LA’s Rent Crisis Pushes Workers To The Picket Line

Whether you’re talking to a TV writer or a hotel housekeeper, it won’t take long for workers on strike in Los Angeles to bring up the high cost of rent.

Over the weekend, thousands of L.A. hotel workers walked off the job at locations including the Beverly Hilton and Ritz Carlton hotels as contract negotiations over pay and working conditions stalled.

Graciela Lira, on strike from her housekeeping job at the L.A. Grand Hotel in downtown L.A., said she pays $1,800 per month for her apartment in La Puente. She said these days, paying rent doesn’t leave much money for non-essential spending.

“Before, every year I tried to get vacations. Now, no vacation,” Lira said.

Rising housing costs have been a central motivator in recent L.A. labor actions. In addition to ongoing strikes among hotel workers and TV writers, University of California graduate students belonging to the UAW 2865 union cited unaffordable rents as a key reason for demanding better pay in their strike last year.

Some workers face long commutes

UCLA Labor Center director Victor Narro said as long as wages are disconnected from rising rents, L.A.’s housing crisis will continue pushing workers toward the picket line.

“It’s becoming more clear that this is a major dilemma not just for union workers, but workers in general,” Narro said, explaining that many workers are taking on long commutes to live in cheaper housing.

“It is not healthy for the city to have workers drive long distances to go to work, or live in overcrowded housing.” He pointed out that some people falling into homelessness are in fact employed, but not paid enough to cover L.A. rents.

What does it cost to afford to live in L.A.?

A recent study conducted by researchers with the RAND Corporation found that in order to afford a basic one-bedroom apartment in the L.A. area, workers need to earn at least $64,000 per year.

That finding is backed up by other research. The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual Out Of Reach report recently concluded that workers in L.A. County need to earn $42.73 per hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment — almost three times California’s $15.50 minimum wage. According to the Unite Here Local 11 hotel workers union whose members are currently on strike, a typical full-time hotel housekeeper in L.A. earns $18.86 per hour.

For many workers, recent increases in hourly pay are not keeping up with inflation-driven rent hikes that can reach as high as 10% in parts of L.A., as outlined in the state’s Tenant Protection Act. That law protects most, but not all, rentals in the state. Newer apartment buildings and many single family homes, for example, are not included. Many individual cities in L.A. County have stricter controls on rent increases.

To cope with unaffordable housing costs, some workers are moving outside L.A. County. Others must cram their families into small apartments because they can’t afford to move into a larger space.

“I have my wife and two sons, and we cannot afford to get a decent apartment,” said Mark Laguitan, a food runner at the Intercontinental Hotel in Downtown L.A. “I’m only living in a studio-type apartment.”

Laguitan’s family isn’t alone — data from the U.S. Census Bureau has shown that L.A. has some of the most severely crowded housing in the nation. Public health experts believe crowding multiple people in small apartments helped the COVID-19 pandemic spread aggressively among low-income households in L.A.

LAist’s Aaricka Washington and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez contributed to this report.