"Rent Freeze and Eviction Moratorium  

In response, amid the one-week anniversary since the devastating wildfires ignited, more than 30 community organizations and advocacy groups called for a county-wide eviction moratorium to physically and economically protect and safeguard renters in the county during and after the fires.  

The Keep LA Housed Coalition, made up of organizations including CHIRLA, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), ACT-LA, T.R.U.S.T. South LA, Legacy LA and Latino Equity Alliance, among others, are demanding L.A. County entities such as the L.A. Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles Superior Court, the L.A. County District Attorney's Office and the L.A. County Sheriff Department to use their respective and expanded powers during a state of emergency to create and institute clear and uniform eviction protections countywide, as well as to prevent spikes in rents and price gouging.

“This is a devastating time for all of Los Angeles. The wildfires have displaced thousands of residents, destroyed homes and caused significant economic losses,” said Nancy Villanueva, lead organizer with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE Institute), a national organization supporting Indigenous leadership development, policy creation and civic participation and who is part of the Keep LA Housed Coalition. “At the epicenter of this are working-class people who are coming forward in need of urgent assistance as they face a range of challenges. Many people did not only lose their homes; they lost their jobs; they lost their economic security.”

"The Imperial Beach City Council Wednesday proposed a set of new tenant protections in response to a mass eviction at the Hawaiian Gardens apartment complex in October.

The ordinance, introduced during the Council’s regular meeting, would restrict substantial remodel evictions — a specific type of eviction that many tenants and their advocates say is enabling the displacement of longtime residents. It would also require landlords to report eviction data to the city.

The ordinance would not ban substantial remodel evictions outright. It also does not include an emergency halt on any ongoing eviction cases, something many tenants had hoped for.

That means dozens of renters at the 64-unit Hawaiian Gardens building are still facing eviction. Many have already been forced to move out and seek housing elsewhere."

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- In honor of International Migrants Day, local organizations and hundreds of people rallied in downtown Los Angeles in an act of solidarity with immigrants, who fear President-elect Donald Trump's promised plans for mass deportation.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights led attendees for a 1.5-mile march, rallying at Placita Olvera, 125 Paseo de la Plaza. Participants headed toward the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center, located at E. Aliso St. and N. Alameda St., culminating with a program.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network will gather participants at L.A. City Hall at 4 p.m., followed by a march toward the ICE detention center at 5 p.m. Mexican and Latin American bands, Los Jornaleros del Norte, Los Cadetes de Linares and La Sonora Dinamita, will perform, starting at 6 p.m.

Labor, faith and social justice organizations such as SEIU 721, SEIU USWW, SEIU 2015, UTLA, CARCEN, Korean Resource Center, ACCE, Community Coalition, and many others joined CHIRLA for the march.

Pastor Stephen "Cue" Jn-Marie of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, and Suyapa Maldonado of ACCE served as master of ceremonies.

The Los Angeles City Council approved 11 guidelines this week developed by Measure ULA, a 2022 ballot initiative known as the “mansion tax.” 

The measure took effect in April 2023 and has subsidized housing development, helped seniors stay in their homes and funded attorney services for renters facing eviction. It has also helped keep affordable housing from reverting to market rate. 

Maria Gonzalez, a resident of South Los Angeles and member of T.R.U.S.T. South LA, has already benefitted from Measure ULA. She said a few months ago, she and her family were about to lose their apartment, but with the rental assistance program provided in the first round of ULA programs, she was able to save her home. 

“That gave my family and me the ability to stay put and no longer fear the possibility of being evicted or unhoused,” said Gonzalez. “I’m so grateful, not only for us but for the thousands more who will stay housed because of these funds and protections.”

Maria Briones, another tenant from Los Angeles, said ULA’s protections have saved seniors from becoming homeless while creating better options for renters.

Joshua Lopez is putting up his Christmas lights early this year. But he doesn’t feel like celebrating.

Lopez lives with his mother, Rosa Perez, at a small apartment in Imperial Beach. His two-year-old nephew, who Perez watches on weekdays, was sad when Halloween ended. So, even though it was still mid-November, Lopez and Perez decorated their tiny kitchen with lights and tinsel in hopes of cheering him up.

At the same time though, Lopez, an elementary school special ed technician in Chula Vista, is rushing to figure out whether this will be his family's last Christmas in that apartment, where they have lived for 11 years.

Evette Gilard’s skin itched so badly that it woke her one night in early 2019. When she searched her apartment, she discovered a thick rind of black mold in the threshold of her bedroom closet, and another in her hallway. There had been an apartment fire upstairs months earlier, and Gilard supposed that water damage from the firefighters had caused the mold. She knew that her little subsidized one-bedroom in Antioch, California, was not exactly a luxury condo, but now she feared for her health.

The next morning, Gilard told the property manager, who sent a maintenance man with a bleach-filled spray bottle. Knowing that bleach can spread mold on porous surfaces, she turned him away and appealed to the manager to give the problem more serious attention. Meanwhile, she was still living in the apartment, and her symptoms were getting worse. “My skin was changing, my voice was changing,” Gilard told me. “My hair was falling out.”