As a community advocate, Joe Delgado has learned to expect dysfunction from the city of Los Angeles.

For months, he and others with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment have been trying to get help for hundreds of Black and Latino tenants living in slum-like conditions at the Chesapeake Apartments, a sprawling complex in the heart of the L.A. City Council’s 10th District.

“They’ve identified potentially 160 units that have lead exposure where kids are living,” Delgado told me. “And there has not been any action taken to come and do blood testing to make sure these kids don’t have permanent brain damage.”

California is demanding that thousands of tenants and landlords who were approved for emergency rental assistance during the pandemic return the money — often months after it has been spent — sometimes for vague or unspecified reasons.

California está exigiendo que miles de inquilinos y propietarios a los que se les aprobó una asistencia de emergencia para la renta durante la pandemia devuelvan el dinero —a menudo meses después de haberlo gastado—, a veces por razones vagas o no especificadas.

In April, Juan Carlos Cruz Mora received an eviction notice from his landlord that alleged he caused property damage and dirty, unsafe living conditions in the Sacramento suburb duplex he had called home for the last 10 years. He had only five days to file a response in court.

Mora, who blamed his landlord for those issues, tried to file an answer with the court himself but feared a mistake could land him, his wife, and his two young children on the street. He said he paid a lawyer $1,000 to help.

“With one word I could lose the case,” he said in Spanish.

In April, Juan Carlos Cruz Mora received an eviction notice from his landlord that alleged he caused property damage and dirty, unsafe living conditions in the Sacramento suburb duplex he had called home for the last 10 years. He had only five days to file a response in court.

Mora, who blamed his landlord for those issues, tried to file an answer with the court himself but feared a mistake could land him, his wife, and his two young children on the street. He said he paid a lawyer $1,000 to help.

“With one word I could lose the case,” he said in Spanish.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued recent legal guidance in response to a rise in illegal eviction lockouts along with a call for law enforcement to intervene.

Nearly 1.5 million renters in California are at risk of eviction. In San Diego County, the Legal Aid Society said it is seeing a surge of people who have been evicted by their landlords illegally.

About six weeks after a Sacramento woman called the city to report code violations at her rental home, she came home to find a letter taped to her door.

Yanika Gilbert, 39, and her nephew, 15, had just three days to get out of the south Sacramento house or the landlord would file eviction paperwork at the courthouse, the letter said. With nowhere to go, the pair did not leave.

The eviction is now underway. If they have to go, Gilbert said she will not only become homeless, but also could lose custody of her nephew Dimitris Gilbert, who’s been in her care for the last decade.

Citing “numerous” reports of illegal evictions throughout the state, California Attorney Rob Bonta on Wednesday took steps to make sure law enforcement officers are working to prevent tenants from losing their homes without a valid court order.

Illegal or “self-help” evictions take many forms, including a landlord changing the locks on someone’s home without authorization, shutting off the water or electricity in an attempt to force a tenant out, or removing a renter’s personal property, Bonta said during a virtual media briefing. In an effort to stop those breaches of law, Bonta issued legal guidance that lays out a law enforcement officer’s responsibility to intervene.

Since last spring, California has passed along federal aid to hundreds of thousands of low-income renters who faced debt and possible eviction because of the pandemic. But the state has also denied funds to nearly one-third of the applicants, sometimes with little explanation, and a judge says he will prohibit housing officials from denying any more rental-assistance applications while the legality of their actions is under review.

Although it’s not clear whether the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development has improperly rejected applications to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or failed to adequately explain its rejections, the hardships of any wrongdoing fall entirely on the renters rather than the state, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said at a hearing Thursday.

OAKLAND, Calif. - A judge has ruled the California Department of Housing and Community Development must stop denying applications for COVID-19 rent relief money, amid a lawsuit filed by tenants’ advocates, who argue the state has unfairly withheld money from low-income renters.

Tenant advocate groups sued the state alleging it wrongly denied tens of thousands of applications, failed to provide adequate reason or explanation for denials, and did not provide a proper appeals process.

An Alameda County judge has ordered the state housing department to pause denying applications for pandemic rental assistance after tenant advocates filed a lawsuit alleging officials have unfairly withheld aid from struggling renters.

Advocates contend the state’s $5.2 billion emergency rental aid program has failed to give tenants enough opportunity to appeal denials and has discriminated against some Latino and Asian renters by providing application information only in English.

When Irene Maldonado became pregnant with her second child four years ago, she and her husband realized they could not continue living in San Francisco if they wanted to provide a home big enough for their growing family.

They eventually moved into the Bissell Avenue Apartments in Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood. But while the two-bedroom apartment’s $2,000 rent was more manageable, Maldonado, who works as an enrollment specialist for social services, questions whether living in the complex is worth even that much, complaining of allegedly faulty plumbing, dirty red carpet lining the outside stairs, crumbling kitchen and bathroom cabinets, deteriorating balcony supports and an unresponsive maintenance staff.

California cannot reject tenants’ applications for COVID-19 emergency rental assistance after a renter lawsuit raised questions about whether the state program meets constitutional standards.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge on Thursday ruled the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) can’t deny pending applications for rent relief “until the court can determine if HCD’s process meets constitutional due process standards,” according to a Western Center on Law and Poverty news release.

California’s recently expired pandemic eviction ban didn’t prevent nearly 36,000 households from being hit with eviction lawsuits last year.

The data comes from the most recent annual report by the Judicial Branch of California and underscores the limits of state efforts to mute the pandemic’s effects on financially vulnerable residents. Renter advocates fear it’s also a preview of evictions to come after two years of upheaval in one of the country’s most expensive places to live.

El programa de protección contra el desalojo de California, calificado como incompleto y defectuoso, venció este viernes primero de julio.

Ante esto, activistas señalan que debido a que el programa de alivio de alquiler vencido no puede proporcionar fondos para cubrir el alquiler atrasado desde marzo, al menos un millón de inquilinos de California enfrentan un futuro profundamente incierto y el potencial de desalojo y falta de vivienda.

Following weeks of inspections, Los Angeles County officials have identified numerous health hazards in a sprawling South L.A. apartment complex owned by mega-landlord Mike Nijjar.

Tenants at the Chesapeake Apartments have long complained about pests, mold and sewage leaking into their homes. Now, the county’s Department of Public Health (DPH) has substantiated their complaints.

Un día de abril, Lenora Jackson volvió a casa de su empleo como trabajadora del Estado en South Oak Park y se encontró con el administrador de la propiedad en la puerta de su casa, pidiéndole las llaves.

Estaba tratando de desalojarla por una infestación de chinches. Temía que perder su casa, la cual rentaba desde 2017, la obligara a quedarse sin hogar y a vivir en su camioneta.

“Da miedo porque tengo muchos problemas médicos”, dijo Jackson, de 55 años. “No tendría a dónde ir”.

SACRAMENTO — A limited three-month extension to California’s eviction moratorium is scheduled to expire on Thursday at midnight, despite opposition from tenant advocates who say the state still hasn’t done enough to keep renters housed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers in March moved the eviction moratorium’s expiration date from April 1 to July 1 for California tenants who’d applied for the state’s rent relief program by the end of March. That extension also afforded the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development more time to work through a backlog of applications and disburse payments to thousands of renters who still hadn’t received aid.

Lenora Jackson came home in South Oak Park from her job as a state worker one day in April to find her property manager standing outside her house, asking for her keys.

He was trying to evict her because of a bed bug infestation. She feared that losing her home, where she has rented since 2017, would force her into homelessness and to live in her pick-up truck.

“It’s scary because I have a lot of medical problems,” said Jackson, 55. “I would have nowhere to go.”

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Rent relief eviction protections in California are set to expire.

But, more than 85,000 renters are still waiting for their rental assistance applications to be reviewed. 

Community-based organizations, including the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, are taking action to protect tenants.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, renters shared their experiences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Several speakers said they are still waiting on rent relief from California's Emergency Rental Assistance Program and now face eviction.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California rent relief eviction protections expire at the end of June, potentially negatively affecting the tens of thousands who are still waiting on a response or money from the state’s COVID-19 emergency rental assistance program.

Dozens of tenants tell KTVU they fear losing their home, despite applying, meeting income eligibility, submitting necessary documents, and waiting months for approval of relief payments from the state.

"I’m pretty sure I’m going to be out on the streets," Los Angeles renter Mario Martinez said. "The landlord has been more than patient and working with me through all of this and I just keep telling him to hold on, it’s coming."

Pese a que miles de inquilinos aún están a la espera de una respuesta a su solicitud de alivio para pagar sus rentas atrasadas, el 30 de junio terminarán las protecciones contra los desalojos de familias que han aplicado para el programa de asistencia de alquiler de emergencia de California (ERAP).

Es por eso que a dos días de que se venza la fecha límite de las protecciones que evitan los desalojos, hicieron un llamado urgente a los líderes electos del estado para que aprueben protecciones permanentes que frenen la creciente crisis de vivienda que impacta a las comunidades de color y a los trabajadores pobres.