LAX Leader

Proposal to Provide FREE Private Attorneys to Renters Facing Eviction

At the Los Angeles City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee meeting on March 1st, the Committee rushed forward with its ill-conceived plans to hire private attorneys for renters facing eviction (known as “right to counsel”) to drag out an already stressful, long and costly process to remedy specific renters’ failure to pay their rent.  Rather than the City simply assisting with paying the rent directly for the renters who need the City’s financial assistance and avoid the eviction process entirely, Democratic Socialist and Chair Nithya Raman (representing District 4 that includes Sherman Oaks, Encino, Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake and Studio City and who is running for re-election in 2024) and Vice Chair Bob Blumenfield (representing District 3 that includes Woodland Hills, Tarzana, and Winnetka) apparently believe it is far better to line the pockets of private attorneys.  Chair Raman and Vice Chair Blumenfield seem to be thinking, “Why bother paying for housing that has been provided when you can shower taxpayer funds on your private attorney friends?”

It was no surprise that a speaker from Stay Housed LA, which is a joint program between the City and Los Angeles County formed for the primary purpose of educating renters on their rights is now ratcheting up their new bureaucracy by advocating to hire an army of new private attorneys to provide full legal representation to renters.  Stay Housed LA does not seem content in its current role having provided outreach to nearly 285,0000 renters with only limited scope legal representation to 4,529 and full legal representation to 976. 

Apparently, Stay Housed LA finds their current role as educators not sufficiently lucrative or otherwise they would be asking the City to provide funding to hire additional “advisors.”  Of course, hiring more advisors would be far cheaper and help far more renters than hiring new private attorneys for a select few.  If Stay Housed LA wants to expand its services to address individual disagreements between renters and rental housing providers, it would be a far better, less costly and financially responsible approach for the City to pay for a new voluntary mediation program to preserve a positive relationship between renters and housing providers and reach mutually satisfactory resolutions.

Equally unsurprising was a speaker from the Los Angeles Right to Counsel Coalition representing many of the legal organizations that would greatly and directly profit from this new program, including BASTA.  BASTA is the same organization that is notorious for corrupting and weaponizing the legal process to extort outrageously extreme settlements from independent, “mom-and-pop” owners desperate to remove a problem renter (a/k/a, professional squatter).  It is equally unsurprising, although deeply disturbing, that the motion from Chair Raman and Vice Chair Blumenfield has no safeguards whatsoever against such wrongful conduct by private attorneys under their new program.  So basically, the City is hiring the equivalent of legal thugs on behalf of renters using taxpayer dollars.

While the City has no money in hand to pay for this program, no data to support unjustified claims of “wrongful evictions” in Los Angeles, no cost estimates (despite pointing to San Francisco’s program that has existed for 5± years), no Citizens Oversight Committee established or program guidelines created, and no analysis on whether this program would be any more effective than merely using the same funding to pay the rent that is owed, the five City Council Members on the Housing & Homelessness Committee unanimously passed this motion, which will now go to the full City Council for consideration.  The one small sliver of light was given by City Council Member John Lee who obtained a concession urged by the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles to at least include rental housing providers as part of the discussion as the new “right to counsel” ordinance and program are being created.

What was surprising is that Democratic Socialist Chair Raman shut down public comment in less than an hour despite many people still waiting to speak by phone.  This is very undemocratic, as is the fact that this Committee continues to refuse to allow the public to attend in-person and speak.  Keep in mind that the full City Council has been open to the public for several weeks with in-person public comments.  So why is Chair Raman running her Committee in a more secretive fashion?  Is she afraid that people will see that she is forcing through radical motions like this one, where she had initially tried to pass this through as part of a group “consent” vote with NO discussion whatsoever?

For our members that don’t like the outcome from this Committee meeting, we urge you to TAKE ACTION NOW by calling and emailing your City Council Members before this “right to counsel” motion goes to the full City Council for consideration.  We also urge you to give generously to the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles’ Political Action Committees and Legal Fund to have voices on the City Council that reflect your views. Please visit: https://aagla.org/contribute/.

Original source can be found here.