The progressive mantra, as articulated by former Chicago mayor and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, is, “You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste.” From the beginning, many such policymakers seized upon the COVID-19 pandemic crisis to implement new measures, mostly through “state of emergency” orders, which they could previously only dream about.
As the pandemic comes to an end, we see them racing to squeeze in a few last-minute priorities (like eliminating $500 billion in student debt). We also see them locking in measures supposedly put in place solely because of the pandemic, such as mail-in voting.
The Los Angeles city council just locked in another such measure. At the end of this month, policies that were put in place during the pandemic to ensure people were not evicted from their homes were set to end. Those protections had been extended multiple times. As years of back rent piled up, landlords could do nothing. But now it’s been three years, and the economy has been fully reopened for over a year. So there simply is no longer a justification for the moratorium.
Rather than continue the ruse that the ongoing protections were about fighting the pandemic, the city council, emboldened by the November elections cementing its progressive base (not only is there not a single Republican among its 15 members, there was not even a Republican on the ballot), decided to make the bulk of them permanent.
Even the liberal Los Angeles Times called it a “dramatic expansion of tenant protections,” which “underscores the growing political might of the council’s progressive bloc.” Among the most significant measures passed, the council voted to require that landlords have “just cause” before evicting a tenant. This applies to every landlord in L.A., whether it be of a multimillion-dollar mansion, a high-rise apartment, a mom and pop duplex, or a room over the garage.
For good measure, L.A.’s new mayor, Karen Bass, fresh off declaring a state of emergency over the city’s homeless problem, used that crisis as a basis for the new ordinance. She called it “crucial to combatting a potential spike in homelessness in our city.” (This continues the narrative that the homeless problem is about affordable housing, not that Los Angeles stopped enforcing its no camping laws.)
It follows the classic playbook of the left: Government creates a problem (tens of thousands living on the streets because L.A. stopped enforcing its laws), then seeks to solve it by bigger government (a complete takeover of the city’s rental housing market).
The first preamble to the new ordinance states that Los Angeles is “experiencing a rental housing shortage.” But how does making evicting tenants more difficult address this? Landlords already do not typically evict someone without a good reason. Why evict a good tenant who pays the rent on time? By making it an ordinance, and a complicated one at that (it contains fourteen pages of various rules, requirements, and notice provisions) it means that every eviction is a potential lawsuit.
Prove to the court, landlord, that you truly did have a good reason to evict the tenant. And if the reason is a lease violation, you better show that the violations were documented and the tenant was warned. Unauthorized pets? Prove it. Too many people in the unit? Prove it. Disturbing neighbors by being too loud? Prove it.
For good measure, it makes a violation of the ordinance a crime! Oh, and all that back rent that has accumulated from the last three years during the COVID eviction moratorium while tenants were living rent free? Not to worry, the council has provided them until as late as February 2024 to pay much of it, with no interest!
Now under consideration is another ordinance which mandates that landlord’s pay for the relocation of a tenant who decides to leave because they determine a rent increase is too high. There is no indication this council plans to limit itself in any way in determining how rental business may be conducted in Los Angeles, demonstrating zero humility over the barrage of recent corruption allegations, from blackmail and kickbacks to racist statements caught on tape, resulting in numerous arrests and resignations.
The ordinance demonstrates simple-minded political thinking: make it harder to evict, have fewer people without homes. But what the new law will actually do is make housing less affordable and harder to obtain. Landlords will have to pass along the additional costs to the tenant in the form or rent increases and/or not doing various tenant improvements. It will discourage housing development, also driving up price. Why build housing in L.A. and deal with all these restrictions when you can build in a city next door?
It will also make it far more difficult for low-income residents to rent an apartment. If a landlord knows he cannot freely evict a tenant, naturally that landlord will be extremely careful about to whom he rents. The landlord likely will demand an impeccable credit score and a demonstrated ability to pay, plus references, something lower income people will not have.
It is the same concept in employment. Most states, including California, maintain “at-will” employment, meaning the employer does not need a reason to terminate an employee. This wisely allows employers to freely hire people knowing that if it does not work out, they can easily fire them. Take away that protection and employers become far more cautious and job seekers find it much harder to obtain a job offer.
History has proven that attempts to centrally control an economy always fail. Sadly, L.A. is now simply in the midst of becoming the latest example.
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