Is California's Housing Plan Missing the Mark?
The state's lawmakers are working on ways to address its affordable housing crisis, but advocates and academics say they're not going about it in the best way.
by Natalie Delgadillo - Wednesday, August 9, 2017
California is in the grip of a housing crisis. The median price of a home in the state is $500,000, more than twice the national average. Its poverty rate is the highest in the nation, even while wages remain relatively high. And homelessness is spiking in cities as rents have skyrocketed.
"Not only are [people] losing their homes, they're displaced from their neighborhood, forced out of their city and eventually out of the state because they can't find housing," says Larry Gross, executive director of the Los Angeles-based
Coalition for Economic Survival. "If L.A. opened up its Section 8 waiting list [which is currently 11 years long], there would be 800,000 people eligible for Section 8 housing.
That should give you an idea of the kind of crisis we are facing."
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Evictions From Rent-Controlled Apartments in L.A. Double
by Dennis Romero - Friday, July 28, 2017
Amid L.A.'s peak housing crisis
certain legal evictions from rent-controlled apartments in Los Angeles have more than doubled compared with the same time last year, according to the nonprofit
Coalition for Economic Survival
. 
A state law known as the Ellis Act allows owners of apartments regulated under the city's rent-stabilization ordinance to get out of the rental game and convert to condos or tear down their structures and start anew. The latter is what most of the landlords have been doing in recent years, says the coalition's executive director, Larry Gross.
The organization found 638 Ellis Act evictions through the first half of 2017. For the same time last year, there were 294.
A map of such evictions can be seen here. "We're losing seven units a day," Gross says. "We're facing an emergency. Every unit on that
map, every one of those dots, represents families whose lives have been totally disrupted."
In some cases, he says, people are ending up on the streets. The evictions correlate, Gross says, to the rise in homelessness in the county, which has seen a 23 percent increase since last year. "One way you have to deal with homeless people on the street is to get them in homes," he says. "But if you don't shut off the faucet
and the water keeps running - people being pushed out of homes and out to the street - there's no way we're going to truly address homelessness in the city."
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A Fix For LA's Housing Crisis - Repeal the Ellis Act
by Peter Dreier - Thursday, July 27, 2017
The
Coalition for Economic Survival, a venerable tenants rights group in Los Angeles, in conjunction with the San Francisco-based Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, just released
a web-based interactive map , showing where the
 22,132 rent stabilized affordable units have been destroyed in Los Angeles from 2001 through June 30 this year due to the Ellis Act.
The project reveals that in the second quarter (April-June) of this year alone, landlords and developers filed 638 Ellis Act eviction applications. This is the equivalent of losing seven apartments a day, or 212 units a month, covered by the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) . This loss of affordable housing is more than double the 294 rent controlled units lost to the Ellis Act in the first quarter (January - March) of this year.
"The housing crisis facing Los Angeles is one of the most severe in the nation," said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival. "With this map, which we continue to update, we are able to visually see how the Ellis Act has ravaged our city's affordable rent controlled housing stock. Unfortunately, we are also able to see how the evictions are increasing and spreading across Los Angeles making it way into more and more neighborhoods."
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LA's Rising Rents Could Force 2,000 Into Homelessness, Study Says
by Elizabeth Chou -
Thursday,
August, 2017
Rent-control advocates have grown louder in recent months in calling on city officials to balance efforts to build more housing with laws that maintain existing affordable units.
"I'm glad (Zillow) put this out - we see reports every day, the numbers are clear" said
Larry Gross, executive director of
Coalition for Economic Survival, a group that has been pushing for an update to the city's rent-control laws.
"What's not clear is how we're going to address this crisis," he said, but added that a "strong rent-control law is part of the solution," along with the calls to increase housing.
Gross argues that the city's rent-control laws are too weak, and evictions are increasing. Additionally, the rents still rise "too much," even under the existing laws, since landlords of rent-controlled apartments are still guaranteed at least a 3 percent rent increase per year, he said.
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CES in the News in China
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Six-figure Salary Needed to Rent "Average" Two-Bedroom in Five Largest U.S. Cities
"Los Angeles renters are extremely burdened and are having a difficult time  making ends meet," Larry Gross, executive director for the Coalition for Economic Survival told the LA Weekly website Wednesday. "Because of rents, people are forced to double up and triple up with roommates."
According to LA weekly the median individual income in the country's second largest city was about 28,000 dollars, resulting in an affordability crisis for many.
"There are not enough hours in the day for most people to earn enough money to afford an average apartment here," Gross said.
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What are Tenant's Rights in the Midst of LA's Affordable Housing Crisis?
by Connie Acosta - Thursday July 6, 2017
On June 28 the Los Angeles City Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council hosted a Tenants' Rights Workshop, in response to the need for orientation when eviction and displacement hits home. Carlos Aguilar, Director of Organizing of the
Coalition for Economic Survival (CES)
served as a resource for tenants
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CES Director of Organizing Carlos Aguilar (seated on the left) provides tenants' rights information to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council.
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who are at the brink of displacement from their local rental units in Silver Lake and Echo Park. At minimum, we empower tenants with their rental rights by informing them of the Housing Department's eviction process under the RSO, Aguilar said. "We want people to stay in their units."
Sometimes tenants are given fraudulent information by management or owners, Aguilar said.
"The new amendment to the RSO reads that if an owner is going to do a 'cash for keys' transaction, the owner needs to file a Landlord Declaration with Intent to Evict with HCIDLA, said Aguilar, and the 'cash for keys' buy out letter needs to provide an attached notice from the Housing Department [HCIDLA] that tenant has the right to not accept the cash for a buy out." Aguilar emphasized that HCIDLA has a notice granting tenants the right to not accept the 'cash for keys' buy out in situations that require it. "In this case, the realtor has not provided the proper documents," said Aguilar.
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CES Executive Director Larry Gross talks tenants' rights at Council District 1 Community Forum.
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CES Participates
in LA
City
Gilbert Cedillo's Tenants' Rights Workshop
A good community turnout came to hear the
Coalition for Economic Survival
present at Los Angeles City Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo's Tenants' Rights Workshop at the Saint Thomas the Apostle School just west of Pico Union on July 19 with the Los Angeles Housing + Community Investment Department.
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S
how you support for the work of CES by making a beginning of the year Tax Deductible
Donation Now!
The economic justice victories that CES has won over the years such as rent control in the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood, creating the city of West Hollywood and winning numerous laws to combat slum housing, secure tenants' rights and preserve affordable housing has only been possible with the generous financial support from people like you. 2017 is CES' 44th Anniversary year. Help make it another year of victories by
clicking here to donate now.
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Find Out About Your Rights At
CES' Tenants' Rights Clinic
Tenants are welcome to come to CES' Tenants' Rights Clinic held every Wednesday evening at 7 pm and Saturday morning at 10 am in the Senior Center located in the Community Building in Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Bl, West Hollywood (just west of La Brea, between Vista St. and Fuller St. at Martel Ave. ).
Tenants are assisted on a one-to-one basis by one of our experienced and knowledgeable volunteer attorneys and counselors. No appointment needed. First come, first serve.
Find Out More Details Here
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Support CES' Work When You Shop for Your Groceries
Sign Up for Ralphs/Food-4-Less Community Contribution Program:
Supporting CES' work couldn't be easier. Through the Ralphs/Food-4-Less Community Contribution Program, each time you use your Ralphs or Food-4-Less Rewards Card, a portion of your total purchase is donated to support CES' work. This donation does not reduce your individual rewards earning. Registering is quick, easy, and free.
To particitpate you need to register online at www.ralphs.com, or by calling (800) 443-4438. Then go login to your account. Link your card to your organization by clicking on Community Rewards - Re-Enroll. Then Type our NPO number 93059 or Organization Name: Los Angeles Center for Economic Survival, in this case. Remember to click on the circle to the left of our organization name. Finally Click on Enroll to finish your enrollment process. Now every time you shop you'll be supporting CES.
Contact CES at (213) 252-4411 or
[email protected] and we will explain how to register to support CES' work while you shop.
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STAY CONNECTED
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