LOS ANGELES — Of the 2,000 units Kari Negri oversees as a property manager, she said they all see higher costs. She is also a landlord and feels they’ve received very little support.

“California has really suffered from insurance [increases]. Insurance has gone through the roof!” she said.

“The amounts that utilities have gone up and repairs and maintenance are in the 14% range,” Negri added.

Los Angeles County’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs (DCBA) is offering grants of up to $30,000 per unit to eligible landlords, with expenses dating from April 1, 2022, through the present. 

It’s being billed as the LA County Rent Relief Program.

“We’re trying to make it work both on the landlord and tenant side,” Negri added.

The program’s administrators say roughly 80% of rental properties in unincorporated LA County are owned by independent housing providers, often referred to as “mom and pops.”

To qualify:

• The rental property must be in LA County, excluding the City of Los Angeles. 
• Unpaid rent must have occurred since April 2022.
• Units must still be occupied by impacted tenants.

But Negri said most landlords couldn’t afford to wait on the county for help.

“This program took a very long time to enact and because of that, I think a lot of people were already evicted,” she said.

The $68.6 million program is specifically designed to help small mom-and-pop landlords who own up to four rental units, and the DCBA said immigration status will not impact eligibility. Priority will also be given to those landlords with the most financial hardship.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the money could have helped even more people if the program had been launched sooner.

“My frustration is this is not money that is feel good, kind of go ahead and fix the windows. This is money that mom and pop landlords are dependent upon,” she said.

DCBA officials said it is pleased to manage the LA County Rent Relief Program, but it has yet to respond about why it took so long to implement it. An LA County audit, requested by Supervisor Bargers and Mitchell, revealed more than four months of delays.

It found the DCBA should have sought direction from the supervisors when it became clear that “discussions among board staff over program design parameters was unlikely to yield timely concurrence.” 

It also found delays because of contract negotiations.

As for Negri, she said she plans to support her landlords as best as possible.

“I have many clients that it is going to affect, and we’re working very hard to qualify those clients,” she said.

She said mom-and-pop landlords play a huge role in keeping housing affordable, but they can’t do it alone.

The deadline to apply is January 12.

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