The Brief

Thousands of homes have been lost in the Los Angeles fires. More have been damaged or coated in soot and ash.

Many of those who lost homes — temporarily, or permanently — are renters. What comes next for those tenant households has generated a lot of confusion. Other L.A. renters outside the burn areas are also worried about new rent increases or pressure to move out.

“We were already in a shortage of units, and now that shortage has just gotten even greater,” said Matthew Calcanas, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “There's a lot of tenants who are concerned.”

LAist reporters spoke with housing rights experts to produce this guide for tenants and landlords about the legal protections, responsibilities and next steps involved in recovering from the fires.

We are not lawyers, and this guide will inevitably miss some of the specific problems you may be encountering. If you need further help, tenant rights experts recommend you reach out to StayHousedLA.org, a publicly funded coalition of local legal aid organizations.

Rent and deposits

If I paid January rent, will I get it back? 

This will depend on the extent of the damage to your unit.

If your home was destroyed, California law says your lease is canceled. Your landlord can keep the portion of rent you paid for the days you were able to live in your unit. But the landlord must give back the rest of this month’s payment. The same applies if your unit was damaged to the point of uninhabitability, and you choose to terminate your lease rather than wait for repairs.

However, if your home suffered minor damage, you still owe rent. The L.A. County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs says you should push your landlord to make necessary repairs. But as long as the unit is livable, your obligation to pay rent stands.

Will I get back my security deposit? 

If your rental unit was destroyed in the fires, the rental contract is no longer valid and your landlord must give back your deposit.

“ Within 21 days of a tenant moving out, the landlord has to get the security deposit back to you,” said Abid Aziz, a tenants' rights attorney with the Aziz Yellin law firm. A landlord cannot reduce your deposit if the unit was destroyed, he added.

Aziz said if the landlord refuses to give back your deposit, you can sue them in small claims court.

Damage and relocation costs

Can I get help with relocation costs? 

This depends on many factors, such as your insurance coverage, your eligibility for federal aid, and any potential obligations your landlord may have.

If you have renters insurance, check your policy for what’s covered under loss of use and additional living expenses. Then file a claim to get what you're owed.

If you don’t have renters insurance, you can apply for federal aid through FEMA.

If neither of those options work, it's possible that your landlord may be required to cover your relocation expenses, but only in certain circumstances.

If your unit was completely destroyed, your landlord does not need to pay relocation assistance, according to the county Department of Consumer and Business Affairs.

If your unit was damaged, but able to be occupied after necessary repairs, your landlord may be on the hook for your temporary relocation costs.

Part of this depends on where you live. The city of L.A.’s rent control program exempts landlords from the obligation to pay relocation assistance in the event of a natural disaster.

Alisa Randel, an attorney with Public Counsel who works on housing issues, said it’s possible that in other areas, such as Pasadena and Altadena, landlords of certain properties may be legally obligated to cover a tenant’s relocation expenses while repairs are carried out.

“It's complicated,” Randell said. “All of these jurisdictions have similar, but different wording in important ways.”

Whatever situation you fall into, tenant attorneys say you should be keeping receipts for any temporary lodging and other additional expenses you incur as a result of being displaced.

What about damage?

If my home was damaged, who is responsible for repairs?  

Your landlord owns the property and is responsible for fixing damage to that property.

If your possessions — like your furniture, clothing, artwork or other personal items — were damaged, you’ll have to deal with those losses yourself. But damage to the building, and any issues from the fires that affect the home’s habitability, are up to the landlord to fix.

“Landlords are required to maintain their rental properties in habitable conditions,” said Amy Tannenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel. “One of the requirements of the law is that the building grounds have to be kept clean, sanitary, free from accumulations of debris, filth, etc. We read that to cover things like ash and soot.”

If your landlord is telling you they don’t want to file a claim with their insurance company to fix smoke damage in your unit or clean up common areas full of soot — maybe because they’re afraid of their policy getting dropped in the future — that does not absolve them of their responsibility to maintain a clean, livable home in exchange for your rent.

“Insurance or pay out of pocket, that's on them,” Randell said. “That's a you problem for the landlord.”

Evictions

Are eviction cases on hold because of the wildfires?

No. The L.A. City Council has delayed voting on a proposed eviction moratorium connected to the fires. That proposal now faces an uncertain future at City Hall.

For now, if a landlord files an eviction lawsuit against you, including for unpaid rent during the wildfires, and you fail to respond to the filing or show up for hearings, your landlord could win the eviction by default.

“If there is an eviction case that a tenant is currently part of, they still do need to go to court,” Kaimi Wenger, an attorney with the Inner City Law Center, said. “If a tenant has been subject to an evacuation order, they could petition the court for a continuance.”

Tenant advocates say an online resource called the Tenant Power Toolkit can help you draft a response to any eviction filed against you.

Can I be evicted if I let new people and pets into my home?

Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Friday to temporarily prohibit L.A. County landlords from filing evictions against renters who take in new roommates who were displaced by the fires, even if their leases would normally ban those additional occupants. Newsom’s order will remain in effect until March 8, 2025. 

 The L.A. City Council also voted this week to draft a new ordinance that would enact new protections against eviction for renters who take in unauthorized roommates and pets who were displaced by the fires.

 Even with those protections, Wenger said, some landlords could try to serve you with a notice, which is why it’s critical to know your rights.

“ There are definitely unscrupulous landlords who have dollar signs in their eyes and who are thinking, 'If I can evict my existing tenant for any particular reason that I can find, then I can jack up the rent and rent to one of these new displaced people for a larger amount of money,'” Wenger said.

Can my landlord evict me to rent to someone willing to pay more? 

No, they cannot. Under various state and local tenant protections, landlords need “just cause” to evict you, Aziz said.

“ They can't just evict you just because somebody's willing to pay more,” he said. “That's not a just cause.”

Landlords can always begin eviction proceedings against you if you do not pay rent, violate your lease agreement or use the unit for illegal activity.

Can my landlord evict me to bring in someone displaced by the fires? 

This is one possibility that tenant rights attorneys are anticipating. Landlords generally have the ability to evict existing tenants when they intend to move into a unit themselves, or to move in a relative. If the landlord, or one of their family members, was displaced by the fires and now wants to occupy your unit, this does generally constitute a “just cause” for eviction.

However, your landlord most likely cannot demand that you leave immediately. Local tenant protection laws, and the state’s Tenant Protection Act, provide timelines for owner move-ins. Under the state law, tenants who have lived in their units for at least one year must be given at least 60 days’ notice of any owner move-in.

In this situation, your landlord will also likely owe you some amount of relocation assistance. Under the state law, you’re entitled to one month’s rent. Under local rent control laws, that amount can be much higher — as high as $25,700 in the city of L.A.

Be sure to get the name of the person your landlord plans to give your unit. If the landlord or their relative doesn’t move into your unit within 90 days of you leaving, and stay there for at least one year, the eviction is illegal under the state law and you are entitled to return at your previous rent.

Rental rates and rights

Can my landlord raise my rent because of the fires?

The short answer is no — your landlord cannot massively jack up your rent because of the fires. Under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emergency declaration, any rent increase of more than 10% from pre-disaster levels constitutes illegal price gouging.

However, your landlord can still raise your rent by smaller amounts, as they normally would be allowed to do in any given year — at least for now (more on that below).

How much your landlord can raise your rent depends on whether you’re covered by local rent control, a state tenant protection law or other legal limits. Read LAist’s guide to local rent hikes to find out what rules apply in your home.

The L.A. City Council recently delayed voting on a proposal to freeze rent increases for the next year because of the impacts of the fires. It is possible, but by no means guaranteed, that in the near future, state or local lawmakers could pass further restrictions on rent increases.

What are my rights as I look for new housing? 

There’s no way to sugar coat this: Your search for new housing will likely be difficult.

Landlords are allowed to ask for market rate rents on vacant units under the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. If you haven’t had to search for a new rental home in a long time, those market rates may appear shockingly high.

Then there’s the issue of rampant spikes in asking rents — well above typical market rates — despite the ban on price gouging that was triggered by Newsom’s declaration of a state of emergency around the Palisades Fire.

To be clear, it is illegal for landlords to be demanding double-digit increases from the rents they were asking before the fires. Under the governor’s emergency declaration, any price increase of more than 10% compared to pre-disaster prices is illegal price gouging.

Tenant rights advocates have been collecting hundreds of examples of listings with massive post-fire jumps in asking rent.

The state attorney general says he is preparing cases against landlords who are allegedly breaking the law. If you see instances of suspected rent gouging in your search for a new home, read this LAist story to learn how to report it to prosecutors.

Housing vouchers and rent control

What if I’ve been using a housing voucher? 

Programs like the federal Housing Choice Voucher program (also known as Section 8) help low-income tenants cover the cost of housing they otherwise could not afford. If you’re a voucher holder and your rental home just burned down, the good news is that you should be able to use that voucher to pay for another unit elsewhere.

“They're what we call portable,” said Tannenbaum, the Public Counsel attorney. “You can take them to different landlords.”

However, finding a landlord who will take your voucher could be a drawn-out process. Because many landlords are hesitant to rent to voucher holders, tenants can search for months without success.

But you should know that discrimination against voucher holders is illegal in California. If landlords ever turn you away because of your voucher, or tell you they do not take Section 8, tenant rights advocates say you can file a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department.

What if my home was rent controlled? 

Under various local rent control ordinances, specific protections against evictions and large rent increases apply to the unit — not to the tenant.

“Unfortunately, yes, if that unit is lost then you're also losing those protections that you had in that particular residence,” said Calcanas, the attorney from Legal Aid Foundation of L.A..

Housing policy experts in L.A. say tenants who lived in their units for many years, paying below market rates, are likely to struggle paying for the going rents in other units today.

“They may be looking at a possibly over $1,000 difference in the amount they're paying in rent now versus the amount they'll need to pay in the future,” Calcanas said.

A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future federal government forms.

Supporters of those categories fear that any last-minute modifications to the U.S. government's standards for data about race and ethnicity could hurt the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used for redrawing voting districts, enforcing civil rights protections and guiding policymaking.

Those standards were last revised in 2024 during the Biden administration, after Census Bureau research and public discussion.

A White House agency at the time approved, among other changes, new checkboxes for "Middle Eastern or North African" and "Hispanic or Latino" under a reformatted question that asks survey participants: "What is your race and/or ethnicity?" The revisions also require the federal government to stop automatically categorizing people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.

But at a Friday meeting of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C., the chief statistician within the White House's Office of Management and Budget revealed that the Trump administration has started a new review of those standards and how the 2024 revisions were approved.

"We're still at the very beginning of a review. And this, again, is not prejudging any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to take a look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these questions," said Mark Calabria. "I've certainly heard a wide range of views within the administration. So it's just premature to say where we'll end up."

OMB's press office did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

Calabria's comments mark the first public confirmation that Trump officials are considering the possibility of not using the latest racial and ethnic category changes and other revisions. They come amid the administration's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a push to stop producing data that could protect the rights of transgender people and threats to the reliability of federal statistics.

In September, OMB said those Biden-era revisions "continue to be in effect" when it announced a six-month extension to the 2029 deadline for federal agencies to follow the new standards when collecting data on race and ethnicity.

Calabria said the delay gave agencies more time to implement the changes "while we review."

The first Trump administration stalled the process for revising the racial and ethnic data standards in time for the 2020 census.

The "Project 2025" policy agenda released by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative, D.C.-based think tank, called for a Republican administration to "thoroughly review any changes" to census race and ethnicity questions because of "concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas."

Advocates of the changes, however, see the new categories and other revisions as long-needed updates to better reflect people's identities.

"At stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that comprise our country," says Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "I am not concerned if it's reviewed in an honest attempt to understand what the process was. I am concerned if it's for a predetermined outcome that would be to ignore the entire process that was done in a very transparent manner."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

A large black bear that was relocated earlier this year after being found under a house in Altadena is up to his old tricks again.

The bear, nicknamed Barry by the neighbors, was found last week under a different Altadena home, and wildlife officials are using a caramel- and cherry-scented lure to entice the roughly 550-pound male bear out of his hiding spot.

So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.

Cort Klopping, information specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told LAist the bear seems to be spooked by increased activity around the home, including media crews outside and helicopters overhead.

“It seems as though in this case, this bear has found this poor guy's crawlspace as a comfortable, safe-seeming, warm enclosure for denning purposes,” he said.

He said the space is “somewhere for this bear to kind of hang its hat when it's relaxing.”

How the bear returned

Wildlife officials can tell it’s the same bear who was lured out from under an Altadena house after the Eaton Fire because of the tag number on his ear.

The bear was trapped and relocated about 10 miles away to the Angeles National Forest in January, but Klopping said he’s been back in the Altadena area for around five months.

The male bear after it was removed from under an Altadena home earlier this year.

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The bear spooked a SoCal Gas crew who stopped by for repairs after the Eaton Fire in January.

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The Department of Fish and Wildlife fitted the bear with a temporary GPS collar so officials could keep track of it. The collar came off a couple months later while the animal still was living in the forest.

The bear is believed to have been spotted around the home last Tuesday, Klopping said, and the owner reached out to wildlife officials a few days later for help.

“I’ve seen pictures of this bear, and I’m shocked to be under that house,” homeowner Ken Johnson told LAist media partner CBS LA.

Officials said they were hopeful the bear would move along on its own. They encouraged the homeowner to set up a camera on the crawlspace and line the area with ammonia soaked-rags or a motion-activated wildlife sprinkler system to deter the bear from returning, Klopping said.

“These are all actions that would not harm the bear, not harm people, but they would make it less comfortable for the bear to be there,” he said.

But the bear stayed put.

“Right now, it seems like it's stressed,” Klopping said. “It seems like it's scared, and therefore, it's not really wanting to leave the security of where it is at the moment.”

The hope ahead

A pair of wildlife officials stopped by the home Thursday to set up the sweet-smelling lure and camera so the department can keep an eye on the bear’s activity remotely.

Barry didn’t take the bait immediately, Klopping said, but officials are hopeful the animal will feel more comfortable leaving the crawlspace once activity around the home dies down a bit.

Klopping also is warning people in the area to secure access points on their property so the bear just doesn’t move in there next.

“If I were in that neighborhood, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that my crawlspaces would not be accessible,” he said, including covering it with something stronger than the wire mesh the bear got through before.

Bears also are extremely food motivated, and Klopping said they can smell your leftover chicken in trash cans on the curb from 5 miles away.

He encouraged residents to be mindful of trash that could be an easy meal for wildlife, as well as pet food and hummingbird feeders, which Klopping said biologists have seen bears drink “like a soda.”

You can find tips on how to handle a bear in your backyard here and resources from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife here.

There’s a new way you can track pollution in your neighborhood.

The SoCal Clean Manufacturing Coalition, a climate advocacy group, has released a map with the locations of more than 1,800 fossil fuel-burning industrial boilers across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Many are at universities and hospitals, as well as some apartment complexes like the Park La Brea apartments in the Miracle Mile.

The map is part of an effort to push the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates our air quality, to pass rules to require these large boilers to be phased out.

Why do these boilers matter?

Industrial boilers aren’t exactly the poster child of pollution, but they do play a role in Southern California. Boilers come in different sizes, and although there are electric types, many still burn fossil fuels to generate hot water, steam and, as a byproduct, nitrogen oxide.

South Coast AQMD says that makes it a source of pollutants. Nitrogen oxide contributors are not only a problem for smog and respiratory issues but also for the agency’s effort to meet federal air quality standards.

That’s why last year the agency approved new requirements for certain buildings to use zero-emission water heaters and boilers when they need replacement.

Teresa Cheng,  California director for Industrious Labs, a coalition member focused on creating cleaner industries, says these rules were for smaller “baby boilers” and that the coalition wants to see that applied to larger ones, which are covered under the agency’s 1146 and 1146.1 rule.

The push has caused concern in the gas industry. The California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, which represents small fuel retailers and industry suppliers, says boilers are essential in a wide range of manufacturing facilities that need high heat, like food processing, fuel production and more.

“CFCA is deeply concerned that requiring industrial facilities to abandon gas-fired boilers at the end of their useful life before the market is technologically or economically ready will still have severe consequences for manufacturers, workers and consumers,” the alliance said in a statement.

The organization says many facilities already have invested in “ultra-low” nitrogen oxide technology and that requiring a switch to zero-emissions equipment could destabilize the industry because of costs.

See the map

The map includes the number of boilers in each place, including how many aging units, and their permitted heating capacity. (That metric essentially correlates with how much pollution it can release.)

Cheng says the map is being shared to make the “invisible visible” so residents can know what’s around them. Most boilers are in communities that already deal with environmental pollution problems.

Boilers are even close to K-12 schools, like Glendale’s Herbert Hoover High School, which has its own.

“ These boilers have a very long lifeline,” she said. “If the air district doesn't pass zero-emissions rules for these boilers, we actually risk locking in decades more of pollution.”