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Title: LA's COVID-19 Response Should Prioritize Long-Term Rent-Stabilized Tenants for Housing Assistance
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2020
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Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown hundreds of thousands of Angeleno households into financial turmoil, with low-income renters among the most vulnerable. The faltering economy means that state and local governments are facing massive revenue shortfalls and must make difficult choices about who to prioritize for assistance. In this brief I argue that Los Angeles should prioritize support for long-term residents of rent-stabilized housing, for three reasons: 1. Long-term rent-stabilized tenants are among the poorest households in the city, putting them at greater risk of losing their homes due to economic disruption. 2. Because many are poor and at risk, households who are displaced may place a substantial burden on social services at a time when we can least afford these costs. 3. Monthly rents for long-term tenants are low, on average, so it’s relatively inexpensive to provide assistance and preserve these rent-stabilized units at below-market rents. The city of Los Angeles has about 600,000 rent-stabilized units — units where once a tenant moves in their rent can rise by only about 3% each year (Phillips, 2019). Santa Monica and Beverly Hills have similar programs, as do about a dozen other cities in California. California rent control programs are subject to “vacancy decontrol,” meaning that landlords can raise rents to market rates when new tenants move in. Because market rents increased by an average of more than 3% annually over the past decade (Fleming, 2019), tenants who have lived in the same unit for many years are often paying considerably below market rents.
Url: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1zv0m2gn
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Phillips, Shane
Publisher: UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Housing and Segregation
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