Contribution from a Mar Vista resident

We haven’t been displaced…yet. Despite having RSO (Rent Stabilization Ordinance) protections, which are many, and are much stronger than in most cities in California—it’s looking hard to avoid getting kicked out of our home of 20 years. Just before the holidays, the triplex that we’re in (essentially a house divided up into three units) began escrow, and assuming escrow closes, the new owners’ intention is to become owner-occupants, an approach to uproot tenants that appears to be one of the few not protected by RSO status.  

The new owners, who are, almost needless to say, buying the building under an LLC, will need to file their intentions with the city, specifically the L.A. Housing Department (LAHD), and we would then be assigned an agent to take our information and shepherd us through the process, the primary point of concern being what our payout (‘relocation assistance’) will be, but also would hopefully provide an opportunity to challenge the stated intentions of the new owners vs. their actual intentions. Do they really plan to live in the three pre-existing units, as we were originally told, or is it actually an Ellis Act eviction, a frequently executed strategy on the Westside of L.A.,  in which the owners claim to be taking the units off the rental market, but often simply results in a gut renovation and the units then put back into circulation at market-rate or above rents. If the new owners don’t acknowledge their intention to apply the Ellis Act to the property (or don’t actually move into all three units), but do so anyway, our only recourse appears to be to challenge our illegitimate removal – in this case officially a “No-Fault Eviction” – after the fact- when we’ve already gone through the process of dealing with the giant headache of moving, especially massive because of the things we’ve accumulated over all this time, along with the attachment to the neighborhood; the routines; the proximity to Culver City, Santa Monica and the rest of the Westside and the temperate climate that we, like you, have come to take for granted.

One of the most frustrating realities of our situation is that, despite my being a member of the LA Tenants Union (Westside LATU chapter) since 2019, which through time and osmosis has taught me quite a lot about housing rights and housing laws—there doesn’t appear to be anything LATU or any other local grassroots organization can do to stop this displacement train. I reached out to a former Westside LATU member who’s also a lawyer working with Los Angeles Center for Community Law And Action (LACCLA), and he said there’s no apparent reason they can’t move into the units, though he hadn’t heard about such a case; this was confirmed by another former Westside LATU member who also works at LACCLA, who wrote me that “as long as the 3 people are moving in are the actual owners (not their children, grandparents, etc.) then it does appear to me to be legal for them to each move into one unit each… That’s not to say that you shouldn’t fight it or try to find loopholes in it, but on its face it’s not an obviously illegal move.” Those loopholes have yet to be found. One of our tenant neighbors has a young adult child who is legally disabled; that may slow things down a bit, or at least provide them (though not us) with a significantly higher relocation amount, but it’s absolutely no silver bullet. Of the local tenant’s rights orgs whose lawyers I’ve been able to ask questions of, I’ve felt the most confident about SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy), where I also received some encouragement from the contact person on the phone, and subsequently what seemed a better understanding of the law and the dynamics with LAHD from one of their lawyers (SAJE was already an organization I respected and admired, in particular for their research into how private equity has made such a devastating impact on affordable housing). I was told they could help us with preparation in representing ourselves should we choose to go to trial; it’s not clear whether we would be fighting for the highest possible payout, or staying in our home (if we’re able to find that elusive loophole), but either way, neither SAJE nor any of the local tenant’s rights orgs will be representing us, and that also includes Stay Housed LA, which is actually partnered with LAHD but only takes on tenants in more urgent eviction circumstances, and only in a partial list of zip codes that definitely do not include 90066 or any others on the Westside.

If and when we are displaced (no-fault evicted) from our long-term home, we will be faced with market-rate rents (there was a phenomenon, back in the day – which is to say when L.A., and the country for that matter, wasn’t so financialized to the hilt – when there were actual deals to be found). In the Zillow era, landlords can easily gauge what their unit can go for. In lieu of such outmoded opportunities of the past, we will likely be looking at increasing our current rent by at least 40% for a not-quite-comparable apartment. Ground-level triplexes are exceptionally rare, so we would likely be looking at a lower-end garden apartment or a multi-story building that will likely leave much to be desired compared with what we have. Beyond that potential reality is what could be argued is the greatest injustice: one in which we’re at best likely to get a very small fraction of what our unit is worth: according to the LA Tenants Union’s RSO Buyout Calculator (aka ‘How Much is Your Rent-Stabilized Unit Worth?’), our buyout fee estimate – factoring in annual RSO rent increases, current rent, and market costs…brace yourself – should be : $654,726. 

We would be happy to get that kind of payout. But the potential new owners will be happy to depend on the drastically low standards that LAHD offers for such owner-occupancy scenarios. We would most definitely not be happy with that. We need a loophole…or a lawyer. Ideally both.