EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct a title and adds detail on what supporters say the tax measure would fund. (Oct. 19, 2022)
LOS ANGELES — When Los Angeles resident Ve’ona Rogers moved into her apartment more than seven years ago, she wasn’t expecting to amass so much paperwork.
“This is just from this year,” she said, flipping through binders full of documents from the management company.
Rogers used to live in transitional housing but is now in a rent-controlled unit with three of her children, providing much-needed stability given that she also suffers from lupus. But after taking legal action earlier this year against the management company in a dispute over living conditions, she started tracking every notice and email and learned the value of getting help.
“Right to counsel gives us the ability to put our emotions to the side and allow the lawyers to protect us as advocates,” she said.
Through her work as a community organizer, Roger says she knew which coalitions could provide legal help and educate her about tenant rights.
“Had I not been, I would have been evicted and, typically, moved out onto the streets in a camper, which is normal right now in Los Angeles, California or I would have been pushed to the desert,” she said.
Rogers says she feels fortunate she found resources other vulnerable tenants who are in danger of losing their housing could benefit from the proposed Measure ULA.
If passed, Measure ULA, or United to House LA, would place an additional tax on commercial and residential property sales of over $5 million. The measure would raise $600 million to $1.1 billion dollars a year, and supporters say 70% of funds would go to affordable housing and 30% of funds would protect vulnerable renters, including seniors and people with disabilities, by providing emergency rental assistance and eviction defense services.
Cynthia Strathmann, Executive Director with the economic justice nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, says those protections are much needed for low-income renters who don’t often know their rights and could end up on the street if they’re faced with eviction or landlord harassment.
“Part of the purpose of this initiative is to help people avoid ending up on the streets in the first place, so they don’t have to find new housing, so they aren’t part of the homeless population because once you become homeless, it’s very hard to re-house people,” she said. “And homelessness is expensive. It’s expensive for the government who has to field all kinds of extra services for homeless folks.
But opponents say the proposed tax may be passed onto tenants in the form of higher rents. However, the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies disputes this in a recent study.
Rev. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, opposes the measure because he says a similar effort through Proposition HHH to fund affordable housing hasn’t been effective. “It’s long delays and then very expensive units per person like as much as $600,000 to $1 million on those units and once those units are built, the alcohol and drugs freely flow,” he said.
Under Proposition HHH, 3,357 affordable housing units have been completed, with another 5,320 under construction. Bales worries Measure ULA will lead to the same, slow pace of development and says there is an urgent need for shelter now. “To build immediate shelter and innovative, immediate affordable housing like mobile homes or 3D-printed concrete homes or container homes at a much-less cost per unit and then focus on recovery or at least a sober environment where people can become productive,” he said. Supporters of the measure point out part of the tax will fund innovative, immediate forms of permanent affordable housing.
Spectrum News 1 reached out to LA City mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso about where they stand on the measure, but neither responded.
As for Rogers, she says the measure gives renters like her some breathing room.
“If I miss my part of the rent because I’m sick, like I’m sick right now and can’t work, it would also give me some protection,” she said.