LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council approved new tenant protections for renters now that the rent moratorium, put in place during the start of the pandemic in 2020, ended this week.

The moratorium allowed renters to skip paying their rent, without having to worry about being evicted by their landlord. It protected people during the pandemic from becoming homeless and helped incentivize people to stay home to stop the spread of the virus.

Now close to three years since the start of the pandemic, the city is ending one of the last remaining moratoriums in the country. 

City Council member Hugo Soto-Martínez, the only renter on the council, led the effort for the new tenant protections.

“I’m very proud to represent the 70% of the residents of the City of Los Angeles who are renters. And it just truly shows who is making these laws,” Soto-Martínez said.

The Council member joined Amrit Singh on “Inside the Issues” to discuss what the new protections mean for the many renters in the city.

“This is going to be good because it’s going to stave off the increase of homelessness,” Soto-Martinez said.

The council instituted three major tenant protections: universal “just cause,” relocation assistance, and a rent-debt threshold.

The rent-debt threshold is around $1,400, so any tenant who is behind any less than that can not be evicted.

The relocation assistance applies to units built in the last 15 years. It works so if a tenant decides the rent increase the landlord implements is too high, the landlord has to cover three months of fair market rent as well as provide $1,400 for moving expenses.

The universal “just cause” applies to all apartments built after 1978 that are not Rent-Stabilized Ordnance units. 

“It basically means the landlord has to have a reason to evict you. Many times it’s just at the discretion of the landlord,” Soto-Martínez said.

The new protections are not without critics, as many landlords have pushed back on the rules for creating barriers and impacting their ability to get qualified tenants in their units.

“There is no landlord I know who wants to get rid of a good, well-paying tenant,” said Daniel Tenenbaum, the Founding Principal of Pacific Crest Real Estate. “What they’re doing here is making it harder for us to get rid of tenants who are causing problems, often that are impacting other tenants.”

While the Council member understands the concerns of landlords in the city, he called for a need to work together to find an equitable solution.

“Let’s find a way to protect the mom and pops. I understand they’re not the corporate landlords of the City of Los Angeles. Let’s figure out a way to help those folks out… but it shouldn’t be pitting landlords against tenants,” Soto-Martínez said.

Soto-Martínez also announced the fence around Echo Park Lake will be removed, an action he promised to do during his City Council campaign.

“When I see the fence, I, like many Angelenos, agree that [the fence] is a symbol of the largest failure of homelessness policy. We’ve wasted over $2 million, we brought in over 400 police officers, and when it was all said and done, we had such a small number of people housed,” Soto-Martínez said.

The fence was set up in March 2021 to keep out the over 200 homeless people living in encampments in the park. 

“We want to make sure we have a safe park. That’s why we hired three full-time homeless team members in our office,” Soto-Martínez said. “So when someone does show up to the park, we will have the experts and the people ready to address those folks and make sure we get them housing.” 

There is no set date for when the fence will be removed.

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