Renters in the city of Los Angeles face a big deadline this week. If they don’t repay all of the rent debt they accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic by Thursday, they could be evicted.
Feb. 1 marks an end to the city’s long-running eviction protections for delayed payment of rent due to the economic fallout brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
With evictions in L.A. already well above pre-pandemic levels, city outreach workers and nonprofits are now scrambling to prevent another spike. And new data is pointing them to the doors of tenants most at risk of losing their homes.
The data guiding these efforts comes directly from the L.A. Housing Department. In January 2023, the city council passed new rules requiring landlords to tell the city each time they initiate the process of trying to evict someone.
In the past, the city had no idea who landlords were trying to evict. Since February 2023, L.A.’s unique mandate has provided the city with an up-to-date view of which addresses are getting hit with eviction notices. City outreach workers are now using that data to track down renters and offer them help before they become unhoused.
“This targeted approach, where we’re able to go door-to-door, definitely helps us to find the people who need it the most and who may have otherwise slipped through the cracks,” said Nick Diaz, a canvasser with the office of L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez.
When COVID debts come due
L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia analyzed the new eviction notice data and found that from February through November, landlords sent more than 71,000 notices to L.A. renters. About 96% of those notices were for overdue rent, and the average amount of rent owed was $3,760.
On Feb. 1, renters will have to pay any remaining debts from the months of October 2021 through January 2023. Renters who missed payments from March 2020 through September 2021 already faced an earlier deadline last August to repay that chunk of pandemic debt.
After Thursday’s deadline, L.A. renters will no longer be protected for any missed rent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Struggling tenants have already begun to receive three-day notices to pay or move out for rent missed in more recent months. Diaz, the canvasser with Soto-Martinez’s office, said proper door knocking etiquette is key to get stressed-out renters to open the door. Knocking too aggressively might scare them. But a gentle, neighborly knock often does the trick.
“They can come look at me through the little peephole in the window and see I'm just a person here to chat, not like a cop,” Diaz said.
‘I feel like I’m drowning’
The city controller’s analysis reveals that Soto-Martinez’s district — which covers Hollywood, Silver Lake, and parts of Echo Park — has seen the highest number of eviction notices aside from Councilmember Kevin de León’s district, which covers Downtown L.A., Boyle Heights and parts of Northeast L.A.
In one Koreatown building, Diaz knocked on the door of Cella Pippin. Her landlord gave her an eviction notice after she fell behind on her rent. Pippin said her income declined after she sustained injuries while working for meal delivery apps.
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- Tenant rights experts urge you to act fast. You can start by reading LAist’s guide to finding a lawyer, which can make a huge difference in your case.
- If your landlord has filed an unlawful detainer (eviction case) against you in court, you have five business days to respond. If you don’t have a lawyer yet, tenant advocates recommend using TenantPowerToolkit.org to file a response in the required timeframe.
- The city and county of L.A. fund an organization called Stay Housed L.A. that provides legal advice and connects tenants with pro-bono attorneys. Tenants can submit requests for help through their website, StayHousedLA.org.
“I've been in a state of anxiety for the past three months that's been overwhelming,” Pippin said. She worries that she and her teenage daughter may soon have to live in her car.
“I'm a single mom trying to make it work here,” she said. “And I feel like I'm drowning.”
Pippin said she’s still waiting on the city to deliver the rent relief she applied for. L.A.’s rent relief program has $30 million available to clear pandemic debts, but the city had only distributed $7.9 million as of Monday afternoon.
The city council voted last week to keep eviction protections going for any applicant who has been approved, but is still waiting for funds.
Face-to-face conversations uncover other problems
The city council passed the new eviction notice filing requirement in January 2023 as part of a package of new tenant protections, including expanded eviction safeguards and a new restriction on evictions against tenants who owe less than about one month’s worth of rent.
Landlords lobbied against those new protections, and landlord advocates such as eviction attorney Dennis Block have said the filing mandate unfairly advantages tenants in court.
But the data has proven useful to outreach workers. Tenant advocates in L.A. are now able to track down renters within days of their landlord serving them an eviction notice. In other cities across Southern California, this kind of targeted outreach is impossible.
L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office receives regular updates on the addresses in her district where landlords have served eviction notices. Using this data, Raman staffer Jeremy Tramer then heads out to meet renters face-to-face. At times he has to dial randomly on a building’s intercom before someone lets him inside.
On a recent rainy afternoon, Tramer met with a woman in Encino who had about $20,000 in pandemic rent debt. She told him about a persistent cockroach problem in her apartment that her landlord refuses to address.
“She was telling us about all her kids having bug bites,” Tramer said. “As we were talking to her, there was a cockroach on the wall. She pointed to a cockroach just on the wall like 2 feet from me.”
Tramer explained her rights and how to file a complaint with the city’s housing department. The tenant didn’t want to be interviewed for this story. But Tramer said her experience is all too common.
“It's discouraging that there are just cases like this, and that we're not going to get to everyone,” he said.
‘There is help for tenants’
Some people aren’t home. Others are reluctant to open the door.
LaBomba Jackson with We Are L.A., a program of the nonprofit Mayor’s Fund for L.A., said the goal is always to reassure tenants that they don’t need to face an eviction alone. There are pro-bono lawyers who can help, and groups that can sign applicants up for various public assistance programs.
“Once the resident actually kind of realizes that, then they tend to open up,” Jackson said. “We have different tools that we can share with them that help them go through that process. That kind of eases their mind.”
Jackson and his team recently headed out to buildings in Hollywood hit with multiple eviction notices. They eventually came to the doorstep of Josephine Zarate. Her family recently received a notice for being a few days late on rent.
“We were just super nervous and worried,” Zarate said. “We have two pets, two babies and us. And we don't know where to go if we get kicked out or something.”
Zarate said they never had trouble paying when they were living in a three-bedroom apartment in Tennessee. Now they’re paying almost $600 more for a one-bedroom in L.A. She was still worried about the future, but felt a little better after meeting these strangers at her door.
“At first, it was a little intimidating,” Zarate said. “But after they started talking about what they do, it just made me feel a little relief. Like, oh, there is help for tenants.”
Zarate said her family is all paid up for now. But if they end up falling behind again, she now knows who to call.
