LA Tenants Have Until Aug. 1 to Pay 18 Months of Back Rent

The hourglass is running out for Los Angeles apartment tenants to pay rent owed during the first 18 months of the pandemic.

Under a tenant protection package passed early this year, tenants have until Aug. 1 to repay the debts incurred between March 1, 2020 and Sept. 1, 2021, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

About 100 people led by the Keep LA Housed Coalition gathered in Downtown Los Angeles this week to call upon Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council to cancel rent debts or provide further protections for tenants who can’t pay back rent.

They said lingering struggles from the pandemic, coupled with inflation and L.A.’s high cost of living, make it nearly impossible for many to pay their debts. If no further actions are taken to prevent landlords from removing tenants come Aug. 1, eviction filings will soar.

Tenant rights advocates said $20 million in voter-approved Measure ULA funds should be set aside for a rental assistance program, but the program has yet to launch.

“The pipeline to homelessness — it starts with eviction. And it starts with high rents and a high rent debt,” René Moya, an organizer with Debt Collective and a member of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, told the Daily News. “We must act now before this crisis gets worse.”

Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said tenants have known for nearly three years they would need to repay back rent.

“During that entire time, some have not made any attempts to repay their obligations, and simply have waited around for some miracle to make a large, lump sum payment, which they are unlikely able to do,” Yukelson told the Daily News in an email. “It is time for the city of Los Angeles to stop babysitting these adults.”

The city’s tenant safeguards expanded universal “just-cause” eviction protections to hundreds of thousands of apartments and single-family homes, preventing Los Angeles landlords from arbitrarily evicting tenants.

A spokeswoman for the city’s housing department said it aims to launch a short-term rental assistance program in September.

Yukelson said landlords were “left powerless” against non-paying tenants and were taken advantage of during the pandemic. There were instances, he said, where landlords didn’t receive rent payments while their tenants bought new cars, went on vacations and even bought properties.

“Rather than extending the payment deadline,” he said, “it is time for the city to step up and cover the rent that has gone unpaid. Housing providers did not shut down businesses and put people out of work.”

Under city tenant protections, tenants have until Feb. 1 to repay rent owed from Oct. 1, 2021 to last February.

— Dana Bartholomew