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As the work to support tenants rights in Los Angeles continues, Stay Housed LA grantee partners are hard at work laying the framework to help vulnerable renters understand their rights and access resources available to help them stay housed. Read on to learn more about their Housing Justice work and the recent Stay Housed LA training that took place earlier this month.

Our support for tenants rights is more important than ever. Liberty Hill Foundation partners with legal service providers, government agencies, and grassroots organizations to help vulnerable renters understand their rights and the resources available to help them retain housing. Stay Housed L.A. launched in 2020 to connect tenants with community organizations and legal service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Los Angeles renters have faced a housing crisis for many years, but it has exponentially intensified with the onset of COVID-19. Over half a million people are estimated to have lost jobs in the last six months, making rent even harder to pay. Scholars estimate that close to 350,000 people in LA County are at risk of eviction.

Earlier this month, L.A. Care Health Plan announced its continuing efforts to keep people in their homes with an award of $500,000 to Liberty Hill Foundation for support of the Stay Housed LA program.

Recently, our Housing Justice team joined Stay Housed L.A. community partners—Pomona Economic Opportunity Center and East Side Leads—for the Stay Housed L.A. Tenant Rights event in Pomona. Drawing thousands of local residents, the event featured a full day of tenant rights resources including workshops and free legal advice clinics provided by Public Counsel and BASTA.

This month the Stay Housed L.A. team held one of their largest community events of the year in the city of Bell Gardens, which recently passed a permanent rent stabilization ordinance.

Advocacy groups that provide educational and legal support to renters across the county have seen an uptick in tenant harassment complaints, such as landlords conducting construction at all hours of the night or refusing to turn on the water or address roach infestations. Reports of harassment like this have almost doubled in the last few months via the Stay Housed L.A. program.

After two years in legal limbo, the California Courts of Appeal has upheld the constitutionality of Measure J (2020) mandating that 10% of locally generated unrestricted funds be allocated to community investments and alternatives to incarceration– a major victory for Youth & Transformative Justice in L.A.!

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to drastically expand the ranks of Los Angeles’s unhoused population and worsen the region’s long-standing eviction crisis.

The Stay Housed L.A. program was featured by the White House as a national model for eviction prevention. Check out our Executive Vice President Jenny Delwood as she shares lessons learned and best practices from Stay Housed L.A.

Stay Housed L.A. is a partnership between Liberty Hill, the County of L.A., tenant-led community organizations, and legal services providers to provide tenants with the support needed to exercise their rights so that they can remain safely in their homes.