Rent Control in Los Angeles

Re “The Rent War Is Over; End the Controls,” Commentary, Aug. 8: James Fleck makes reference to a 1993 city rental study. Conveniently he leaves out some of its findings. The most important is that average real income of tenants has substantially fallen. Many more tenant households are now paying rents that are unaffordable by the most widely used federal standards. Very poor households are paying an average of nearly 85% of their real income in rent, almost triple the federal affordability threshold. With recent welfare reforms and drastic cuts in federal housing programs, rent control is the only measure keeping a roof over the heads of thousands of families and seniors on fixed incomes.

Fleck states that apartment vacancies exceed 8%, thus there is more than enough housing to go around. What he does not mention is that the vacancy rate for affordable housing is closer to 0%. The high vacancy rate is due to the overbuilding of luxury units and landlords’ refusal to lower rents. They sit empty because people simply can’t afford the rent on these units.

In actuality, the rent control law needs to be strengthened to be more effective in preserving our existing affordable housing stock. Annual rent increases should be lowered, relocation assistance to evicted tenants should be increased, maintenance requirements should be strengthened, building and health codes should be enforced and severe penalties should be levied against slumlords.

LARRY GROSS, Exec. Dir.

Coalition for Economic

Survival, Los Angeles