L.A. to Fight Ruling on Housing Subsidy
Los Angeles City Council members voted Friday to appeal a decision by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that outlawed a city policy aimed at preserving low-income apartments.
In August, Judge E.A. Fajardo struck down a city ordinance that imposed financial penalties on landlords who stop accepting federal housing subsidies from low-income tenants.
He found that the city law was pre-empted by a similar but much less strict state law.
If that decision were to stand, housing advocates said, as many as 67,000 people could be forced from their apartments.
“We will take this appeal and fight it to the greatest extent possible,” said Cecilia Estolano of the city attorney’s office. “It is important to protect these vulnerable tenants.”
Craig Mordoh, of the California Apartment Law Information Foundation, called the ordinance unconstitutional and said he was confident the association would prevail.
“The city went beyond what the state did, and I don’t think the city had the authority to do that,” he said.
The ordinance, which the City Council passed in 2002, is intended to keep landlords from abandoning the Section 8 housing program, under which participants pay about 30% of their income in rent and the federal government pays the rest.
Supporters of the law said some landlords with Section 8 apartments were seeking higher rents on the open market and refusing to accept housing vouchers from tenants. Without the subsidy, tenants would be forced to pay the full rent or move out.
Under the city ordinance, any owner who terminated or failed to renew a rental assistance contract with a Section 8 tenant could not demand that the tenant pay the full contract rent, but could only demand the portion paid by the tenant.
The Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles challenged the law, arguing that it denied owners a fair return on their rental property, was an invalid exercise of the city’s police power and constituted an illegal taking of the owner’s property without proper compensation.
Fajardo ruled that a state law already addressed the issue. The state law, according to legislative history, was created to “close the loophole to prevent landlords from arbitrarily terminating their Section 8 tenants in order to get a decontrolled unit,” Fajardo wrote in court documents.
The state law requires landlords leaving the Section 8 program to give tenants 90 days before they must pay higher rates.
The dispute comes when the Section 8 programs in the city and county of Los Angeles have suffered setbacks. Budget problems, fueled by cutbacks at the federal level, have forced agencies to freeze the number of new vouchers issued, reduce subsidies and increase the portion of the rent paid by tenants. Rod Field of the L.A. Housing Law Project said many families could face eviction if the court decision stands.
“We’re talking about ... a lot of people here,” he said. “Thirty thousand contracts. I think a lot of these landlords are going to want more money, which will put more people out on the street. Just look at the Sunday real-estate section. The market’s just insane. It’s like $1,200 for a one-bedroom apartment now.”
