They anticipate that homelessness among minorities will increase if prevention measures are not taken
Ana Campos’ real estate nightmare began last October when a corporation bought the house she has rented for 15 years, and the new owners asked her to leave of her own free will to avoid being evicted. The only thing the COVID-19 pandemic has done is double her fear of being evicted.
“It was like a horror movie. The owner has come to the police several times. He has accused us of stories that only he believes in his head. It sends its workers to interrupt our lives, to the point of not letting us leave and keeping us trapped in our own house”Says Ana Campos, who rents a one-bedroom house for $ 947 that she shares with her husband and three minor children in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
He even says that the property manager tried to put a person to live inside his house to put pressure on them; and other times, it has brought people posing as police to scare them.
He once sent a group of workers apparently to do some remodeling work in the middle of a pandemic, although in reality they only went to intimidate them.
“They did not maintain social distancing, they did not wear masks or they were left lying on the floor.”
Two months ago the bathroom ceiling fell apart. “It almost fell on my son.”
And to put pressure on them even more, the new owners no longer wanted to accept payment of rent.
“We don’t want to get out. It is true that this home is rented, but my children were born here; and they go to nearby schools. We are part of this community”, He trusts.
All this harassment and intimidation around the home keeps Ana and her family under a lot of stress and fatigue amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Already they have taken hours away from us, and we are struggling between buying food or paying for medicine or rent.”
She admits that so much stress has caused her hair to start to fall out. “I’m going to start receiving counseling.”
Unfortunately – he says – tenants do not have many options of who to turn to for legal assistance.
“The Housing Department is saturated with complaints. You don’t have a chance to be heard. The City goes at its own pace and the owners of the rental homes walk at a thousand an hour. The tenants do not have money for lawyers and adviceto”.
According to a UCLA study, about 365,000 Los Angeles residents are at risk of eviction due to the economic recession brought by COVID-19. However, the report maintains that since before the pandemic broke out, Los Angeles has been a danger zone in terms of the number of homeless people steadily increasing and there is severe insecurity for tenants.
Between January 2018 and January 2019, the number of homeless people in Los Angeles County grew by nearly 6,200 people, an annual increase of 12.4%, says UCLA law professor Gary Blasi in the report titled “Evictions Imminent and Homelessness in Los Angeles ”.
“Nobody needs a statistic to know that the homelessness in Los Angeles last year was a humanitarian tragedy. It is time to prepare for the fact that the crisis of housing and homelessness is going to deepen to a level that we have never seen in the urban areas of the industrialized world.
“A disproportionately gross number of the new homeless in Los Angeles will be low-income minority people.. And if the only options are going to be the shelters or the streets, it should not be expected that this result will be tolerated calmly, or that those who did very little to stop this crisis will be forgiven, ”concludes Blasi in his study.
John Parks, organizer for the Coalition for Economic Survival, says there is not much support from the Los Angeles Department of Housing. “It is inundated with complaints and calls. Tenants are suffering from the pandemic and the fear of eviction. The need for support is increasing in parts of the county where we have never been contacted ”.
It states that the purpose of organizations like the Coalition is to give more resources to tenants to exercise their own rights.
The Los Angeles Council approved nearly $ 10 million for the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Fund, a day after Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 3088 that established a guideline for paying rent between September and January. .
“I cannot stress enough that many of these people who are struggling to stay afloat are immigrants, Latinos, African Americans, and low-income residents who have been hit hard by COVID-19.”Says Councilmember Nury Martínez, president of the Los Angeles Council.
Council Member Mitch O’Farrell notes that they were doing everything in their power to prevent unfair evictions and ensure that tenants have the necessary legal advice to stay in their homes during this crisis. “I will continue to fight for state and federal legislators to give them greater relief as the storm calms.”
In turn, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors launched the Stay Housed LA County initiative to provide legal assistance and support to tenants facing eviction amid the pandemic of COVID-19.
The launch included the site StayHousedLA.org to connect tenants with helpful information about their rights, workshops for residents in need of legal assistance and other supports.
The Tenant Initiative is a partnership between Los Angeles County, legal aid groups, and community-based organizations to provide emergency assistance to tenants in need.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting the lives of working families, many of whom are living paycheck after paycheck. That’s why Los Angeles County launched the Stay Housed LA County assistance program, ”says Supervisor Hilda Solís.
“Through this initiative, Los Angeles County will help tenants stay in their homes and provide relief from the financial stress they face during this crisis. I am committed to defending rent-burdened tenants who are under threat of losing their homes due to job layoffs or lost wages as a result of the pandemic. “
And add that Stay Housed LA County It will protect the most vulnerable and rent-burdened tenants who are at risk of homelessness.
Those who need legal help, and do not have access to the Internet, can call 833-223-RENT- 7368.
Lys Méndez, spokesperson for the Coalition for Economic Survival, said that because landlords are very limited in their ability to evict tenants during the pandemic due to approved laws and protocols, they look for different excuses to ask them to leave. “It is enough that they make noise to ask them to vacate.”
He adds that what is important about the Stayed house LA initiative is that it connects them with legal aid groups and resources so that people know their rights and protect themselves from eviction.
Don’t miss out on Friday the third and last part of the series One Step from the Street: Immigrants, those most exposed to evictions.
Part 1: Home evictions due to COVID-19, an alarming threat
