Page 13 - AAGLA-MAR 2022
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Executive Director’s Message
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
Light at the End of the Tunnel?
BJy Daniel Yukelson
ust when you think there could possibly be “light at the end of the tunnel,” suddenly that shining light you see is from an on-rushing train. While I am almost always a half-glass full sort of guy, for those of us experiencing the challenges of the rental housing business here in the Greater Los Angeles Area, even I must admit, this is just one awful time to be a rental housing provider.
Fresh on the heels of a major sports event, the Super Bowl, being played to thousands of fans both inside of Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium, and to those
who packed in local bars and
watched from homes of friends throughout the region, and despite long ago cancellations of COVID-19 tenant protections by Federal, State and most local government jurisdictions, our “dear” Los Angeles County has taken steps to continue many of the most extreme tenant protection measures through... wait for it...June 30, 2023, and there’s no telling if and when it will ever end. The Board Supervisors could decide to extend some or all the protective, landlord punishing measures well beyond that date. We will just never know until the proverbial “fat lady sings.”
My fear, and many of you may
have heard me say this before,
is that we could have a bad flu or cold outbreak in a year or two or much later, and Los Angeles County or the City of Los Angeles, and even some of the other “bad actor” cities like Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and Beverly Hills, among others, might decide to impose moratoriums on evictions and rent increases again. After these past two and what will at least turn into three years of COVID-19 restrictions and government intervention into our personal and business lives, we just do not know what steps will be taken in the interest of public safety and in the exercise of government “police powers.” Let’s just all start singing the famous McFadden and Whitehead song, “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”...think of me as you continue humming that tune all day! There is now no stopping such extreme forms of one-sided, draconian
regulations which punish property owners by virtue of ownership in something renters do not possess, and that are clearly forcing many landlords out of business today... certainly out of California! And, why not!
I hear from angry members as if to threaten or taunt our elected officials that property owners will stop wanting to be in the rental housing business. Unfortunately, these truths only fall on deaf ears, and then our elected officials wonder where have all the rental housing units gone? Yes, “where have all the flowers gone...gone to the graveyard...” sadly.
And, these same elected officials sit back and scratch their heads wondering why rents seem to creep up failing to realize basic economic principles have plagued California housing for more than four decades since the onset of rent regulations and tenant protections from the late 1970s. Instituting price controls only leads to a reduction in supply (e.g., Rent Control = Less Rental Units = Higher Prices from Excess Demand), and imposing overzealous renter protections only increases risk for those of us in the business and drives up our costs such that higher prices are necessary (e.g., Regulation = Higher Risk = Legal Fees and Costly Insurance). I cannot make this any simpler to understand.
For better or for worse, I have decided to dedicate a lot of pages in this month’s issue of Apartment Age Magazine to “what happened” in Los Angeles County at the January 25th meeting of the Board of Supervisors. I want everyone reading this monthly editorial, my “tirade” as some like to refer to my ranting and raving, to understand what is being done to us, and I want you to be angry as hell about it!
First and foremost, you need to understand that the Los Angeles County eviction moratorium applies to all rental properties both within unincorporated areas of the County and any incorporated areas that are under less restrictive or no COVID-related tenant protections. So, for the latter cities like Alhambra, South Pasadena, Santa Monica (their
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