The lowdown on how L.A.’s tenant protections began
Cato Hernández
scours through tons of archives to understand how our region became the way it is today.
Published August 30, 2023 5:00 AM
Coalition for Economic Survival members walk to City Hall ahead of the rent rollback vote on Aug. 16, 1977.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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Topline:
Rent control has been a way for governments to keep prices of tenant costs low, but it’s never just been about fighting for the underdog. We explore key moments that have shaped the controversial protections over decades.
When did rent control start? It depends. There was a federal rent freeze amid WWII, but L.A.’s form of rent control started in the late 1970s, an effort that arose out of frustration with inflation and a combination of other factors that many say benefited landlords more.
Are all rent control laws created equal? Definitely not. Rent control increases are often tied to inflation, but sometimes rates change depending on how you crack the math. Some areas had rules about whether rents could rise between tenants, which was considered a strong measure that ultimately got tossed out in California.
Rent control can either be your friend or your enemy.
The laws are often the bane of landlords who’d like to charge more and a potential safety net for tenants who can’t afford steep rent hikes. But why it’s around isn’t necessarily because politicians want to protect the little guy — rent control has historically been used to mitigate another problem.
RENT CONTROL GUIDE
How much can rent go up in my neighborhood?
Read our rent control guide to find out how much your rent can be legally increased each year, depending on where you live in L.A. County.
If you want a breakdown of how rent control may work in your area today, here’s the guide for that. But in this one, we’ll explore more of the backdrop: how high inflation, wartime efforts and a housing crisis birthed different eras of rent control.
The wartime effect
L.A.’s first round of modern rent control came more than 80 years ago — and it was perhaps the strictest we’ve seen.
When World War II began in 1939, industrial employment ballooned. The Great Depression was easing, so workers migrated to Los Angeles in the tens of thousands for employment. But the surge in population, combined with the war effort, created a perfect housing storm that lasted for years.
More people were coming at a time when our housing stock couldn’t keep up. About 15,000 residential projects went unfinished because labor and supplies were diverted to the war, according to research from the UCLA Luskin Center. With demand way up, many people had no choice but to live in severely overcrowded and unsuitable conditions. The situation was so dire when a federal study was conducted that a veteran shared how he was living in a house with 18 other people while trying to turn a chicken coop into a place to stay.
A 1945 poster letting tenants know about their rights under rent control.
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United States Office of Price Administration
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Illinois Digital Archives, Illinois State Library, and Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias
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The ultimate solution would be more housing, but that would take years to improve. In the interim, the federal government deployed a rent freeze (and other price controls)in 1942 to ensure essentials remained affordable. Alisa Belinkoff Katz, lead author of UCLA’s study of rent control in L.A., says this move made rent control part of the war effort and more acceptable to landlords.
“It was considered sort of the patriotic thing to do, at least at first while the war was going on,” she said. “It became something that was widely publicized and that people were engaged in.”
That publicity campaign helped to make tenants aware of their rights. Landlords and renters were also required to sign a property registration form that recorded the rent amount under the freeze. To Katz, the tenants who kept tabs on compliance, along with federal enforcement, is what made the rent freeze effective.
A line of people outside of the rent control office at Broadway in Los Angeles on Nov. 5, 1942.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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Property owners register their rentals at the Broadway rent control office in Los Angeles on Sept. 25, 1942.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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The support of landlords didn’t last long, though. The L.A. County apartment association’s president at the time, David Culver, complained about treatment in a meeting with landlords, and together they vowed to take action. They argued that the rent cap was too low to afford taxes and maintenance, and some threatened to take their rentals off the market.
Once the war ended, rent control became a ticking clock. After a postwar federal housing act went into effect, allowing local governments to lose the rules, the L.A. City Council voted to decontrol. Residential rents went back under the sway of the market.
Property owners cheer as the L.A. city council votes 10 to 4 in favor of rent decontrol on July 2, 1950. More than 2,500 owners and tenants packed the council chamber.
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Herald Examiner Collection
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Los Angeles Public Library
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‘Stagflation’ in the 1970s and Proposition 13
Decades later, L.A. was in a different predicament.
An oil crisis was going on, aiding a surge in inflation while economic growth was at a snail’s pace. This is when the term “stagflation” was coined (a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation). Among a number of other things that became more expensive, L.A. home prices were skyrocketing along with owners’ property tax bills.
Landlords again organized around this issue. Howard Jarvis, then-executive director of the L.A. County apartment association, went down in history as the champion of 1978’s Proposition 13 — a measure that aimed to cap property tax rates. But in order for it to pass, he knew that the state’s renters — which made up 45% of households, according to Katz’s research — needed to be convinced to vote for the proposition.
Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, co-sponsor of the measure, celebrating after Proposition 13 was declared a winner on June 6, 1978.
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Ken Papaleo
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Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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Landlords got involved to persuade their tenants. They argued that getting their tax bills reduced would trickle down to their tenants, too. Some even offered rent rebates if it was successful. But after Proposition 13 prevailed at the polls, the rose-colored glasses fell off. Despite what they’d said previously, many owners continued to raise their rents — some by more than 20% that same year.
“It should be an incentive to keep rents low, one would think,” Katz said. “But it hasn't worked out that way because property values continue to rise all over the city. [It helps landlords] because their taxes aren’t going up. So if their taxes are stable and their rents are allowed to increase all the time, then of course it helps them.”
In effect, the law was a type of rent control but for landlords, because it lowered their property taxes and limited increases.
Renters feeling the pinch
Demand for tenant protections was high in this decade, especially in middle-class communities. Renters had few rights and people were feeling the pinch.
“Our phone started ringing off the hooks,” said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival. “It appeared that the speculators discovered Los Angeles. They were buying up rental units throughout the area, raising rent, putting a fresh coat of paint on it, some minor repairs, and then selling it again."
Gross was one of the key people leading the fight for rent control and helped organize tenant unions. He says some apartment buildings were getting flipped four to five times a year. And after Proposition 13, he says the “lid blew off” with rent.
It was the first of many broken promises that landlords provided to their tenants.
— Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival
“It was the first of many broken promises that landlords provided to their tenants.”
Renters rallied, urging L.A. leaders to take action. The city council members who represented white, middle-class districts supported the measures, but the ones leading Black and Latino districts did not. Back then, rising rent was viewed as a middle-class problem, and community leaders in lower-income districts worried that rent control would drive away investment in their communities.
Still, the council got enough support to roll back and temporarily freeze rents. Mayor Tom Bradley claimed it was a necessary step to halt “outrageous rent increases.”
The freeze gave the council time to draft a long-term response, which is where the Rent Stabilization Ordinance in place today came from. With this law, landlords can only increase rent in certain properties (built on or before Oct. 1, 1978) generally between 3% and 8%, based on inflation. (There’s a rent freeze on these properties currently because of COVID-19.)
Where we are now
Since the '70s, a lot has changed. Rent control has grown to multiple cities, but so have the legal battles surrounding it.
“It's literally been somewhat of a cat-and-mouse game with landlords,” Gross said. “Because landlords will find loopholes in the law and then use that to evict tenants or increase rent. And then we'd identify those loopholes and we get the city council to close them.”
Property owners looked to change these rules, too, and they got key laws passed from higher up.
New rent laws
1985: The Ellis Act, a California law that allows landlords to evict residential tenants in order to leave the rental business, passes. A landlord filed a lawsuit against Santa Monica, which instituted rent control six years earlier, for refusing to let him demolish his rental property, claiming it was in bad repair. He lost the case when it reached the California Supreme Court, but shortly after the state legislature passed the Ellis Act.
1995: The landlords’ grand slam, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, passes. This was the state legislature’s response to landlords' building frustration with rent control laws, which were more regulated in some cities.
West Hollywood and Santa Monica, had the strict “vacancy control” rule. Under that provision, owners couldn’t raise rents to market rates between tenants, but small increases were allowed during tenancy. The act made that provision illegal statewide.
It literally puts a bullseye target on the back of particularly low-rent, long-term [rentals].
— Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival
“It literally puts a bullseye target on the back of particularly low rent, long-term [rentals],” Gross said on the removal of vacancy control. “If they get those tenants out by any means, they can jack up rents to whatever they want.”
The act also prohibited rent control on residential properties built after Feb. 1, 1995, excluded single-family homes and condos, and generally tied city leaders' hands.
“It froze existing local rent control laws,” Katz said. “It had a huge impact because it prohibited what local governments were able to do to protect renters in their jurisdictions.”
It can be tough to easily understand how, when, and where rent control affects you. Everything can change depending on what city you’re in, your building type and when it was built.
Some basics you should be aware of are the main types of rent control:
Rent freeze (rents are not allowed to rise at all in a given period).
Vacancy control (rent can’t rise to market rates between tenants, but smaller increases are allowed during tenancy — this is illegal in California).
Vacancy decontrol (rents can rise to market rates between tenants, and increases are allowed during tenancy — the standard in the state now).
Another way that rent control can change is with how much of the consumer price index, which measures inflation, gets factored in.
For example, the city of L.A. typically lets rent controlled properties increase between 3% and 8% a year, depending on the full rate of inflation. But Katz says that other cities have used a lower percentage of CPI. And the city of L.A. has a freeze on increases in rent controlled buildings until February 2024.
Cities with floors for increases, like L.A., can wind up with a problematic deal for renters and a better one for landlords if rents rise above CPI.
“Several times in the last few years, CPI has actually risen less than 3%, but landlords were allowed to raise the rents by 3%. So that's another question, whether that should be adjusted," Katz said.
Figure out where you stand
Rent control is a tangled web of seemingly boring rules, but it does have real effects. To supporters of the protections, the aim is about keeping things affordable and fair.
“It helps to give some security to tenants in a sense that it extends the protections that homeowners have,” Gross said. “What rent control does is level the playing field.”
If you're a renter and would like to know more about where your home stands with rent control, check out my colleague David Wagner’s cheat sheet to rent hike. If you’re in the city of L.A., you can also put your address into ZIMAS and check the housing tab to see what laws apply.
Libby Rainey
has been reporting on L.A.'s preparations for World Cup games this year.
Published May 12, 2026 5:00 AM
The Los Angeles will host eight FIFA World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood this summer.
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Luke Hales
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Advocates had pushed L.A.’s World Cup host committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its human rights plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied.
What's in the plan? It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.
How are activists responding? "Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑ at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."
Read on…for concerns about ICE and other issues dropped in the human rights guidance.
The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.
Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.
The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.
"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."
The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.
But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.
"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.
"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers."
What other host committees are saying about ICE
There have been some recent signs that other host committees aren't concerned that ICE will disrupt the tournament.
The head of the Miami host committee recently told The Athletic that Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally assured him that ICE would not be at World Cup stadiums.
The head of security for Houston's host committee told Axios that plans with the federal government had never included immigration enforcement.
LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.
According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.
"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.
The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.
Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.
Dana Littlefield
is a senior editor who oversees coverage of politics, health, housing and homelessness.
Published May 11, 2026 5:24 PM
The City of Arcadia posted notice Monday on its website that Mayor Eileen Wang had resigned.
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Courtesy City of Arcadia
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Topline:
The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.
The charges:Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills, worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.
What's next: Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon. Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.
Read on... for more on the charges and allegations.
The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.
Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.
What we know about the criminal case
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.
According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.
Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.
Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.
In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.
What's next
Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.
Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.
Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.
Next Arcadia City Council meeting
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2026 Location: Council Chambers, 240 West Huntington Drive, Arcadia Time: 7 p.m. Watch: Live stream or via live broadcast on lon the Arcadia Community Television Channel (AT&T channel 99, Spectrum digital channel 3). Daily replays at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
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Elly Yu
reports on early childhood. From housing to health, she covers issues facing the youngest Angelenos and their families.
Published May 11, 2026 3:36 PM
The state is partnering with Baby2Baby to send 400 free diapers home with families when they’re discharged from the hospital.
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Didier Pallages
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
Starting next month, families in California will get hundreds of free diapers for their newborns in a new state initiative.
What’s new: The state is partnering with Baby2Baby, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, to send 400 free diapers home with families when they’re discharged from the hospital. Any baby born in a participating hospital would be eligible, regardless of income.
Which hospitals? State officials say the program will be first prioritized in hospitals that serve a large number of Medi-Cal patients, but said there isn’t a current list of participating hospitals. A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Health Care Access and Information said once hospitals begin to opt-in, a list will be available on Baby2Baby’s website.
Why now: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the program is aimed at easing the financial strain of raising a family. Newborns can need up to 12 diapers a day — and families spend about $1,000 on diapers in the first year of a baby’s life, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.
The backstory: The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic. The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.
What is telemedicine abortion: The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine. After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.
Read on... for more on what's at stake.
The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.
The case at issue
The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.
The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.
What is telemedicine abortion?
The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.
That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.
After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.
Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.
Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.
States' rights
Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."
There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.
They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."
