Page 14 - AAGLA-JULY 2022

Executive Director’s Message
Continued from page 13
continues. When will the music stop?
I often ask myself; can “things” really be this crazy for those of us in the rental housing business. For more than 2-years, we have been stuck dealing with non-paying tenants, rent freezes, skyrocketing costs, and even more of the “same-old” local rent control...now, sprinkle-in runaway inflation and several other oppressive regulations – and we’ve got a little recipe going for hardship. It is about time someone gives us abreak! Don’tyouthink!
While these have been difficult times, fortunately for the most of us, we are still here today despite thousands of dollars owed to many of us in past due rent with very little prospect of ever being able to collect what’s owed to us. Come on mayor and city council...so, our tenant “stiffs us” for about $25,000 in past due rent and we are supposed to count on getting that money paid to us over some 12- or 13-month period in the future? Or our tenant moved out months ago after not paying over $50,000 in rent, we have no idea where he or she is, and now how did you say we’re supposed to count on getting paid back? Or how about this one... our tenant got paid from “Housing is Key” directly, failed to turn over the money to us in 15 days, took off not to ever be found...and now what!
Sadly, there’s likely more they (government drones) will be throwing at us...this year, and we thought the last year was bad, we have seen an unprecedented, long list of proposed housing bills coming out of Sacramento that, if passed, could have severe financial consequences. While, at the date of my writing this, we have put some in early graves, our legislators do not have enough to do, and they compete to get bills passed, so if bills fail one year, they keep coming back in a slightly morphed form year after year. We have seen that with the fourth attempt by Buffy Wicks proposal for a state rental registry – 4 tries / 4 fails, and she promises
sundownconstruction
we will see her registry proposal for a fifth time next year! May I propose a constitutional amendment to both reduce the number of legislators and make all of them part-time? Why do we have more regulations on the books than any other U.S. state? Its for the very reason we have a fulltime Legislative body with far too many bodies in it.
Look my friends and fellow members, in my view, we cannot just sit back and “take it.” I encourage all of you to become involved in our association’s advocacy efforts. Please, help us by showing up at City Council meetings, writing letters to elected officials explaining the dire situation they have left you in, start writing editorials for local newspapers, and just as importantly, help give to our political action committees the resources we need to make changes by supporting candidates and causes that are helpful and see it our way rather than harmful to all of us rental property owners. And, stop voting for people that continue to support extensions of eviction moratoriums, of stupid ballot initiatives like Propositions 10 and 21, or even Proposition 19. That’s one way to help our situation...the other is sue the bastards, which we are doing!
DonateToday@ https://aagla.org/issuespac/
Please make checks payable to: AAGLA Issues PAC c/o Reed & Davidson, LLP 515 S Figueroa Street, Suite 1110 Los Angeles, California 90071 Attention: Cary Davidson, Treasurer
14 JULY 2022 • WWW.AAGLA.ORG