L.A. Panel Moves to Protect Tenants Who Face Eviction

Alarmed by a sharp increase in eviction notices, a Los Angeles City Council committee voted Wednesday to move quickly with amendments to the city’s rent control law that would broaden the circumstances under which landlords must pay relocation costs for evicted tenants.

The provisions for the relocation costs--which could cost landlords from $1,000 to $2,500 per eviction--were part of a compromise package that won the approval of the council’s Governmental Operations Committee and is expected to go before the full council on Friday.

The recommendations were tentatively approved by the council last December after the city’s Community Development Department had worked out an agreement with tenant and landlord groups modifying the city’s 7-year-old rent control law.

But in the interim, as city staffers worked on drafting the required ordinance, a number of tenants have been served eviction notices in an apparent effort by landlords to avoid having to pay the additional relocation expenses.

“I think that there were some landlords who were concerned that something was going to happen that would affect them financially, and they acted precipitously to evict tenants,” said Barbara Zeidman, director of the city Rent Stabilization Division.

Zeidman told committee members that eviction notices had soared dramatically, particularly in cases in which landlords planned major rehabilitation or demolition, during the two months since the council signaled its readiness to broaden the rent control law.

Citing the increase in such “no-fault evictions,” Councilman John Ferraro, who chairs the committee, sent the package to the council for immediate action. “Both the landlord and the tenant community knew of these pending changes, and I just want to get this law on the books as soon as possible,” he said.

Among the suggested changes are proposals that would require a landlord to pay relocation costs for tenants who are evicted so that a member of the landlord’s family can occupy the unit. The provisions also cover tenants who are displaced because of major rehabilitation or demolishing of the unit or if the housing is to be removed from the rental market.

If approved Friday as an urgency ordinance, the changes could go into effect when Mayor Tom Bradley signs the amended law and it is published. Zeidman said the ordinance would protect tenants who may have been given eviction notices but have not received a final judgment ordering them to leave.

Some of the anxious tenants who have received eviction notices crowded into the committee room Wednesday to urge the council members to approve the amendments.

One of those, 86-year-old Emily Schooley, said she and more than 100 other tenants were told last month that they would have to move out of their Westchester apartment complex.

“I was devastated. It was a shock, and I have not been able to sleep a full night since,” she said.

Altheda Moody, 75, who had lived at the same complex for 22 years, said a lot of her neighbors are elderly and disabled and “panicked” when they received the eviction notices, a theme echoed by representatives of the Legal Aid Foundation and renters organizations.

Although representatives of some apartment owner groups had worked on the proposals, others expressed concern over other changes and warned that it could cause “catastrophic” financial problems for landlords and property owners.