Stay Housed Los Angeles: Safeguarding Tenants' Rights Beyond Rent Control [Note]

Abstract

How is it that people become unhoused? One answer is: by getting evicted. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the United States’s ongoing affordable housing crisis but also gave way to substantial reforms aimed at preventing homelessness and protecting tenant rights. Then in 2024, as rent, eviction rates, and homelessness continued to rise, SCOTUS issued a ruling effectively criminalizing homelessness. Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, consistently ranks amongst the least affordable housing markets and has one of the highest eviction rates. How do we keep L.A. housed? This note examines the evolving tenant protection frameworks of Los Angeles and Berlin—both large, left-leaning, majority-renter cities with comparable housing policies. It traces L.A. and Berlin’s rent control policies, which offered limited and often inconsistent protections. Although both cities have experienced similar housing policy changes and challenges, Berlin boasts significantly lower eviction rates than Los Angeles. By analyzing Berlin’s model of people-driven activism, in contrast to Los Angeles’s funding-centric advocacy, the Note contemplates the strengths and limitations of each approach. Berlin’s tenant movements have influenced policies like the “Rent Price Brake” and the “Rent Cap,” while Los Angeles’s ongoing housing crisis has fueled tenant advocacy efforts, leading to measures like the “Just Cause Ordinance” and the “Tenant Right to Counsel Ordinance.” Finally, the comparative analysis explores the efficacy of current tenant protection measures and contemplates nuanced approaches to safeguarding tenants’ rights in Los Angeles. Concluding that while policy advancements mark significant progress, broader systemic changes are necessary.