

Christina Boyar, an attorney with Public Counsel and a member of Keep L.A. Housed, said minor policy tweaks can greatly affect housing stability. Rent increases of an extra 1% or 2% each year compound over time, and can quickly outpace inflation and wage gains for many tenants.

“While it may seem like a small difference,” Boyar said, “that is hundreds of dollars for working families who are already struggling.”

Boyar pointed to a 2020 study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that found a $100 increase in median rents is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness.

NEW YORK — In Brian Sanchez's slice of Astoria, the FIFA World Cup doesn't begin with the first match. It starts weeks earlier, with the arrival of a sticker album — and a mission.

It's a deceptively simple one: Fill the book with all the stickers representing World Cup teams, players, venues and other tournament details. But these stickers are sold in blind packs, similar to baseball or Pokémon cards, which adds to the fun and the headaches.

Sanchez, 20, has tried to complete the task before but never succeeded. This year, he planned to skip it altogether, but it was hard to ignore the chatter and excitement among his friends and family — both at home and abroad — who were all participating.

"Honestly it comes down to a little bit of FOMO," he said.

The hunt for stickers, produced by the Italian company Panini, is a decades-old World Cup tradition that's especially popular in Latin America and Europe. In the U.S., interest has been building steadily over the years, but this summer, the buzz is bigger than ever.

Jason Howarth, senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations at Panini America, said retailers reported being sold out of sticker packets within a week of the release in late April — unseen in previous World Cup cycles.

"There's a different energy coming out of it," he said. "Right now, it's outpacing where we were in 2022 by three to five times."

The surging demand comes as collectors face their toughest challenge yet. This year, they need to track down 980 distinct stickers to put the album to bed — 310 more than at the 2022 World Cup and a record number for the company. It's a reflection of the upcoming tournament's historic scale, which is expanding from 32 teams to 48 across three countries.

This edition will also be the second to last men's World Cup sticker album produced by Panini — ending a partnership that stretches back over five decades. Last month, FIFA announced that starting in 2031, U.S.-based Fanatics will be the official supplier of FIFA soccer cards, trading cards and stickers.

On a recent afternoon in Central Park, Sanchez met up with other collectors. Hunched over stacks of stickers, some two dozen people inspected the offerings with laser focus.

With only four stickers missing, Sanchez was already looking forward to earning bragging rights as the first person in his family across the finish line this year.

" I'm feeling pretty accomplished," he said. "I've been trying to get a win, and this is gonna be a huge win for me."

An expensive, labor-intensive but rewarding hobby

A single pack of seven stickers — available online, at corner stores or drugstore chains like Walgreens and CVS — now cost $2, compared to four years ago when five stickers retailed for around $1. That means simply buying enough packs to accumulate 980 stickers would total $280.

Given the costs, finishing the book is rarely a solitary pursuit, and aficionados often meet up to spread the wealth, according to Crista Latvis, 26, who organized the recent sticker swap in Central Park.

"You can't just buy your way into it," she said. "Otherwise,  it's super expensive and you've got to be very lucky."

For many, these gatherings are part of the pastime's draw.

"It's great to meet other people who are also doing it and also excited for the World Cup, especially since it's here," Latvis said.

Sebastian Clavijo, who attended Latvis' swap, said he spent tens of thousands of dollars on his quest this year. Clavijo, 32, has been collecting Panini stickers since he was 4. This year, his goal is to complete the book only with pieces featuring red and purple borders — an even rarer get.

" I just like soccer and I love collecting," he said. "That's my hobby, you know?"

In 2022, Panini introduced stickers with different colored borders that vary in rarity. That element has been an especially big hit with the trading card community and contributed to the hobby's appeal in the U.S., according to Howarth from Panini America.

Panini popularity has grown along with soccer

Demand has always existed in New York, Texas, Florida, among other big states, but it's also emerging nationwide, in places like Phoenix and the Northwest, according to Howarth.

" As soccer has grown, so has Panini," he said.

Howarth believes part of this year's popularity stems from the expanded World Cup format. Teams that have never qualified for the tournament — and therefore never been sticker-fied by Panini — are finally getting their moment.

For some, completing the sticker album is driven by nostalgia for their childhood, family or home country.

Linda Lino never heard of the hobby until she was 18, and her grandmother gave her a Panini sticker book. That was in 2014. Lino has completed every World Cup edition since, in part in memory of her late grandmother.

"It started with my grandma and then it became like a whole family thing," Lino said. "I love the community that it brings together."

That's especially true with her father, who never had the chance to collect stickers when he was a kid in Peru, Lino said. Now, the two are making up for lost time.

"My dad is so excited," she said. "He's like 'I want to help you. I want to put the stickers together.'"

Clemente Lisi, a sports journalist who has written about the Panini sticker phenomenon, said the sticker album serves as a time capsule for the World Cup. With the tournament's return to the U.S. after 32 years, he expects it will produce more first-time collectors looking for a way to remember this summer.

"This may be the only tangible thing from a World Cup unless you go to a game," he said.

Lisi, who also runs Planet Soccer on Substack, anticipates that the U.S. company Fanatics will further cater to the market at home.

" It'll even become more American and more baked into our culture," he said.

Sanchez, the college student from Astoria, dabbles in collecting other items, like vinyls and trading cards. But what he appreciates most about the Panini sticker scene is its supportive and rarely competitive nature.

" The community around the World Cup stickers is something like I've never seen before," he said. "The community is just so nice."

After countless hours of trading and visiting multiple convenience stores, Sanchez found his 980th and final sticker at the swap in Central Park. It was of the Iraqi team. He let out a gasp, followed by a smile that spanned ear to ear. "Let's goooo!"

With a mountain of duplicates left, Sanchez wasn't ready to move on just yet. His next step was to help his mother finish her album.

" I'm going to take a break," he said. "I'm going to celebrate today and then get back to it."

Topline:

The backstory: Once a year, dozens of sound artists converge on the hill with views of the harbor below to perform their audio art, which can range from serene to “beautifully weird.”

What to expect: This year includes a performer bending a bar of tin with his bare hands to get it to emit what’s called a "tin cry" and synthesizer-based soundscapes that take inspiration from both the ocean and the industrial space below.

When to go: Soundpedro is free and lasts from 7-10 p.m. Saturday.

More info at the Soundpedro website.

You may know about Union Station as an L.A. landmark or as a transportation hub — but how much do you know about its rich architectural history?

To foster that interest and knowledge, Metro created a series of public tours of the station this spring.

“There's so much that you might just walk by without really having the opportunity to delve deeply into,” said Zipporah Lax Yamamoto, deputy executive officer of Metro’s art program. “[The tours are] a really wonderful opportunity to be able to spend time with the station, learn more about the historic landmark, which belongs to all of us.”

Union Station in Los Angeles

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Architectural style

It’s called Union Station because when it opened in 1939, it connected the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway.

While it was designed by father-and-son team Donald and John Parkinson, the architects who gave us L.A. City Hall, its style is very different. Union Station’s interior and exterior mixes art deco, Spanish colonial and other styles into a hybrid dubbed Mission Moderne.

As you begin the tour, entering from Alameda Street, tour guides ask you to look up at the decorative elements in the high ceilings. The beams and geometric patterns may look like wood — but they’re actually just painted to look that way.

A community destroyed by development

Along the way, the tour gives background on pieces created more than 30 years ago. These include "City of Dreams/River of History" by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt in 1995. Sun’s piece uses remnants of the Chinese American homes torn down to build the station, a reference to the high price that community paid for this building’s construction.

Detail from "City of Dreams/River of History," created by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt at Union Station.

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“It was an enormous price. Chinatown ceased to exist in this area. … The families that lived here during that time are still around and maintain archives of that time period and the original Chinatown here, and we've worked with those families to have those objects on display,” Lax Yamamoto said.

Meanwhile, Wyatt’s large-scale mural includes the face of a Chinese man, along with nine other people of different races, ethnicities and ages; a nod to the diversity of the city since its founding in the late 1700s.

There are also stops to see new art installed for the World Cup.

A mural by Richard Wyatt at Union Station

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There are three tours left in the series but the RSVPs have reached their maximum; however, Lax Yamamoto said Metro will decide whether to continue them based on what people have thought about the tours.

Meanwhile, Union Station is set to swell with people in the next couple of months as L.A. hosts World Cup games. The station is the site of an official FIFA-sponsored Fan Zone from June 25-28.

When I first came to the states many years ago, if I’d mentioned Arsenal, people would have thought I was referring to the U.S. military or something. But all that has changed. You can now watch U.K. premier league games in sports bars, most kids play soccer, and Ted Lasso is must-watch TV.

To which I say — welcome. We English are proud of the fact that soccer began with us more than 150 years ago. And every World Cup, we think, surely this will be the year that the trophy returns home — the year that we’ll win!

Queen Elizabeth II awarding the Jules Rimet World Cup Trophy to Bobby Moore after England won the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.

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I mean it did happen … once… back in 1966. It’s such a long time ago the game was televised in black and white and shillings were still being used. My mother was nine months pregnant with my brother, and got so excited jumping up and down she went into labor and had him the next day. World Cup Willie they called him. Actually his name is David, but never mind.

Since then, every four years everyone in the U.K. watches the games with bated breath. And then something stupid will happen, and we’ll lose, like that time in 1998 when David Beckham (who played for England before he came to L.A. Galaxy) lost his temper and was sent off, and we’ll sit there, gloomy and despondent. I know because I was there in my friend’s living room in London, gloomy and despondent, thinking just once, just once, maybe could we please have a win?

David Beckham's infamous 1998 red card in the England vs. Argentina game.

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The last World Cup, I went to Ye Olde Kings Head in Santa Monica to watch England play. At 7 a.m. it was full of people already on their third pint of beer. And when the team got through to the next round, the gentle men of England ran outside the pub, whipped off their shirts and started weaving through traffic, singing football chants and acting like hooligans. I really couldn’t decide if I was embarrassed or if it felt like home.

Anyway, this time, since I’m now an American citizen, it’s in my contract that I need to support Team USA. I’m a dual citizen, though, so I’ll also be cheering for England. If by any chance Team USA and England play each other, my two selves will be watching, with a cup of tea in one hand, and a cold brewski in the other, and the polarities will explode, or something. But what will probably happen is that both teams will be eclipsed by Brazil or France playing the beautiful game… beautifully. Cheers.