In Los Angeles, property rights don’t exist
Kaylee McGhee White
In its bid to become the most poorly run city on the West Coast, Los Angeles extended its eviction moratorium once again — this time because of the seasonal flu.
A motion approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors last week prohibits the eviction of low-income delinquent tenants through the end of January 2023, as long as they claim some hardship related to COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, or the flu. Under the motion, landlords are also prohibited from evicting tenants for causing nuisances or having unauthorized pets. In other words, landlords are being forced to give up the rights to their property and allow renters who won’t respect or pay for it to live there permanently.
There is no reason to believe LA’s eviction moratorium will ever end. The original expiration date of the moratorium was May 31, 2020, and the city continues to find new reasons to extend it. In its motion extending the moratorium into January, for example, the Board of Supervisors suggested that the county should consider extending it into June, just to be safe.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated our housing crisis, and experts fear an ‘eviction tsunami’ is on the horizon if we don’t take bold, swift action,” LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis said last week. “Our families need eviction protections for at least an additional six months.”
This is an egregious abuse of landlords’ rights, and the financial relief the city claims to offer small landlords is not nearly enough to cover the financial losses they’ve suffered over the years as a result of this policy. Supervisor Janice Hahn even admitted as much, saying the $5 million relief program has not “been very helpful to landlords.”
“I do hear a lot from our mom-and-pop landlords who are struggling to pay their mortgages. They’re not getting the money [from our relief programs],” Hahn said.
At this point, landlords in LA should consider selling their rentals. At least that way, they’d have a chance at making a profit.