LA Councilwoman Nithya Raman pushes just cause evictions

On Dec. 13, ahead of the first City Council meeting of Karen Bass’s mayoral tenure, more than a dozen tenant and housing advocates gathered with signs and banners on the steps of City Hall. They were joined by Nithya Raman, the progressive Central L.A. councilwoman who has positioned herself among the city’s strongest tenant advocates.

“I’m here to stand with you to make sure that they hear the voices of renters in this city,” Raman declared into a microphone. “And to make sure that we are pushing our hardest to make sure that these crucial protections are passed before we lift this state of emergency.”

The council member was speaking of the city’s eviction moratorium, which is slated to expire in February. After being enacted at the onset of the pandemic, the city of L.A.’s moratorium — to the ire of many local property owners — has ranked among the longest and most comprehensive of any in the United States; in October the council voted to phase out the protections after January 2023.

The phase out means landlords, who have long argued the city was unfairly sacrificing their livelihoods, will once again be able to evict tenants for unpaid rent, even if the tenants have been impacted by Covid-19. Tenants who have accumulated rent debt during the pandemic will still have a grace period of at least several months to pay down the debts, however.

“We are learning to live in this new normal,” Councilman John Lee said at the time. “The moratorium has served its purpose, and now it is time to move on.”

As she laid out this week, Raman, however, is fighting to implement three core additional protections ahead of the February expiration date. They include a universal “just cause” requirement for evictions, relocation assistance for displaced tenants and a minimum overdue rent threshold that would have to be met before landlords could initiate eviction proceedings.

“So many of us are missing a few days of work,” Raman said at the rally. “Are we going to kick people out of their housing because they owe pennies?”

The universal just cause addition would be particularly significant. The requirement is already in place for the city’s rent-controlled apartments, which represent a majority of all city units. The addition would expand it to nearly 400,000 additional units, according to advocates.

Raman, a professional urban planner who began chairing the council’s Housing Committee after Gil Cedillo resigned in the wake of this fall’s racist tape scandal, has been pushing for the increased tenant protections, which would come through a council vote, for weeks.

Last week’s meeting was clouded by protests and disruptions over the presence of Councilman Kevin de León, who has refused to resign from his position despite the racist tape backlash. The council still managed to approve a signature homelessness emergency declaration by Bass. The council next meets in January.

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