EDITORIAL RED ALERT: L.A. City’s Housing Committee Fails RSO Owners Again
On November 1st, Los Angeles City’s Housing and Homelessness Committee heard a motion from Council Member Hugo Soto-Martinez and seconded by Eunisses Hernandez (both Democratic Socialist of America “DSA” members) to extend the existing, 3+ years-long freeze on rent increases for an additional 6 months thus making it nearly 4 ½ years that it would have been imposed. Council Member Soto-Martinez is himself an RSO renter despite making over $220,000 annually as a City Council member. Clearly, he is content taking up a rental unit needed by a low-income family, so he can continue to enjoy an artificially low rent and spend his hefty salary on luxuries. At a minimum, this Council Member should recuse himself from the vote on this issue when it comes to the full City Council, since it will be putting money directly into his pocket.
Last year when the City Council declared that the COVID-19 emergency had ended, they continued the “emergency” rent freeze for a full additional year stating that renters needed more “time” to return to normal expectations of paying rent and regular rent increases and, at that time, promised the “freeze” would expire effective January 31, 2024. Now at the 11th hour when the rent freeze was due to expire on January 31st, here comes DSA Council Member Soto-Martinez with this motion that even more “time” is needed for the renters showing NO CONCERN WHATSOEVER for the rental housing providers, most of whom are small mom-and-pop owners, that have been impacted by skyrocketing costs of property insurance, doubling of mortgage rates and related payments, and severe inflation to pay electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters and others to repair and maintain the properties as well as ever increasing costs for trash hauling, sewer, utilities and property taxes. Apparently, Democratic Socialist of America members, including Chair Nithya Raman (who is running for re-election in 2024), believe that owners should pay all these costs and get nothing in return. They do not see rental housing as a small business, but as a societal “charity” that owners should be providing for FREE.
Of course, this is in stark contrast to the City Council and Mayor Bass dolling out $110 million to owners of hotels and motels as “interim housing” and “emergency housing” for the homeless. As well as millions of dollars to bail out the bankrupt Skid Row Housing Trust that is clear evidence that when rents don’t cover expenses buildings become uninhabitable.
Unfortunately, rather than siding with mom-and-pop owners to defeat this ridiculous 11th hour motion, Vice Chair Bob Blumenfield threw rental housing owners under the bus by offering an amendment completely out of the blue to reduce the upcoming rental increase from 7% to 4%, which was seconded by Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson. Even Chair Nithya Raman (DSA) admitted that she did not have the votes in committee for the extension of the rental freeze and Vice Chair Blumenfield himself provided comments that he did not believe such as extension was legal now that the COVID-19 emergency was long over. Rather than letting this horrific motion die in committee, Vice Chair Blumenfield breathed new life into it with his amendment reducing the 7% to 4% so that it will now go to the full City Council where even the extended freeze can be further debated and potentially adopted, potentially snatching victory from the jaws of defeat for the tenant activists and DSA members.
The only bright spots in the committee meeting were that Council Member Monica Rodriguez and Council Member John Lee held firm to the promise made by the City Council a full year ago to end the freeze on January 31, 2024, by voting NO on both the motion from Soto-Martinez AND amendment from Blumenfield. These Council Members clearly show the integrity desperately needed for our City Council.
Now that this item will go to the full City Council, thanks to Blumenfield’s amendment, we need our members to call and email ALL of the City Council members urging them to vote it down. There should be NO FREEZE EXTENSION AND NO REDUCTION to 4%. Our members have had to pay 4 years of unprecedented, increasing costs without assistance from the renters who are the direct beneficiaries of the rental housing. It is time they start paying their fair share based on the existing RSO formula that has been in place for 45 years. Even the 7% is far from making our owners whole after years of unpaid rent due to the eviction moratorium and no rent increases for nearly 4 years. Had our members been able to take even the minimum floor of 3% over those 4 years, they would have received 12% in increases as the minimum. To now suddenly and artificially cut the increase from 7% to just 4% is completely unfair, inequitable and a complete breach of the City Council’s promise to rental housing providers from nearly a year ago. At a minimum, Blumenfield’s amendment should be further amended (by him or Harrison-Dawson, if they truly supports mom-and-pop rental housing providers as they claim, or any other City Council member) to reflect that this 4% is only a one-time “special” COVID-19 ADDITIONAL increase to make up for the 4 years of lost increases and NOT the only increase that owners will be allowed to receive during 2024. Starting July 1, 2024, owners should be allowed to take their “regular” increase as well to get them to a total of 8% or more for 2024, which would still be far below the minimum 12% that was lost due to the almost 4 years of the freeze.
We also encourage our members to give generously to our Political Action Committee (PAC) as many of the City Council members are running for re-election in 2024, including Nithya Raman, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, and Kevin DeLeon as well as our strong supporter John Lee. When this amendment gets to the full City Council, we will see where Hutt and DeLeon stand. However, if we want rental housing providers, especially mom-and-pop owners, to be recognized by the City Council as the unsung small business heroes providing needed rental housing in Los Angeles rather than being wrongfully vilified by radical tenant activists and their supporters who want FREE housing, then we need to make sure that whoever sits on the City Council in 2024 understands that reality.
AAGLA members cannot sit idly by and allow DSA City Council members, fence-sitters or fake friends claiming to be “splitting the baby” to drive multifamily property owners out of business with their bad policies that fail to recognize basic economic realities for small businesses.
Call to Action: Call and Email NOW
We need our members to call ALL of the City Council members urging them to vote it down as well. There should be NO FREEZE EXTENSION AND NO REDUCTION to 4%. We encourage our members to join an AAGLA Advocacy Team TODAY by emailing David Kaishchyan at david@aagla.org.
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