LOS ANGELES, California - A coalition of housing and tenants rights advocates held a rally and bus tour to call attention to rising rent in the San Fernando Valley and beyond, and the need for a new rent cap for rent stabilized buildings across the city of Los Angeles.

The Keep LA Housed-FIX LA Reality Rally and Bus Tour on Aug. 22 began outside Van Nuys City Hall. The bus tour made stops outside apartment buildings in North Hills and Canoga Park, where rents are slated to be raised and some tenants are facing the possibility of ending up homeless because they won’t be able to pay the higher rates.

Jenny Colon, who has lived in the same North Hills apartment for nearly three decades, said her current rent will likely be doubled in the near future. If that happens, she would be forced to move out and try to find a new apartment she can afford, which she described as increasingly rare.

“He’s yelled at me [and] has had me followed. … He also left me without access to a working toilet for several days [and] when my apartment got flooded, he neglected that as well,” Colon told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol. “There’s a lot of people that have dealt with [similar harassment] and have already been unjustly thrown out onto the streets, and we’re talking about very, very vulnerable communities.” 

Over the last year, tenants have brought lawsuits against a group of real estate developers and property management firms — including several in the Bay Area — alleging that they colluded to push up rents by sharing information using a pricing software made by Texas-based company RealPage.

Now, the Department of Justice is getting involved. On Friday, the Biden administration, alongside the attorneys general of California and seven other states, filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, accusing the company of reducing competition among landlords and taking over the market for such algorithm-based rental software. It’s one of the first major antitrust suits to take aim at a company in the rental housing industry.

“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A coalition of housing advocacy groups on Thursday held a rally and bus tour to speak out against rising rents in the San Fernando Valley and citywide.

"No one wants to live in the street. No one wants to live in the thin line between 'I might have a home today and I don't have a home tomorrow,'" Jenny Colon, a member of the nonprofit Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said at the rally in Van Nuys. She said her rent is due to triple where she lives, an increase that she simply cannot afford.

Colon and other housing advocates visited apartment complexes in the San Fernando Valley where rents are being raised, forcing some tenants to face eviction and possible homelessness due to lack of affordability.

"This just can't stand in Los Angeles. This is not who we are. We need something different," said Rae Huang, who advocates for the homeless at the state level.

LOS ANGELES - In the three years since Los Angeles banned landlords from harassing tenants and made violating the rules a criminal offense, more than 13,000 complaints alleging harassment have been filed with the housing department. About two dozen of those cases were referred by the department to the city attorney’s office. So far, four fines are pending and no cases have been criminally prosecuted.

When it was approved in 2021, Los Angeles’ Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance was touted as a breakthrough for renters’ rights. At a time of rapidly rising housing costs, the rules were meant to protect tenants from being threatened or intimidated by landlords — a tactic advocates say is sometimes used to push people out of rent-controlled homes.

But tenant advocates say harassment has continued largely unchecked in the three years since the law passed, with tenants regularly reporting that their landlords resort to intimidation, illegal eviction notices, threats, lockouts and other actions meant to make their living situations difficult to bear. The thousands of complaints and lack of prosecutions since 2021 are further evidence that the law is weak and needs to be strengthened, advocates say.

At the end of this year’s legislative session, nearly a quarter of the 120 lawmakers will depart and collect their final state paycheck in late December.

Some hope to start in a new elected office next year, while others will return to their previous jobs. But based on recent history, at least one in five will land a job at companies or organizations trying to influence California’s government.

And as CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow explains, it’s possible that some are job hunting while still voting on bills that could affect their prospective new bosses.

• Outgoing Republican Assemblymember Devon Mathis of Visilia: “August is kind of … the interview period. You see people that are trying to shop, you know, for a third-house gig or something like that.”

While legislators are still in office, state ethics guidelines allow voting on bills that could benefit a “significant segment” of an industry as long as it doesn’t deal specifically with their would-be employer. Mathis has started a public relations firm and agreed to work for an energy company, but said he checked with state ethics officials to make sure he wasn’t violating any laws. 

LOS ANGELES - I am 68 years old. I am a grandmother. I am homeless.

I never anticipated that, at this point in my life, I would be living in a hotel and placed on a waitlist, hoping for an affordable apartment to open up so I can finally have a safe and permanent place to call home.

Seniors are the fastest growing demographic of Californians becoming homeless, according to a study released last year by UC San Francisco’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. I am also part of the 80% of homeless seniors who had housing before becoming homeless, whether that was due to loss of income, conflicts with a landlord or California’s high housing costs.

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles City committee Thursday approved permanent program guidelines for homeless prevention and affordable housing under Measure ULA, a real-estate transfer tax.

The United to House LA Citizen Oversight Committee unanimously voted in favor of the permanent guidelines, which will now be forwarded to City Council and Mayor Karen Bass for further consideration.

"Los Angeles' housing crisis hurts all of us, and it requires us to work harder and look farther ahead than we have so far," Laura Raymond, a member of the committee, said in a statement. "Experts say that the commodification of housing drives homelessness in Los Angeles, and the ULA blueprint is an alternative to that, built on proven approaches, and ready to put into practice today."

During public comment more than 25 people spoke in support of the guidelines. Several of these individuals are members of various organizations such as the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the United to House LA coalition, LA/OC Building Trades union, SEIU 2015 and the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, who also held a rally prior to the meeting.

LOS ANGELES, CA - 1932. 1984. 2028.

These are the years that Los Angeles hosted – or will host – the Summer Olympic Games.

Love it, hate it or still deciding, there’s no denying that the Olympics is a part of L.A.’s history and DNA.

Now, as some look ahead to the next four years and L.A.’s plans for hosting the Olympics a third time, it’s also worth taking a look back at the city’s storied relationship with the Games – and some of the lasting impacts that came from hosting the world’s biggest sporting event.

Some residents continue to express hesitation about hosting Olympic competitions in the Valley in 2028. And there are those who oppose L.A. hosting the Olympics at all.

At least two grassroots groups, NOlympics LA and the L.A. chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) are concerned that the 2028 Games could result in the forced roundup of homeless people as the city tries to clean up its streets, knowing that L.A. will be under a global microscope.