A resolution proposed by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath recently passed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that provides a blanket, unconditional affirmative defense against eviction for non-payment of rent for six months and gives renters an entire year thereafter to repay any unpaid rent in arrears. Does this all sound familiar? It certainly harkens back to the global pandemic called “COVID-19” and as a result, housing providers are sure to be on the losing end of the bargain. The eviction moratorium, a/k/a eviction defense, covers all 88 cities within the county plus all unincorporated areas.

Another example of a politician’s failure to follow the once golden rule of “due unto others as you would do to yourself.” This proposal came from Supervisor Horvath who herself earns over $250,000 per year as a public servant and yet lives in a rent-controlled apartment building protected by the most draconian of rent stabilization ordinances in the Peoples Republic of West Hollywood. It is apparently not enough to take home the amount of taxpayer paid salary “we the taxpayers” provide Ms. Horvath, but she apparently finds it necessary to continually line her pockets with what little her landlord and others may earn being in this highly regulated and fraught with risk rental housing business. It is sad that the obvious Socialist leaning, Supervisor Horvath, takes advantage of the apparent spoils of her office to the disadvantage of those of us who sacrifice to provide badly needed rental housing.

The Board of Supervisors apparently felt it was necessary to offer protections from evictions to wildfire victims and thus causing a situation where housing providers will surely be left “holding the bag” again on millions of dollars. All of this has been put into place despite there being numerous programs to assist renters impacted by the wildfires. For example, renters are receiving rental assistance from the County in the amount of $32 million, from insurance carriers, and also from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), California Community Foundation, L.A. Rises, and many other non-profit and for-profit groups as well as unemployment benefits from the state. In fact, more than $650 million has been raised through a series of benefit concerts and other events to help wildfire victims, so why must housing providers once again bear the financial burden and obvious risk associated with this wildfire crisis!

A half year-long moratorium or affirmative eviction defense will always set renters up for failure and eviction without the possibility of settlement once the moratorium and repayment period has ended. Sadly, we have seen this before with COVID-19 regulations. We should have learned this lesson from our very recent history (just look back as far as 2023), but our county supervisors are apparently either uninformed or just plain naive. As we saw back during the not-too-distant days of COVID-19, many renters able to pay their rent simply chose not to do so because they simply believed that they did not have to pay their rent. As a result, non-paying renters were caught by surprise when the moratorium ended and the deadline to pay their long-delayed rent became due.

Do the county supervisors care whether small rental housing providers can afford to carry the burden of non-paying renters for an entire six months plus the one-year repayment period? For many, this might become the breaking point, and some will be forced into exiting the rental housing business by selling their properties or in a worst-case scenario, possible foreclosure. As these additional added regulatory burdens become the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” for some of us, small housing providers exit, corporate owners and developers enter the market, and the result will always be less affordable rental housing in the county and new development of luxury rental housing or condominiums. According to a study by the Wall Street Journal, more than $1 billion in past due COVID-era rent is still owed to Los Angeles area housing providers, and in my estimating, will never be collected.

Like past eviction moratoriums, this one too involves self-certification with little if any proof of financial impact offered to housing providers by renters. Accordingly, any renter (who obviously has a clear and overwhelming financial incentive) can merely “attest” that they were financially impacted by the wildfires. Under Supervisor Horvath’s moratorium, NO VERIFIABLE PROOF whatsoever is to be required to show that renters have been impacted. It is this “self-attestation” that was a license to lie, cheat and steal under the COVID-19 eviction moratoriums, and lead to widespread fraud and abuse of property owners. And, here we are once again.

I would like to ask Supervisor Horvath: Is this self-certification approach the same one the Supervisors will use to qualify renters when providing the county’s approximately $32 million in allocated funding to renters from their new rental assistance fund? Obviously not! So we need to ask: Why should renters undergo a lower proof standard when private property owners are being forced to provide financial aid in the form of delayed rent payments than the county’s own proof requirements? To make matters worse, Supervisor Horvath’s initiated resolution prohibits rental housing providers from charging late penalties, interest or other legitimate late costs for an entire year related to late payment of rent.

Once again rental housing providers are being singled out for horrifically abusive treatment by the Board of Supervisors. Where are the same price controls and protections for consumers impacted by wildfires at grocery stores for the price of eggs and other necessities?! Perhaps those impacted by wildfires should not have to pay for groceries, doctors, and hundreds of other necessities for six months without recourse. Sadly, rental housing providers are still struggling with huge amounts of unpaid back rent due to COVID19 moratoriums. Another half year-long moratorium and 12-month repayment period will only force many more mom-and-pop owners out of the rental housing business and their properties will merely go to developers for redevelopment. With that, we will see gentrification abound.

It is extremely unfortunate that the County Board of Supervisors has chosen to go back to their COVID-19-era playbook and reinstitute an eviction moratorium as a tool of crisis response. The last time this was utilized not very long ago, the eviction moratorium was interpreted by many renters as a “rent holiday” leaving many housing providers going months and in some cases years of not collecting rent while residents took advantage of the emergency as property owners observed renters taking expensive vacations or buying luxury automobiles while they skirted obligations to pay rent. Going back to the same playbook in the County of Los Angeles will only cause more of the same financial turmoil to befall housing providers.

As the character Forest Gump pointed out, “stupid is as stupid does,” and boy, do we have five stupid supervisors representing Los Angeles County.