On September 16, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to approve $29.8 million in rent relief for tenants and to take exploratory steps toward an eviction moratorium. The decision occurs amidst a backdrop of economic hardships that have swept Los Angeles since escalated immigration raids began in early June.
Since the beginning of the summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) claim to have arrested more than 5,000 people in LA. Many detentions and raids have taken place in locations such as car washes, Home Depot, parking lots, and garment factories. The discriminatory nature of immigration enforcement caused an uproar in the general public of LA County. Protests swept the streets of the city and community organizers launched patrol networks, starting as early as 5 AM and continuing late into the night.
While multiple fronts have emerged in this past summer’s resistance against state terror, there is one that has yet to be addressed on a policy level: keeping immigrant tenants housed. The Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU) has been organizing against displacement and advocating on behalf of tenants’ rights for a decade. While the struggle for tenant protections in LA has been prolonged, the shift in the economic state of the city since the onset of raids in June has leveled a new and extreme hardship onto Black and Brown renters across the county…