Economic & Housing Justice

Over the past year, the Liberty Hill community has helped create lasting change and progress that has impacted the lives of community members throughout Los Angeles. From fighting for a roof over every head, to working to end youth incarceration as we know it, and eliminating toxic neighborhood oil drilling, our work has reached communities in every corner of L.A.

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.

Last month, Liberty Hill Housing Justice partners Community Power Collective rallied at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to advocate for rent debt relief. The collective urged elected officials to take action to Keep LA Housed and cancel COVID-19 rent debt before the February 1st deadline—a move that could potentially save thousands of LA families from eviction and displacement.

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.

At our Housing Justice Salon, we welcomed donor activists to a special community conversation with Liberty Hill grantees, partners, and frontline leaders to discuss innovative solutions to the L.A. housing crisis at the state and local level. Liberty Hill’s Environment + Justice Donor Circle also hosted a briefing on environmental justice issues in the Inland Empire this month. The online briefing brought together donor activists to learn more about the challenges faced by communities and warehouse workers in the Inland Empire.

This summer also saw some major developments in the fight to end youth incarceration as we know it, as well as the continued work to ensure tenants know their rights and people stay housed amidst the homelessness crisis.

Earlier this summer, Liberty Hill Vice President of Public Partnerships Almas Sayeed and Deputy Director of Housing Justice Jessa McCormack were invited to attend a briefing and roll out of The White House Blueprint For A Renters Bill of Rights, alongside the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and approximately 350 tenants and tenant organizers from across the country.

In this recent Spectrum News 1 segment, Liberty Hill Senior Vice President of Public Partnerships Almas Sayeed and our partners in the Community Land Trusts (CLTs) share the importance of affordable housing models and the work being done through LA County’s pandemic-era CLT pilot program to prevent the displacement of local long-time residents in L.A.

The event was moderated by Liberty Hill President and CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith and featured a dynamic panel of housing justice specialists including Almas Sayeed (Vice President of Public Partnerships, Liberty Hill), Joel John Roberts (Chief Executive Officer, PATH Ventures), Mary Lee (Affordable Housing Policy Consultant), and Peter Dreier (E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental College).

Last month, our Housing Justice team joined Stay Housed L.A. community partners LiBRE, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, for another great Stay Housed L.A. Tenant Rights event at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Long Beach.

Don’t miss the social justice event of the year! Join the Liberty Hill community for the 40th Annual Upton Sinclair Celebration: Uniting Power & Purpose at the Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday, April 19!

This past year’s election produced an historic crop of victories. The Los Angeles political landscape has seen changes big and small that will shape policy for years to come.

Recently, Liberty Hill joined members of the Right to Counsel - LA and Keep LA Housed Coalition, along with local tenants and housing advocates, on the steps of City Hall to rally around the announcement of a new “Right to Counsel” motion that would ensure free legal representation for low-income tenants threatened with eviction.

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.

Thanks to the tireless work of our dedicated frontline partners and the support of our growing community of donor activists, we can and will continue to drive progress toward a just and equal L.A. County for all. We can’t wait to continue building on this momentum together in the new year!

Liberty Hill is proud to announce that Pasadena Measure H and Measure United to House L.A. have passed! We are so grateful to each and every individual and organization that came together in support of United to House L.A. and Pasadena Measure H! These key progressive wins are big steps forward in making L.A. County a more just and equitable place for all.

The independent report—commissioned by Liberty Hill with support from the California Endowment—examines the implementation of this acquisition and rehabilitation program and makes the case that CLTs can be an important model in responding to the housing and homelessness crisis as an alternative to traditional affordable housing.

In case you missed any of the engaging episodes, you can check out the very first season of our Podcast Conversations From The Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change with Shane Murphy Goldsmith here or on your favorite podcast platforms.

Please join Liberty Hill and a broad coalition of Los Angeles community neighborhood organizations, labor unions, community members, and many of our grantee partners in supporting Measure ULA. Liberty Hill is also proud to endorse Measure H—The Pasadena Fair And Equitable Housing Charter Amendment for the November 8th ballot.

Liberty Hill honors the Latinx/e-led organizations that continue the fight for justice in their local communities and beyond. We are proud to partner with organizations and leaders who have dedicated their work and missions to improving systemic conditions and bringing community-led solutions to life.

A new report released by the Los Angeles Community Land Trust Program—a $14 million pilot initiated two years ago with the support of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors—showcases the power of community ownership strategies.

As a special wrap-up to our first season of "Conversations From The Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change" we hosted a special bonus episode called Defending the Future: America Post Roe featuring guests Laura Jimenez, the Executive Director of CA Latinas for Reproductive Justice and Janette Robinson Flint, Executive Director of Black Women for Wellness.

On Monday, the Bell Gardens City Council unanimously passed a rent stabilization ordinance that limits annual rent increases to once a year with a 4% ceiling. The ordinance will be read and voted again on September 12th before it is signed into law.

That’s why Liberty Hill is proud to endorse Measure ULA for the November 8th City of Los Angeles ballot. With the support of our donor activists, Liberty Hill and our community partners have been deeply engaged across Los Angeles city and county to help tenants get the assistance they need and to advocate for more protections.

This month we’re highlighting several of our grantee partners working in the Housing Justice area. These grassroots groups such as tenant rights groups, are fighting for housing as a human right and legal protections for at-risk tenants.

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.

Through a Stay Housed L.A. clinic, one of our grantees—ACCE—started organizing tenants at a building with about 400 units that are rife with every habitability issue imaginable, including raw sewage seeping through the pipes, flees, bed bugs, and black mold.

This May, Liberty Hill honors the many contributions of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AA and NHPIs) and stands in solidarity with AA and NHPI organizers demanding an end to racial violence and fighting for systemic change.

Get ready to dive into some challenging conversations about how to make the real change we are fighting for possible! Liberty Hill is launching a new podcast called "Conversations From The Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change" hosted by Liberty Hill President and CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith.

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.

This was truly a banner year for activism and progress! We have much work to do on the road ahead, but we couldn’t be prouder to take this journey with you—our Beloved Community.

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.

The report looks at R2R’s strategies to transform the justice system and to reinvest in the health and well-being of historically excluded young people and their communities.

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.

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.

This year brought challenges the likes of which the world hasn’t faced in a century—with a pandemic raging around the globe and ineffective leadership from the White House here at home–COVID-19 took an immeasurable toll on all of us.

One of the core aspects of our Agenda for a Just Future is our commitment to fighting for a roof over every head. As part of that housing justice work, we have also supported organizations working to ensure fair treatment of tenants who face the risk of eviction during these uncertain times.

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.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and a longstanding housing crisis, families are fighting for their right to a safe place to live.

Local resident Carolina Rodriguez, who was born and raised in East L.A., became a key figure in the local battle for rent control. Despite multiple attempts by her landlord to evict her and her family after increasing their rent more than $500, Carolina remains in her home in East L.A. today due to the efforts of Unincorporated Tenants United, which Liberty Hill helped coordinate.

The 2019 Homeless Count paints a dire picture of L.A.’s homelessness crisis, including a 12 percent increase in people living on the streets. Skyrocketing rents, evictions and flat wages are leading to homelessness for tens of thousands of people.

Liberty Hill is pleased to announce that our 2018 Fund for Change grants will invest $975,800 in 39 grassroots organizations throughout Los Angeles County. Thanks to the generosity of our donor-activists and foundation partners, we have been able to increase our Fund for Change grantmaking by $256,800 since 2016.

For over 40 years, Liberty Hill Foundation has supported the tenants’ right movement. From funding tenants’ organizing in Pasadena and Long Beach in 1977, to supporting successful campaigns for rent stabilization in the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Monica in 1979 and winning against discriminatory landlords, Liberty Hill has long been an ally in the fight for housing justice.

For over 40 years, Liberty Hill Foundation has supported the tenants’ right movement. From funding tenants’ organizing in Pasadena and Long Beach in 1977, to supporting successful campaigns for rent stabilization in the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Monica in 1979 and winning against discriminatory landlords, Liberty Hill has long been an ally in the fight for housing justice.

Remember what it was like to be a kid? What would you have done, at 12 years old, if you couldn’t breathe because of the oil drilling site next door? What if, at 16 you were sent to jail for being late to school?

These days the news can be overwhelming. Stories of violence, injustice and oppression fill our feeds almost daily. Meanwhile, hateful ideas are being given an increasingly visible platform at the national level.

This week California made history by passing Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act. We are the first state to downgrade certain cases from felonies to misdemeanors.

You can’t help but think in garden metaphors when talking to Glen Dake, a landscape architect,  prominent advocate for “green agenda” issues in Los Angeles, and one of Liberty Hill’s most active donor- activists.