With eviction moratorium lapsed, L.A. County moves to pass new renter protections

It’s a familiar scene in Los Angeles County courtrooms: A landlord shows up to an eviction proceeding with an attorney well versed in housing law. Their tenant shows up alone, with eviction filings full of legal jargon they do not understand.

L.A. County supervisors vowed Tuesday to shift the power dynamic, tapping their attorneys to draft an ordinance that would provide certain tenants in unincorporated parts of the county with lawyers during eviction proceedings. The board unanimously approved a motion that gives county staff 10 months to write an ordinance guaranteeing that these at-risk tenants have an attorney helping them navigate the labyrinth of local landlord-tenant law.

“Legal representation is expensive and unaffordable to far too many working people,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who authored the motion alongside Supervisor Hilda Solis.

She noted a disproportionate number of these at-risk renters are Black and Latino, which are the racial groups most likely in the county to be rent-burdened. With the county’s pandemic eviction moratorium lapsing in March, the supervisors said they wanted to be sure these at-risk renters had the legal support they needed to stave off homelessness.

In recent years, more than a dozen jurisdictions — including New York City, San Francisco and Philadelphia — have passed versions of these “right to counsel” laws.

The ordinance would first set up legal services in unincorporated areas, home to roughly 1 million people. The board said it then plans to expand the aid to vulnerable tenants living in the rest of the county — with the exception of the city of Los Angeles, where the City Council is working on its own ordinance ensuring tenants have legal representation.

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Tenant advocates say landlords are much more likely to be represented by a lawyer in eviction proceedings than their renters. A 2019 analysis of 4,200 eviction cases in L.A. County found that approximately 97% of tenants in those cases didn’t have lawyers. Landlords, meanwhile, were unrepresented in 12% of cases.

“Our landlords have more resources, they have more knowledge, and more power than our tenants,” said Rafael Carbajal, head of the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, which oversees the county’s eviction defense services.

Advocates said having no attorney often leaves renters without a defense — no matter how many tenant protections may exist to help them.

“If you can’t assert them as a defense, then you’re going to lose,” said Barbara Schultz, director of housing justice at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Tenants from across the county shared their stories Tuesday of unjust evictions and harassment they felt powerless to stop. A woman implored the board to help her find a lawyer for two court dates in August so she could have a chance of keeping her home of 17 years. A single mother of three said she got an eviction notice last month despite being up to date on her rent.

“I want to fight,” she said in Spanish.

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the sole renter on the board, said she too had once been desperate for legal help so she could avoid an eviction.

Horvath said that while she was the mayor of West Hollywood, she got a text from a neighbor alerting her that an eviction notice had just been posted on her door. She said her landlord claimed she hadn’t paid rent for three months. It wasn’t true, she said, and, ultimately, she avoided the eviction.

“I was horrified. I was embarrassed. I was serving as a mayor of the city,” she said. “And if I hadn’t had friends who had legal training to protect me, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Horvath sponsored a motion Tuesday alongside Solis aimed at stabilizing rent in unincorporated areas. The motion passed unanimously.

While tenants provided most of the testimony Tuesday, a handful of associations argued that the board’s “right to counsel” motion was misdirected and called for a more thorough analysis of how much the ordinance could cost — and whether it would actually prevent evictions.

Max Sherman, with the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said most of the eviction cases playing out in L.A. County courtrooms stem from nonpayment of rent — and therefore are unlikely to be resolved through mediation. He argued a right to counsel ordinance in such cases would only drag out the legal proceedings — not stop the evictions altogether.

“Hiring a lawyer paid by the hour does not change a renter’s ability to pay rent,” Sherman said. “We urge the board to adopt a permanent rental assistance program countywide for renters to pay rent — not lawyers.”

The supervisors said they plan to limit who would be eligible in unincorporated areas to receive the free legal aid, though it’s not yet clear what the requirements would be. It’s also unclear where the county will find the money to make its goal of providing lawyers for all at-risk tenants a reality. An April report by the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs estimated the ordinance would cost $22 million for the first year.

Times staff writer Julia Wick contributed to this report.