HTLA- Episode 59: COVID Renter Protections Are Here to Stay... For At Least 2 More Months

Brian De Los Santos  00:00

Rent in LA is too damn high these days. [music in] Talk to basically anyone in the city and they'll tell you how writing a check feels like choosing between feeding yourself or being able to live in your apartment for another month.

Service Industry Worker  00:15

[audio clip] Those that work in the service economy in Los Angeles can't afford rent anymore.

Tenant #1  00:20

[audio clip] We are still dealing with fallout from COVID and need more time. Please help us stay in our homes longer.

Tenant #2  00:25

[audio clip] We live, my husband and I, on $900 a month. We need this protection to survive.

Brian De Los Santos  00:35

Until this week, a major batch of eviction protections almost disappeared. In 2020 due to the pandemic, LA County passed rules that prevents a tenant from getting evicted. Basically, you cannot get kicked out of your home if you fail to pay rent due to COVID related issues. The county's rules were set to expire at the end of 2022, and then they got pushed back to the end of January. Well, they just got pushed back again until the end of March. This is How To LA, the podcast that aims to help you navigate this city's complicated issues. I'm Brian De Los Santos. Honestly, all these changes can make a person pretty dizzy and confused. Thankfully for us, LAist housing reporter, David Wagner, has been covering this roller coaster of a ride. [music out]

David Wagner  01:31

You know, if you can flash back to early 2020, businesses were shutting down left and right. LA had unemployment rates approaching 20%, you know, some of the highest rates of joblessness we've ever seen. And that meant huge numbers of people who could not pay their rent and who could have been evicted and out on the streets. So that's why the state and local officials put these emergency eviction protections in place. The rules basically say, If you're economically hurt by the pandemic, you can put off paying your rent to a later date and not face eviction. But these were always supposed to be temporary rules, and as people still struggle to recover from layoffs, illness, or even the death of a family breadwinner, local leaders have decided to keep extending these rules over and over for almost three years now.

Brian De Los Santos  02:17

Now to be clear, because there has been some confusion, these rules only shield people from eviction if they can prove COVID related distress.

David Wagner  02:25

That's right. Under the county's rules, you have to be able to show in court that you've been harmed by the pandemic, and the county rules only apply to low income renters. If your household income is above 80% of the median income in LA County, you are not gonna be protected moving forward.

Brian De Los Santos  02:41

Well, I know it's been in place for almost three years now. Can you give us a sense of what it actually achieved?

David Wagner  02:47

Yeah, so the protections gave government programs time to get rent relief out to households that fell behind, and we're talking about huge sums of money here. You know, the state's rent relief program delivered almost $2.5 billion in LA County alone. That money by and large went straight to landlords, who had renters who are not paying. So you know, landlords have received a lot of relief, but that rent relief program has been over since April, and a lot of landlords are still frustrated about the lack of continuing support for people not receiving rent. You know, I think the big picture here though, is that, uh, it- it's fair to say that a lot of people who could have been evicted, or who could have even become homeless, are still in their homes today because of these protections. You know, housing experts credit these COVID eviction rules and the rent relief funding with slowing LA's rise in homelessness during the pandemic. LA County saw an increase of about 4% during the pandemic. You know, the, the number's still going in the wrong direction, but that is a much smaller increase than the double digit spikes in homelessness we saw before the pandemic and before these protections were put in place.

Brian De Los Santos  03:55

So, there is a lot of confusion out here about all of this. One reason is that the City of LA voted not to extend the deadline, but LA County did extend it. So, here's a question we got from an LAist reader: Does the extension in LA County affect residents in LA City?

David Wagner  04:12

Yeah, and just to say, you know, this is super confusing. I talk to lawyers who work on tenant and landlord issues here in LA, and even they have a tough time keeping track of it all. So, it is confusing. It's very complicated. Basically, the county's rules are going to apply all across LA County for the next two months. The only exception is if the city wanted to pass stronger protections. The City of LA has had its own stronger protections in place during the pandemic, but those city rules are scheduled to go away at the end of January. So now the county's rules are coming in and those county rules are gonna apply to everyone living across LA County, even in the City of LA.

Brian De Los Santos  04:52

[music in] I just want to play some tape of what we heard from people at that supervisor's meeting last week when they were talking about whether to do another extension.

Landlord #1  05:02

[audio clip] I manage a building in Glendale. It's a family business. We've provided housing in the community for decades. That's our business, not evictions. We worked with many of our tenants, much of them had lived at the building for over a decade. We worked with them through the crisis, helped them apply for assistance, and got them the help they needed. The biggest issue is the people that were dealing with us in bad faith. They've taken advantage of the system and the county's tied our hands with getting rid of these people. The self-certification violates our due process. We can't ask for any proof or evidence that there's ongoing COVID hardship or that they have the income requirement to be eligible for assistance.

Tenant #2  05:38

[audio clip] I've been living there for 20 years. The landlord told me she was gonna sell. We live, my husband and I, on $900 a month because, since COVID, he hasn't been able to work. If they sell and they throw me out of my house, what am I gonna do with $900, with that rent over a $1,000? We need this protection to survive.

Landlord #2  06:07

[audio clip] I'm a small landlord in San Fernando Valley. Housing has evolved to be a right, but so is our right to be private property owners. We've borne the burden of this eviction moratorium for almost three years. How are we supposed to trust you with- Over and over again, you said 1/31 was the dead date. Now a week before, surreptitiously you decide to try to extend it? The actions of the board are poisoning the relationship between tenants and landlords.

Meeting Speaker  06:25

[audio clip] [tapping microphone] This is one of the highest cost of living cities in the nation. These landlords are going to lose passive income and these tenants are going to lose everything- their homes. [music out]

Brian De Los Santos  06:51

So going back to people, tenants, landlords- This deadline keeps getting pushed around. For those most affected by this, how is it impacting people?

David Wagner  07:01

You know, for a lot of renters, the eviction crisis that people are worried about- it's already here. You know, filings in eviction court are already above pre-pandemic levels in LA, uh, even with these protections still in place. So people are getting taken to eviction court. They are getting locked out of their homes. We hear a lot about this quote-unquote, "eviction moratorium," but that term isn't really quite right. Evictions are not banned right now. If a landlord tries to evict a tenant over non-payment, and that tenant fails to respond to that eviction court filing, the tenant can lose their case within just five days. And so, you know, we have a situation where people have a lot of protections on the books, but if they don't know their rights, or don't know that they have to take proactive steps to assert those rights, they can be impacted in very serious ways right now.

Brian De Los Santos  07:46

So let me ask you, David. It kind of feels like a game of kicking the can down the road. What is the thinking behind these piecemeal extensions?

David Wagner  07:54

Yeah, it certainly feels to a lot of landlords, and a lot of tenants, like these last minute extensions are just kicking the can down the road. According to recent US Census survey data, we have about 226,000 households here in LA that are currently behind on rent. And we've long known that about half of LA tenants are spending too much on rent based on federal guidelines, and that means that they are having to cut back on other essentials, like food and health care. So when you step back and look at the grand scheme of things here, LA is just an incredibly expensive place for renters, and a lot of people [Brian: Mm hm.] have low incomes. They just cannot cover what apartments are going for these days. So these COVID protections keep getting extended and I think the big picture here is, whether these protections continue or not, a huge number of people in LA are going to struggle to keep up with their rent no matter what.

Brian De Los Santos  08:43

I want to go back to like our reader questions [that we] have gotten. Um, this question asks, "What happens if you are four months behind your rent with the new rules? Once these tenant protections end, does someone need to pay back all their overdue rent right away or do they have to pay it back at all?"

David Wagner  08:59

So, they do have to pay it back. You know, rent has never been canceled or forgiven during the pandemic. It has only been delayed. However, rent is not gonna come due all at once when these rules go away. Tenants are gonna have some more time to pay off those debts. The timeline depends on where you live. In the City of LA, overdue rent from earlier in the pandemic is gonna to come to you on August 1st, but more recent months will not come due until February of next year. And if you live elsewhere in the county your back rent is gonna be due one year after it went unpaid.

Brian De Los Santos  08:59

I want to follow up with that and ask you this question we got from an LAist reader which says, "Which landlords in LA County are exempt and does the extension include unincorporated areas of LA County?"

David Wagner  09:41

So the extension that we're talking about, the two month extension passed by LA County's Board of Supervisors- it applies across the county, all 88 cities, all unincorporated areas. Landlords have to follow these rules through March.

Brian De Los Santos  09:55

Let's talk a little bit about money here. Where are the relief funds coming from and should we worry about using federal COVID money for rent relief?

David Wagner  10:02

So, the county's Board of Supervisors did approve this new batch of 50 million dollars in relief. This would go to small landlords with no more than four rental units. We don't fully know where those dollars are gonna come from yet. They could come from federal COVID relief funding. Some of it could come from the county's homeless services fund. You know again though, $50 million in a county of 10 million people, we are really talking about a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars that went to landlords earlier in the pandemic.

Brian De Los Santos  10:33

So, the extension is now in place through the end of March 2023. Do you think it could be extended again?

David Wagner  10:41

Yeah, it's certainly possible that local lawmakers could come back and keep extending the rules again and again. 226,000 households say they are already behind on rent, and if they cannot pay their April rent on time and in full, they could face eviction. That's a lot of people who could end up without a place to live.

Brian De Los Santos  11:00

What are the long term ripple effects for the economy?

David Wagner  11:03

Well, if we see a sizable number of people fall into homelessness, after facing eviction, LA is only going to have more work to do in addressing this existing homelessness crisis. It can be a lot cheaper to prevent homelessness through rent relief, or other kinds of aid, and keep people in their homes. That can be a lot cheaper than sheltering someone and getting them back into permanent housing after they've already fallen into homelessness. Keeping people housed moving forward is also gonna be expensive, and right now it's not clear the county has devoted enough money to stabilizing housing for all the people who are at risk of eviction.

Brian De Los Santos  11:41

Again, we're going to demystify what rules are in place here. The LA City Council did recently pass a package of renter protections. What should we know about that, and does it effectively cover a lot of the issues that would arise when the eviction rules do end?

David Wagner  11:56

Yeah, there are a few big new permanent protections being put in place. In the City of LA, almost 400,000 households are gonna have new limits on eviction. That means that landlords are going to need to cite a justified reason for evicting those tenants, and the landlords may have to pay relocation assistance in certain situations. Also, in the City of LA, and in unincorporated parts of the county, renters will be protected from eviction until they've fallen behind by more than about one month's worth of rent. Tenants with unauthorized roommates and pets are still gonna be protected from eviction in the City of LA for another year and for two more months elsewhere in the county. But what's really changing here, what's really at stake are these COVID related protections. So once these rules finally do go away, it will not matter if you were laid off during the pandemic, if you got Long COVID, or if the main breadwinner in your family died of COVID. If you do not pay your rent on time, once these protections expire, [music in] you could face eviction.

Brian De Los Santos  12:53

This whole situation highlights how out of control housing is in this town. Are officials talking about reforming the system so that there is some sort of safety net for people, you know, renters and the local landlords who might rely on that income?

David Wagner  13:07

Yeah, you know, there are always discussions about what permanent support needs to be put in place before these rules go away. On the tenant advocate side, they want a renters' Bill of Rights and that would include things like enforcement against landlord harassment, rights to an attorney in eviction court. You know, most tenants currently do not have a lawyer when they go to eviction court. On the flip side, you have landlord groups saying, Look, if you want to keep allowing tenants to defer their rent, you're gonna need to step in and pay landlords who are not getting their rental income. No matter how you look at it, renters are under huge pressures right now. Local lawmakers are hesitant to lift these rules because they're keeping people housed, but the bigger issues of unaffordable rents and lack of housing options are just not getting solved.

Brian De Los Santos  13:55

That was David Wagner, housing reporter for LAist. You can find his updated guide to LA's eviction protections at LAist.com. Thanks for listening, y'all. If you like what you're hearing, subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter. You can check it out at LAist.com/HowToLA. Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. [music out]