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Politics Jan 18, 2024
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Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia announced Thursday that his office will conduct a new performance audit to review the Housing Department’s efforts to ensure affordable housing.
The audit is intended to examine the Los Angeles Housing Department and its contractors’ efforts on affordable housing, monitor the occupancy and physical habitability of these units, and evaluate the effectiveness of LAHD’s monitoring protocols for income and rent verification, and unit vacancies.
Additionally, the audit seeks to determine whether the department’s occupancy monitoring program and code inspection program are effectively enforcing affordability restrictions and ensuring these units are safe for tenants, Mejia’s office said in a statement.
“Affordable housing in the city of Los Angeles is more important than ever given the ever-increasing cost of living in the region,” the controller’s office said in a statement. “It is crucial for the city to develop and preserve as much affordable housing as possible, to ensure that the housing is available for those who qualify, and for this housing to be safe and suitable for living, and with access to resources.”
The controller’s office previously conducted audits on activities related to affordable housing production, tenant income eligibility and preservation of existing affordable housing stock in 2007 and 2017.
Audits are conducted by the Audit Services Division of the controller’s office, which remains despite any changes of administrations.
Last year, the LA City Council approved a motion seeking to improve the city’s housing inspection capabilities to ensure timely and quality repairs for renters, as well as to encourage tenants and landlords to fully participate in the process.
The motion instructed the Housing Department, and other relevant departments, to report back with recommendations to improve complaint-based inspections and address limitations of the current Systematic Code Enforcement Program — one of few tools tenants have to report and improve substandard living conditions.
Council members Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Heather Hutt had introduced the motion.
The motion suggested the Housing Department implement measures to ensure landlords submit Tenant Habitability Plans, a plan to mitigate impacts to tenants and possibly rehouse them if necessary for long-term repairs or renovations to the unit. In addition, another suggestion was for the department to implement a petition process for rent adjustment as an incentive to make landlords make repairs.
In cities with rent control such as Santa Monica, Alameda and San Francisco, officials have allowed tenants to file petitions for a decrease in rent based on the condition of the unit or decreases in services.
Tenants could file several petitions without needing to prove that the entire property is uninhabitable to receive a decrease in their rent if a landlord fails to make repairs.
Landlords would be able to increase the rent to its original value once repairs were made.
The Housing Department is expected to bring forward a report back with recommendations to the housing inspection program at a later date. Any recommendations will need approval first by the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, then the full City Council before implementation.
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