When Bell Gardens resident Monchis Curiel acquired a discover final yr from her landlord that rent for her three-bedroom condominium would greater than double the subsequent day — from $1,200 a month to $2,500 — she was shocked.
Curiel, 47, has lived within the metropolis for greater than three a long time and knew her landlord was required to give not less than 60 days’ discover for such a big improve. She determined to battle the transfer in courtroom and received. And as a result of her landlord didn’t need to pay the relocation charges beneath Los Angeles County’s rent stabilization ordinance, Curiel was provided a one-year lease at her unique rent.
Curiel, a single mom of 4 who earns about $14,000 yearly, mentioned that if she hadn’t identified her rights as a tenant, she would’ve been compelled to transfer out.
“I would’ve separated my kids from my family. They would’ve gone to their father, and I would probably be sleeping in a car,” she mentioned. “What I cared about is that my kids had a roof.”
After preventing her eviction, Curiel joined tenant advocates looking for a rent control regulation in Bell Gardens. On Aug. 22, the City Council voted unanimously to advance a rent stabilization ordinance that might restrict annual rent will increase to 50% of the native client worth index, capping the hike at 4% even when the inflation fee is increased.
Rent control has lengthy been a device to protect individuals from being priced out of their properties. But with California’s rents rising amid a scorching actual property market, extra cities are turning to the protections. This has received reward from tenant teams and opposition from condominium homeowners’ organizations, which have been crucial of the Bell Gardens plan.
Last week, the Antioch City Council handed a similar rent control ordinance that caps annual rent will increase within the Bay Area metropolis at 60% of the CPI or 3% — whichever is much less. On Aug. 1, Pomona’s City Council set a rent cap at 4% or the change in CPI.
Santa Ana adopted a rent control ordinance in November, limiting will increase to 3% per yr or 80% of the change within the CPI. The metropolis of Oxnard capped rent will increase at 4% per yr in April. And in November, Pasadena residents will vote on their very own rent control measure.
Some California landlords had been allowed to bump their rent beginning Aug. 1 by as a lot as 10%, the utmost annual improve beneath Assembly Bill 1482, a statewide regulation handed three years in the past. But the ten% cap applies solely to complexes constructed earlier than 2007 and people not subjected to rent control restrictions, which means that different landlords can elevate their rents even increased.
Cities and counties throughout California have additionally handed native ordinances defending in opposition to no-fault evictions. AB 1482 protects tenants who’ve lived of their flats for not less than a yr.
Bell Gardens City Manager Michael O’Kelly mentioned the town’s ordinance wants a ultimate vote, scheduled for Sept. 12. If authorized, it might take impact 30 days later.
“Rents in [Bell Gardens] and throughout Los Angeles County continue to rise, and although the city has lower rents relative to surrounding communities, many local residents — particularly low-income households — struggle with paying for rising housing costs and meeting other basic needs such as food, transportation and healthcare,” he mentioned.
Lupe Arreola, government director for Tenants Together, a statewide renter advocacy group, mentioned that in accordance to the latest U.S. Census data, about 44% of California renters are spending greater than a 3rd of their earnings on rent. She additionally famous that about 75% of single moms and 64% of single fathers are renters.
“When you have a single parent raising an entire family on one income, any increase in expenses could be destabilizing and also could mean the difference between the wealth being in the family [or it] could mean eviction,” she mentioned.
Arreola mentioned growing rents usually are not maintaining with wages, which may lead to evictions and “irreparable harm.”
“It’s not just an economic issue but definitely one that has to do with equity and community safety and health, and makes it so that children are at the center of the decisions our community makes,” she mentioned.
About 78% of Bell Gardens’ residents are renters, in accordance to knowledge from the Southern California Assn. of Governments. And about 64% of households within the metropolis spend 30% or extra of their gross earnings on rent.
Among these dwelling in Bell Gardens, about 96% are Latino and not less than 26% of the inhabitants is in poverty, in accordance to U.S. Census Bureau knowledge.
“Even pre-COVID and pre-inflation, people were having trouble paying their rent,” mentioned Susy Herrera, communications director for California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, one of many teams preventing for rent control in Bell Gardens. “People were definitely working multiple jobs, and COVID really exacerbated that.”
Herrera mentioned by the group’s organizing efforts, she’s heard from individuals who hope rent control will likely be carried out of their cities.
Not everyone seems to be in favor of the control measures.
Daniel Yukelson, government director of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, opposes all types of rent control and mentioned the Bell Gardens ordinance “went well beyond anything even close to ‘fair and balanced.’ ”
“On the heels of moratoriums on evictions and challenged rent collections over the past two-plus years, and now unprecedented inflationary pressures, property owners will never be able to keep up and will leave the business,” he mentioned.
Yukelson mentioned rent control legal guidelines additionally may damage tenants by locking them into rent-stabilized models.
“They are less likely to give up their below-market rental unit to purchase property of their own, to take a better job opportunity out of the area, and they often stay in place long after the usefulness of their rental unit has ended,” he mentioned.
California’s first experiences with rent control started throughout World War II amid excessive emptiness charges and the slowdown of development within the aftermath of the Great Depression. The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 managed the costs of products and providers, together with rent.
The statute was phased out a number of years later, and California noticed an uptick in tenant advocates through the Nineteen Seventies, one other interval when inflation was excessive. More than a dozen cities have some sort of rent control, together with Los Angeles, Inglewood, Palm Springs, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, San Francisco, Alameda, Berkeley, Hayward, East Palo Alto, San Jose and Los Gatos, however tenant advocates say they nonetheless expertise rent will increase.
Santa Monica, for instance, was one of many first California cities to undertake rent control in 1979, however Santa Monica Rent Control Board member Anastasia Foster mentioned legal guidelines throughout the state have been hampered by the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. It bars rent control on condos, single-family properties and buildings constructed after 1995, and prohibits “vacancy control,” permitting landlords to elevate the rent to any worth for a brand new tenant after the earlier one has moved out.
Foster pushed again on the notion that landlords received’t see sufficient return on their investments due to rent control legal guidelines.
“Even if there’s a pinched year or moment in time for the entire economy, which includes landlords, the effect felt is not the same,” she mentioned. “There are tenants who have to make decisions between paying for groceries or for medication. I don’t think buildings worth millions of dollars are the same level of risk as our tenants.”
In November, Santa Monica voters will resolve whether or not to tighten their rent control guidelines to restrict will increase to not more than 3% a yr. Under present rules, tenants can obtain a 6% improve.
The spate of latest native rent control measures runs counter to failures to develop the coverage statewide. California voters twice rejected initiatives to develop rent control by almost 20 proportion factors in 2018 and 2020 after $100-million-plus campaigns through which landlord teams outspent supporters of the initiative by greater than 2 to 1.
A nationwide eviction ban was carried out through the pandemic in 2020 to stop tens of millions of evicted tenants from doubtlessly spreading the coronavirus once they had to transfer out. The Supreme Court rejected a problem by landlords in June 2021 to raise the federal eviction moratorium however allowed the protections to expire in August 2021 by blocking President Biden from extending it for 2 months.
Curiel mentioned she began working with Unión de Vecinas de Bell Gardens, a group group related to California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, to attempt to move rent control within the metropolis so no different renter has to endure what she went by.
“This has changed the city of Bell Gardens,” she mentioned. “It’s history. In none of these years that I lived here was anything ever done for us tenants until we picked up our voices and united. We accomplished this big victory.”
Times employees author Liam Dillon contributed to this report.
