Rent will likely increase for most Los Angeles city residents. For the first time since March 2020, landlords who own properties under the Los Angeles rent stabilization ordinance will be able to raise rent next year by up to 4%.
This ordinance affects about 3/4s of all multifamily rentals in the city. The LA city council signed off on this compromise deal due to COVID era rent freezes expiring in January.
Upon hearing the news of these possible increases, USC Junior and Business Administration major Fisher Johnson said,
Fisher Johnson: I think student housing especially feels really high... I am not a fan of it, I feel like LA is expensive enough.
Sophomore and Health and Student Sciences major Shivanee Kooner expressed a similar sentiment.
Shivanee Kooner: I didn’t know about that, but that’s kind of sad. I hope they don’t go higher.
Cate Thompson, who is currently a sophomore, compared her experience with USC rent with that of her older sister.
Cate Thompson: I have an sister, who is a senior now, and she had told me about how pricing has extremely gone up after she has seen my rent price.
Cate also called on the university to provide better and more affordable options for students to find housing.
Thompson: USC needs to kind of make a commitment to having affordable housing for us around the area of USC, so that’s definitely going to be difficult on a lot of students who pay their own rent.
The original proposal suggested that increases would be able to go as high as 7-9%, But after the 10-2 vote on Tuesday evening, 4% was decided.
Now would be the time to start preparing for the potential increase.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Makai Singleton