ONE BIG THING: CAPPING THE RENT AT 3%
What Happened?
The Housing & Homelessness Committee met this week to start considering a proposal to cap rent increases at 3% for every rent-stabilized tenant in the city.
Why it Matters
This could determine the rent next year for you and 1.1 million of your neighbors who live in rent-stabilized units in LA.
The Context
Our current system was designed over 40 years ago and allows rent increases up to 10% depending on the year and type of unit.
Even when inflation is ZERO, landlords can still increase rents by 3%! Because of that, rent hikes have outpaced inflation in 23 of the past 30 years.
The Impact
This has a disproportionate impact on the same people that represent the fast group of unhoused residents in the city: seniors.
Take a senior in 1986 who might pay $500 of their $600 Social Security check on rent. With inflation and our current system - their Social Security in 2020 would be $1,430, but their rent would be $1,610.
Instead of having 20% of their Social Security check to spend on other essentials, now it’s not even enough to cover rent. It's more than just unfair - it’s unsustainable.
What’s Next?
The Housing & Homelessness Committee will meet again as soon as October 15 at 2pm to consider this issue, and we encourage you to come in-person to provide public comment and make your voice heard.
In the meantime, follow @keeplahoused on Instagram for updates and actions.
Three More Quick Hits
- Coming Soon: A Bike-Powered Street Sweeper
Our Access to Hollywood bike lanes are making it safer and easier to get around Hollywood, but trash and leaves can often build up along the gutters creating a safety hazard, and traditional street sweepers are too big to fit in the bike lanes.
To fix this, we’re teaming up with Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) to welcome a first-of-its kind bike lane street sweeper that will be powered by an e-bike.
This icon will be cleaning the bike lanes of Hollywood Blvd twice a month, but we need your help in naming our newest representative of clean and safe streets! Click here to help name Hollywood Boulevard’s new electric bike lane sweeper – you can submit your name before Wednesday, Oct. 8th!
Then, join us on Saturday, October 11 for the unveiling and naming ceremony for our new friend!
- Living Wage for Construction Workers
This week, we introduced a motion asking for a report on increasing the Construction Worker Minimum Wage to $32.35/hour, plus guaranteed health care.
Construction has some of the highest rates of wage theft and injuries, in large part because 40% of construction workers are undocumented. If we’re going to build at the scale we need to solve the housing crisis, we need to build the workforce to match.
Under the proposal, the wage would increase with inflation, apply to mid-size residential projects, and exempt projects already under prevailing wage or project labor agreements.
- How Blue Cities Can Push Back Against an Authoritarian Power Grab
As the federal government shuts down and Trump declares war on our cities, we joined Councilmembers from Chicago and DC to write about how grassroots organizing at the local level all across the country is the best way to resist this authoritarian power grab.
Click here to read the full op-ed and read below for an excerpt.
As local elected officials, we can’t rely on the old playbook to meet this moment — we need to fight with every tool we have, and create new ones. We must drive more people to join rapid response networks in our communities to protect our neighbors from being arrested or disappeared without due process. We must diminish the surveillance infrastructure from our cities that share data with ICE and other federal counterparts. We must show up to accompany constituents to immigration court. We must urge our mayors and governors to balance our budgets without removing critical support to our immigrant neighbors. And we must strategize around all of these efforts with local governments and community organizations across the country, so that we can most effectively fight the intrusion of the federal government on our right to govern ourselves.
During a time when our norms and rights are under attack, local governments can’t fall back on our usual way of doing things: We have to establish new norms. In the absence of action from Congress, it’s up to local communities to reinforce the constitutional rights of our people and to do everything we can to resist the erosion of those rights.
CD13 Pet of the Week
Meet Nitro, our Pet of the Week!
Looking for a pup who can keep up with you after your morning cup of coffee? Look no further -- his name is Nitro after all!
This energetic German Shepherd is full of love, zoomies, and personality.
Nitro is currently in shelter at North Central and needs a foster!