The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted in favor of adopting measures to strengthen the city’s tenant anti-harassment ordinance after the original law, approved three years ago, resulted in thousands of tenant complaints and no prosecutions.
The council voted 12-0 to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would include several amendments to the law, known as TAHO. They include redefining what constitutes harassment and imposing a minimum civil penalty of $2,000 per violation.
“Today’s vote is an indication of how much renters matter to this council,” said Councilmember Nithya Raman, who helped introduce changes to the law earlier this year.
The original law was approved in 2021, banning landlords from harassing tenants and making violations a criminal offense. At the time, it was seen by tenant advocates as an important step toward better protecting renters from being intimidated or threatened by their landlords, which advocates say is sometimes done to push tenants from their rent-controlled homes.
As of this summer, more than 13,000 complaints alleging harassment had been filed with the housing department. Four fines were pending and no cases had been criminally prosecuted. The numbers, tenant advocates said, made it clear that the law is ineffective.
“TAHO as currently written is toothless, it is a paper tiger,” attorney Shane Henson of the nonprofit Inner City Law Center said during public comment on Tuesday.
The amendments to the law help create incentives for private attorneys to take on harassment cases, by introducing minimum penalties and requiring that tenants who win in court be awarded attorney’s fees.
They also redefine harassment. Currently, the law says to constitute harassment, landlords must knowingly and willfully engage in conduct that causes detriment and harm and “serves no lawful purpose,” a standard advocates said was impossible to prove. With the changes it would say harassment is “bad faith” conduct that causes tenants detriment or harm.
Landlord advocates called the the law one-sided and said the city should also ban harassment by tenants toward landlords.
“Until the city provides equal protection to all residents people will continue to live in fear for their personal safety,” said David Kaishchyan of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles. Some landlords have said they sometimes face harassment from upset tenants, including when tenants and advocates protest in front of their homes.
On Tuesday, tenant advocates filled the council chambers to advocate for the proposed amendments, and several renters spoke tearfully about experiencing harassment from landlords.
“We need help, please,” said renter Norma Solis, who said she has experienced years of harassment and has become afraid of going outside.
During the meeting, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez re-introduced amendments that upped the amount of damages tenants are entitled to when they prevail in court and set a minimum penalty of $2,000. They were also approved by the council. Those penalties are key to preventing bad behavior, she said.
“What we’re trying to do is deter harassment from happening in the first place,” she said.