Los Angeles City Council is planning to allow landlords to raise the rent 7-9% in all RSO apartments — two thirds of the apartments in the entire city!
278,000 households in Los Angeles are behind on rent. Eviction filings in LA County have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, with more than 4,000 per month. Homelessness in Los Angeles has increased by 9% in the past year.
Does this seem like a good time to raise the rent?
For the past three years, rent increases in buildings protected by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance have been illegal. If you live in an RSO-protected building, you shouldn’t have gotten an increase since before the pandemic. But since the city has declared that the emergency period is over, they plan to allow landlords to raise the rent again — this time between 7 and 9% — starting February 1, 2024.
Tenants across Los Angeles, especially poor and working-class tenants, cannot afford a rent increase.
If L.A. City Council doesn’t act to prevent the rent increase, tens of thousands more tenants who are barely holding on will become unable to pay the rent and will face eviction and homelessness.