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Politics
Los Angeles

Proposal to spend $58M from Measure ULA on tenant assistance advances

LA City Council committee votes to pay for emergency rent and legal support

Councilmember Nithya Raman and Mayor Karen Bass
Councilmember Nithya Raman and Mayor Karen Bass (Getty)

One day after Los Angeles tenants faced a deadline to pay pandemic-era back rent, the L.A. City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee on Wednesday advanced a proposal to use around $58 million in Measure ULA funds for a new tenant assistance program.  

“I am very worried about the deadline,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told local media last week, as politicians and tenant advocates cited a potential wave of evictions and new homelessness because of the Aug. 1 deadline. 

The Housing & Homelessness Committee, which voted unanimously to approve the proposal, had been widely expected to give it a green light. The spending proposal will next move to the council’s Budget Committee, and then could be up for a vote with the full City Council. 

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The spending proposal was initiated by Bass and L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman, a strong tenant advocate who chairs the Housing & Homelessness Committee. The plan calls for an $18.4 million emergency fund to pay low-income tenants’ back rent, $23 million to expand a tenant legal support program, $11.2 million for a tenant harassment protection program and $5.5 million for an outreach and education program. 

“My hope is that the impending Aug. 1 rent debt repayment deadline will actually push us to reshape and transform our current system,” Raman said in a statement last week. 

But so far the city isn’t exactly flush with money to make systemic changes. Through July, Measure ULA — the controversial transfer tax on most property deals in the city above $5 million — had collected only $38 million, far below previous estimates, and the tax remains in litigation. The city’s annual budget allocated up to $150 million in spending, an amount Bass has said could be reimbursed from other sources if the tax law is overturned by the courts. 

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Measure ULANithya Raman