Los Angeles tenants forced to make tough decisions about paying rent

Sabrina Johnson is a personal trainer who until March worked in gyms and in clients’ homes. When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered people to stay inside and forced the closure of many businesses in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, gyms were among the first to be shuttered.

As April 1 approached, Johnson, an active member of the L.A. Tenants Union, knew she would come up short for the $1,134 she pays for her apartment in Koreatown. She wrote her landlord a letter before the rent came due, giving it to on-site landlord representatives and preparing another for her building manager, who comes by every month to collect rent checks.

She’s following the advice of the city and tenant advocates for renters impacted by COVID-19, but Johnson is still worried she’ll have to fight to stay in her home.

“I’m terrified,” Johnson said on Wednesday. As of Friday afternoon, she hadn’t received a response from her landlord and the building manager hadn’t come by to ask for her rent.

“I do not know what to expect,” she said.

The city, county, and state have implemented some measures to protect renters, homeowners, and small businesses as entire industries have been put on hiatus to curb the spread of the virus. In the city of Los Angeles, landlords are not allowed to evict tenants who have been impacted by COVID-19 and are unable to pay rent.

“Angelenos should be focused on staying healthy, staying safe, and staying at home—and I don’t want anyone who’s hurting financially as a result of this virus to be worried about losing their home or basic necessities,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said last month.

But many renters are very worried.

Even the act of writing a letter to your landlord—which the city and tenant advocates advise tenants to do when they can’t make their rent—leaves room for uncertainty that breeds anxiety. Will they respond? What will they say? What happens next?

And because the most recent version of the tenant protections afforded to Angelenos by city law was only just signed into effect by the mayor on Monday, many tenants and landlords are still figuring out how to navigate uncharted territory.

Tenants at a building in Los Angeles Councilmember David Ryu’s district, which includes Sherman Oaks, Toluca Lake, the Hollywood Hills, and Hancock Park, received a letter from their landlord full of “false and misleading information” about their rights if they were unable to make the rent, Ryu said.

In the letter, the company, ROM Residential, told tenants that all their rent would be due immediately following the end of the local emergency period declared by the mayor last month—and that they needed to sign a “rent deferral agreement” within five days.

Under the city’s rules, tenants are required to pay back the rent they owe, but they have 12 months to do it, starting when the local emergency period expires. Tenants are not required to sign a rent deferral agreement.

The ROM Residential agreement also included a number of odd stipulations, including one that required any money received from the government or charity “related to the pandemic” be given in full to the landlord.

The letter contained so many inaccuracies, it “can only be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate tenants into not exercising their rights,” Ryu wrote in a letter to the property owner.

Advocates have warned that the absence of a blanket moratorium on evictions in Los Angeles—which would stop any evictions for any reason, period—left loopholes for people to be pushed out of their homes.

On March 27, a proposal for a full eviction moratorium failed by one vote of the Los Angeles City Council. That type of moratorium would have covered nonpayment of rent from a person who lost their job—but couldn’t prove it.

At the meeting, Los Councilmember Mike Bonin warned that protections in place now “only feels like a moratorium to people inside of government,” and that many tenants would be removed from their units through other means.

“Some will be negotiated out by their landlords, others will be intimidated, others will be locked out,” Bonin said.

Even when landlords are adhering to local laws, tenants are left with tough decisions.

“I’m kind of trapped here,” says Lori, a bartender who asked not to use her full name because she did not want to strain her relationship with her landlord.

“I can’t afford to move out, but I can’t really afford to stay here either,” she says.

After a week of being told by her boss that there were so few customers she didn’t need to come in, the safer-at-home order shuttered her workplace. Lori says her last paycheck was $500—less than one-third of her rent. She wrote a letter to her landlord via the property management company, which asked her for proof of her lost income (which the city ordinance does not require tenants to provide) and inquired whether she was able to pay anything at all.

She has filed for unemployment, along with more than 1.6 million Californians in the last three weeks, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, and it’s unclear when that money will come through.

While she has some money saved, it’s not enough “to live and pay rent indefinitely” without new income.

“What I’m not going to do is struggle to give [my landlord] all my money and get kicked out anyway,” she says.

Correction: An earlier version of this story, citing the housing department’s website, said landlords could ask tenants to show proof of loss of income. The department has since updated its website to clarify that tenants are not required to show proof of loss of income to their landlord. Still, they are encouraged to retain that documentation in case it’s needed in court.