As Los Angeles Burns, It’s Business as Usual in Eviction Court

LOS aAngeles, CCalifornia— Last Tuesday morning, Altadena and the Pacific Palisades were reduced to embers, the fires that consumed them both still burning, new fires burning in Ventura County, and Santa Ana winds picking up again — and On the sixth floor, at the Stanley Mosque Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, dozens of people were losing their homes for completely unrelated reasons.

A series of historic fires destroyed thousands of structures and disrupted many aspects of normal life in Los Angeles County, but did not stop the daily grind of eviction proceedings. Some hearings were postponed, but by 10 p.m. morningThe sixth-floor hall was packed, just days after the peak of the fire that forced 100,000 people to evacuate the neighborhood. Bailiffs and lawyers in suits spoke into phones, and tenants sat weary as they waited their turn in front of a judge. . A little boy wearing Lilo & Stitch pajamas was walking up and down the hallway holding his mother’s hand. “Welcome to hell,” Rose, an organizer with the LA Tenants Union (LATU), greeted me.

I entered Courtroom 93, where a tall, thin man named Jesse Stephen Aguirre explained to the judge what the home he had lived in since his birth meant to him and his family. “In 1990, I would have been six years old,” he began, speaking in a voice so quiet that it couldn’t be heard from the back of the room. “We recently found a photo of myself, Jesse Stephen Aguirre, and my mother, Miriam Monares Reyes, sitting on the front steps of our house at the back of the drive. ”The judge interrupted him. Returning to the procedural dispute at hand: whether the family received the motion filed by opposing counsel.

Aguirre was unable to read the rest of the statement. Outside court after the hearing, he explained to me that the landlord began trying to evict him and his family shortly after his grandmother, a former tenant, died last March. Glassell Park, a hilly neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, was a rough neighborhood when the family first moved there in 1984. Now with wine bars and brunch spots, the family knew the landlord could earn more than three times the rent. The current market — if only he would put them out there first. Mr. Aguirre showed me an envelope containing a check for $9,018, the entire amount the family owed in rent. He told me that the owner had been refusing to pay in recent months claiming delinquency, a common tactic used by landlords seeking to remove tenants. “He didn’t want our money anymore,” said Aguirre’s mother, Miriam. “There’s no explanation, no reason.”

Like most tenants in eviction court, the family does not have an attorney. These are civil actions, so the tenant has no right to civil action. Aguirre took his place. professionalarmed only with a large binder full of case documents he had compiled with the help of the Eviction Defense Network. Lawyers for the group sat on benches near the elevator to discuss the lawsuit with the tenants and prepare their defense in court. “Suffering is happening every day…but now it is impacting another sector of our society,” one of the lawyers told me. After the fire, she said that even Angelenos who had not previously been afraid of losing their homes were “not aware of what’s going on in Los Angeles, how hard it is to find a home, and how expensive it is to stay in Los Angeles.” “Maybe we can understand why it’s so expensive and unsustainable.” ”

It is difficult to imagine the devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed approximately 10,000 homes overnight. Evicting people in eviction court may seem mundane by comparison. It happens in stages. Notices, missed court appearances, piles of paperwork you can’t understand, belongings piled up on the curb. None of it is particularly dramatic. If I hadn’t been on the 6th floor of the Stanley Mosque, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it happening. Nevertheless, it occurs constantly throughout the year, when no one is paying attention. Los Angeles experiences 4,500 to 5,000 formal evictions a month, or more than 150 every day. On the other hand, data from the U.S. Housing Survey shows that show In Los Angeles, there are nearly six “forced removals” for every eviction by authorities, and this category includes people displaced by the fires and those forced from their homes without any due process. More tenants say both will be included.

The relentless and mechanical progression of the eviction process is not just a grim irony in a time when such sudden and horrific evictions are occurring just a few miles away, but also a harbinger of what Los Angeles will become after this disaster. Debris left by wildfires is sure to accelerate the standard land acquisition cycle. Countless homes have disappeared from the map, and for many property owners, this sudden surge in demand has become an attractive opportunity. “Many tenants were affected. My boss, she lost everything,” LATU organizer Heidi told me. “Right now, she’s trying to stay safe.” [new] housing. But the problem is that the prices have gone up. ”

Los Angeles’ new district attorney, Nathan Hochman, held a press conference to announce: Fee Hotels and landlords are raising prices in response to looters. Last weekend, a friend who was moving out of an apartment in Culver City asked the landlord if the fire had made it difficult for him to show prospective tenants about the place. “No! It was actually wonderful For us! ‘ replied the woman with a smile.

Fires may be an insurance company’s nightmare, but they are a developer’s dream. Although it receives less national coverage than the destruction of the Palisades, the destruction of Altadena, a historically thriving black community in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest, is just as absolute. Developers are already rushing to snap up land as families struggle to pay for temporary housing alongside ongoing mortgage payments. It’s a classic example of disaster capitalism that reminded one resident of his grandmother’s evacuation. During Hurricane Katrina. They will proceed with their search with the support of Governor Newsom. Almost abolished wholesale California Environmental Quality Act for buildings destroyed by fire.

On the other hand, expensive housing Input of stable labor forceGardeners, housekeepers, maintenance workers and more, the loss of the Palisades meant a loss of livelihood for many workers, many of whom commuted to the neighborhood from South or East Los Angeles. The company was also destroyed by the fire, leaving employees stranded. I’m worried about losing it About next month’s rent.

That same morning, just a few blocks from the courthouse, the Los Angeles City Council and County Board of Supervisors were in session. Angelenos spoke out and called on both governing bodies to implement laws to impose a moratorium on evictions, establish tenant protections, and prevent price gouging during disasters. Without these safeguards, many more people are likely to miss their first payment, starting a process that could end up joining Los Angeles’ already large homeless population and creating another disaster. Unfolds in slow motion. Unlike the fires that engulf Southern California’s parched hills every year like clockwork, none of this will be inevitable.