The Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU) took to the streets of Boyle Heights on Sunday to protest against the Los Angeles County Department of Housing’s proposed 9% rent increase and demand the reinstatement of the Los Angeles eviction moratorium, which had expired on March 31.
“The evictions – we’re not going to be able to win all of them in the courts,” said Leonardo Vilchis, co-founder of the LATU, in a speech. “The courts are there to evict us. We need to be clear that our fight is in our buildings, in the streets and in the neighborhoods. We will fight every eviction.”
Carrying signs in both English and Spanish, the tenants organized in groups and assembled at Hollenbeck Park before marching to City Councilmember Kevin de León’s office. There, the LATU briefly clashed with the Los Angeles Police Department when the police attempted to arrest a member of the crowd.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the rent in L.A. County has skyrocketed: The average rent for an apartment in L.A. jumped 17% from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, according to the Los Angeles Times. Although the minimum wage for L.A. increased from $15 per hour to $16.90 in September, the increase in salaries is nowhere close to the spike in the cost of living.
“We’ve seen a growing contradiction between what the crisis looks like and what politicians are willing to do,” said Anne Oichier, one of the protest organizers. “Right now, there’s this move to act like the pandemic is over, everything is back to normal. But we know that ‘normal’ for a lot of people was already a challenge.”
Since the start of 2023, rent growth in L.A. County has stagnated with less than half a percent decrease in median rent. However, the median rent in the county is 37% higher than the national average, and L.A. ranks 21st on the list of most expensive rent in largest cities in the U.S., according to Apartmentlist.com.
However, the origins of the rent crisis go back further than the pandemic. Boyle Heights has long been known as a diverse neighborhood, and the city was the result of politicians’ efforts to segregate the L.A. population.
Boyle Heights was the center of the Chicano Movement, which began in the 1960s. As of 2017, 93% of Boyle Heights residents are of Hispanic or Latine origin, but the city’s residents have faced gentrification and rising prices for decades. The inhabitants have protested the creation of the San Bernardino 10 Freeway, art galleries and most recently, the Weird Wave Coffee shop.
“They don’t want to be pushed out of their neighborhood that they’ve had as their little bastion for decades, and the whole reason they’re in this little bastion is because of redlining,” said Danny Estrada, a participant in the protest. “It would be a tragedy to lose this place through the same forces that brought them here in the first place.”
After the protest, the Los Angeles Housing Department released a statement:
“There has not been a 9% rent increase voted on by LAHD. The annual allowable rent increase is publicized annually by LAHD based on the formula established in the [rent stabilization ordinance]. The Los Angeles City Council has requested a report on formula results and costs, which will be conducted by an outside consultant and will be provided … by the end of the year.”
USC has made several expansions, the most recent being the demolishing of the non-affiliated University Village in 2014 to make room for USC Village. The university had to make concessions to the community and the United Neighbors In Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD) to receive approval from the City Council for the construction of the USC Village. UNIDAD feared that the university’s land additions would increase gentrification and displacement in the neighborhoods surrounding the University Park Campus.
USC also has a foothold in Boyle Heights with the university’s Health Sciences Campus (HSC). In April 2022, USC President Carol Folt announced a notion to expand the size of HSC.
“There used to be an entire neighborhood under that campus,” said Estrada.
Editor’s note: A photo of a protestor was removed from this article, after Annenberg Media received word that their safety was in danger.