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LOS ANGELES — The county Board of Supervisors directed its attorneys to draft an ordinance Feb. 3 that would make it harder for tenants in unincorporated areas to be evicted, by requiring that renters be at least two months behind in fair market rent before landlords can begin eviction proceedings.
The current county eviction threshold is one month.
“I understand that with this proposal, I am going to face pushback from both sides — tenants advocates who don’t believe I am doing enough, and landlords who think I have gone too far,” Supervisor Janice Hahn, who introduced the motion, said in a statement after the board’s 4-1 vote. “This is a modest but necessary increase. With this additional month, I hope we can give families some breathing room while not putting the entire burden on landlords who depend on rental income to pay their own bills.”
The motion directed county attorneys to draft an amendment to the Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance enacted in 2022 in an effort to reduce homelessness. Attorneys are expected to return to the board with the proposed ordinance within 30 days.
Hahn and motion co-author Hilda Solis noted that financial pressure on tenants has increased in recent months in part due to sweeping federal immigration enforcement efforts that have discouraged some people from going to work, and harmed businesses that have lost customers and workers.
Some tenants’ rights activists, including members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, pressed the board to do more than enacting a two-month threshold, pushing for a three-month threshold that would be in effect for renters not just in unincorporated areas, but also within cities in the county.
In response to that call, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath introduced a motion during the meeting that the board will consider next week, asking that the eviction threshold be raised instead to three months, and that it be applied countywide. The move would be taken under the auspices of an emergency declaration approved by the board in October in response to immigration enforcement crackdowns.
“Families are forced to choose whether their limited income should go towards food, basic needs, medical expenses, or housing,” Horvath wrote in her motion. “The county can alleviate the pressure that these families are feeling by authorizing emergency stabilization measures to protect households from losing the roofs over their heads.”
Horvath’s motion drew applause and cheers from tenant-rights activists who attended the board meeting.
The motion to extend the eviction threshold to two months of fair market rent was opposed by Supervisor Kathryn Barger. She did not speak on the issue during the meeting, but she has in the past expressed concern for the impacts rising tenant protections have on landlords — particularly smaller “mom-and-pop” building owners — who could be left unable to pay their mortgages due to an inability to collect rent from tenants.
According to Horvath’s supplemental motion, the current fair market rent in the county is considered $2,085 per month for a one-bedroom unit, and $2,601 for two bedrooms.
