Mayor Signs Bill Demanding Speedy Repairs on Housing

Pledging to provide safe, adequate housing for all of Los Angeles’ renters, Mayor Richard Riordan on Monday signed a law that gives property owners just 48 hours to fix dangerous conditions before the city orders the work done and sends landlords the bill.

“Slumlords take notice: You can pay now, or you can pay later,” Riordan said at a noon news conference. “Every Angeleno has a right to a decent quality of life. Every Angeleno has a right to decent housing. Slumlords must clean up their act.”

City officials estimate that 160,000 rental units in Los Angeles are substandard. The urgent repair program covers “life-threatening” conditions, such as lack of heat or water, exposed wires, raw sewage and collapsed roofs.

Tenants wanting to report a problem must call the city’s housing hotline at (800) 994-4444. Once a hazardous condition is confirmed by a city official, a two-day notice will be posted on the property; if the landlord fails to fix the problem within that period, a government-hired contractor will start work within the next 48 hours.

Owners will then be billed for the work plus administrative costs of up to 40%; if they don’t pay, the city will place a lien on the property.

“This is a critical, critical step in making it much more likely that people who are paying rent month after month have a place that is clean, safe and sanitary,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, one of the law’s most vigorous sponsors.

“This goes a long way in giving notice to landlords who are not doing the right thing that they better do the right thing,” added Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who heads the Housing Committee.

Although officials promised Monday that there would be some proactive enforcement in the new program, only two inspectors are assigned to urgent repair for the entire city. Officials said the current cadre of building inspectors and fire inspectors--as well as 14 new housing department inspectors Riordan plans to hire--will also watch out for urgent-repair situations.

“If there’s a rash of calls, it may take us a while,” Riordan acknowledged.

But Goldberg said that “if it turns out there are a rash of calls and we don’t have enough personnel, we will put more people on it.”

To that end, Svorinich challenged Riordan “to put money where [he is] now putting ink,” by providing additional funds for inspectors and programs to upgrade slum housing in next year’s budget.

The City Council unanimously passed the urgent-repair program last week. It is intended to add new teeth to the city’s Rent Escrow Account Program, which allows tenants in substandard buildings to place their rent in an escrow account to go toward repairs.

Despite losing rent, many landlords whose buildings are in the rent escrow program have still failed to make repairs, which led lawmakers to draft the new program, in which the city will make the repairs rather than wait for the landlords to act.