LOS ANGELES – Sixty-seven-year-old Julie Arnoff is creating a commissioned piece. 

“This is Simon and I’m painting Simon’s portrait,” Arnoff said. 

RELATED | Culver City Rent Control Saved Couple From Eviction

Her studio is her home, as an original tenant of L.A.’s Santa Fe Art Colony. 

“I’ve lived here for 31 years, ever since the beginning of this place” said Arnoff. “It was awesome, we were all young happy artists expressing ourselves being in the art world, and sharing with everybody, sharing dinners and food and having critiques.”

But in April the colony was given notice of an average rent increase of 137 percent, effective November 1.

The news has dealt what could be a fatal blow to the colony, causing it to disintegrate.

“It’s been really tough, it hasn’t been fun, most of my friends have moved out. I don’t have that interaction with the people anymore,” said Arnoff.

Arnoff, who was notified that her rent could increase by more than 200 percent, could be next. 

“I don’t know what I would do if I had to move somewhere else,” she said, choking back tears. “It’s just really hard with all the stress and all the things that are happening and to not be happy even here.”

Arnoff’s kidney failed in December, so she is on dialysis. Her rent is $680 a month, so the $1,000 she gets from social security and disability is just enough to pay for rent and food.

“I see it all over the place, where all these people are human beings and they work hard and they can’t afford to pay the rent, and it’s heartbreaking, it’s really heartbreaking,” Arnoff said.

Weeks ago, her landlord, The Fifteen Group, which declined to comment on our story, offered some of the tenants a deal: get a much lower rent increase if they signed a lease within a few days. Arnoff agreed to it, so her rent is set to go up 50 percent in the next few days, but she says, she still won’t be able to afford that:

“It’s too much for me because I don’t have the money coming in to be able to pay that,” Arnoff said.

Built with subsidy money and converted to residential in 1988, the art colony doesn’t meet the city’s guidelines for rent stabilization; and the statewide rent stabilization ordinance AB 1482 doesn’t go into place until January 1, 2020. So, in the meantime, the city is working on drafting legislation that would protect Arnoff and others like her.  

“That’s what I’m learning to do, is just accept what is going on and do my best,” she said.

Arnoff says, even in the middle of the storm, there is always a silver lining: 

“Good news! I talked to my dialysis people today, and they are listing me for a kidney very shortly so I’ll be on the list,” Arnoff said.