Measure ULA-Funded Tenant Emergency Measure Advances

One day after Los Angeles tenants faced a deadline to pay pandemic-era back rent, the L.A. City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee on Wednesday advanced a proposal to use around $58 million in Measure ULA funds for a new tenant assistance program.

“I am very worried about the deadline,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told local media last week, as politicians and tenant advocates cited a potential wave of evictions and new homelessness because of the Aug. 1 deadline.

The Housing & Homelessness Committee, which voted unanimously to approve the proposal, had been widely expected to give it a green light. The spending proposal will next move to the council’s Budget Committee, and then could be up for a vote with the full City Council.

The spending proposal was initiated by Bass and L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman, a strong tenant advocate who chairs the Housing & Homelessness Committee. The plan calls for an $18.4 million emergency fund to pay low-income tenants’ back rent, $23 million to expand a tenant legal support program, $11.2 million for a tenant harassment protection program and $5.5 million for an outreach and education program.

“My hope is that the impending Aug. 1 rent debt repayment deadline will actually push us to reshape and transform our current system,” Raman said in a statement last week.

But so far the city isn’t exactly flush with money to make systemic changes. Through July, Measure ULA — the controversial transfer tax on most property deals in the city above $5 million — had collected only $38 million, far below previous estimates, and the tax remains in litigation. The city’s annual budget allocated up to $150 million in spending, an amount Bass has said could be reimbursed from other sources if the tax law is overturned by the courts.