LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council approved a city law Friday that will prohibit landlords from evicting tenants who are awaiting financial disbursement from the city’s most recent rental assistance program.
In a 13-0 vote, council members passed a city law to support tenants as many must pay back overdue rent accrued during the pandemic, specifically from Oct. 21, 2021 and Jan. 31, 2023. The law would prohibit landlords from evicting tenants for 120 days starting from Feb. 1, the deadline by which the overdue rent was to be paid back.
The law will not apply to other pending rental assistance applications outside of those who are awaiting funds from the mentioned time frame, and protections will only cover evictions related to rental debt.
If an applicant has a pending application from this latest round of rent relief, but the tenant is also facing a just cause eviction, they can still face the possibility of being evicted.
Council members Imelda Padilla and Curren Price were absent during the vote.
The law will need approval by Mayor Karen Bass before it can be enacted.
A motion was presented on Jan. 24 by Council members Eunisses Hernandez, Paul Krekorian, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez calling on the city attorney’s office to draft the ordinance, It also instructed the Housing Department to report back on mechanisms needed to ensure a landlord who has accepted city rental assistance funding is not evicting its tenants who owe less than fair market rent.
Last week, the full council had a robust discussion on the motion, and approved it with an amendment.
Prior to the vote, Hernandez emphasized the importance of moving forward with the law that would ensure tenants stay housed as the city sorts out the more than 31,000 applications submitted to receive financial assistance from Measure ULA’s Emergency Renters Assistance Program. City officials set aside $31 million of Measure ULA funding for the program this time…
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