Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?
“Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” is a participatory, community-based art project that explores the loss of affordable rent-controlled housing in Venice - through a series of workshops, research, photography and writing, an exhibition, and a series of readings and events with community participants, writers, artists, activists, and scholars. Organized by Judy Branfman in partnership with Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. Support provided by California Humanities, California Arts Council, LA Dept of Cultural Affairs, and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Thanks to partner organizations Venice Arts Council, Venice Community Housing, Westside Local-LA Tenants Union, Veterans For Peace-LA, Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Keep Neighborhoods First, KPFK, and the Venice Beachhead.
Workshops February - April, 2023
Exhibit Preview: September 27, 2023
Exhibit Opening: October 8, 2023
Tours of the exhibit: October – November 5, 2023
Exhibit Closing: November 4, 2023
All photos below by Judy Branfman unless otherwise indicated.
INTRODUCTION
September 2023
“Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” grew out of a story familiar to many… When my landlord died, a group of owner/investors bought the four-unit building on 3rd Street. They evicted us all using the Ellis Act (a statewide policy allowing landlords to evict tenants if they claim they are going out of the rental business).
Within six months they had emptied us all out of the building and sold it – and soon the next owner was renting two units at market rates despite Ellis rules that units be offered first to evicted tenants at the same rent if re-rented within the first two or three years after an Ellis eviction.
The city of LA, which oversees the Ellis Act implementation, has done nothing about the constant abuse of the Ellis Act over 22 years. This despite tenants’ inability to pay higher rents, and the massive, not-unrelated increase of people living on the streets and in their cars.
Since 1999 almost 1400 units of affordable, rent-controlled housing have been removed from Venice’s housing stock using California’s Ellis Act. Developers, investors, and wealthy individuals usually target low-rent buildings for purchase, evict tenants with the Ellis Act, and then turn around and, very often before the legally-mandated waiting period is over, re-rent at market rates. Over 28,300 units of affordable, rent-control housing have been stolen in this way across the city of LA. Tenants rarely know their rights and the city doesn’t care.
“Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” grew out of my experience – and evolved into a participatory art project exploring the loss of affordable, rent-control housing in Venice, in partnership with Beyond Baroque, community members, and partner organizations. During early 2023, twenty-plus community members, most of us new to each other, photographed and wrote about the hundreds of properties where people were evicted using the Ellis Act. We looked at this situation from the point-of-view of lifelong Venetians, new Venetians, evicted Venetians, newly housed Venetians, and unhoused Venetians - and folks from outside Venice with the same experiences.
We quickly realized there are other ways, some far more widespread than the Ellis Act, that affordable, rent-controlled units are eliminated and replaced with market-rate rent-controlled units, single-family mansions, condos, and hotel rooms and other types of short-term rentals (STRs). Venice’s 279 Ellis-evicted properties have been enabled by the Ellis Act, but tenant harassment is an art form completely overlooked by the LA Housing Department. Over 6000 complaints were filed between 2021 and early 2023 under the new Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, and not one was forwarded to the City Attorney for legal attention. In addition, Venice’s famed Ocean Front Walk has seen the illegal conversion of over 220 affordable, rent-stabilized apartments and singles into hotel rooms and short-term rentals.
We hope this project conveys the magnitude of these issues and the personal and community toll – and moves you to take a stand in support of tenants’ rights, truly affordable and rent-controlled housing, and enforcement of the laws we already have that support tenants and the development of new ones.
Judy Branfman
wherehasallthehousinggone@gmail.com
Watch a video trailer about this project
Watch the growth of the Ellis Act in LA
http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/losangeles.html
KPFK Poets Café recording - August 2023 https://soundcloud.com/poetscafe/venice-housing-poetry-discussion-poets-cafe-kpfk-072623
ELLIS EVICTION MAP & LEGEND
Our map contains photos of all 279 properties (with almost 1400 units) in Venice taken off the affordable, rent-controlled housing market using the Ellis Act. It also includes fragments of poems and text written by participants in the workshops.
Photo by Cindy Bendat
Photo by Cindy Bendat
LEGEND
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Each cream-colored dot on the photos has the number of rent-controlled (rent-Stabilized) (RSO) units on this property that were taken off the market using the Ellis Act.
The Ellis Act (California Government Code Chapter 12.75) is a 1985 state law that allows landlords to evict residential tenants to "go out of the rental business." It is implemented at the local city level. The LA Housing Dept website says “Displaced tenants have a right of first refusal on the unit from which they were displaced for a period of 10 years after the withdrawal of that unit from the market” and “If a withdrawn rental unit is returned to the market within two years of the date of withdrawal, the landlord is liable through a civil action for both actual and exemplary damages to any tenant displaced from that unit. In addition, the City may also initiate civil proceedings for exemplary damages.” The City does not enforce these regulations.
Since 2001 [as of February 2023] there have been 1395 units on 279 properties in Venice removed from the affordable, rent control market using the Ellis Act.
Of the 279 properties that were Ellised in Venice since 1999:
71 (25%) of them are now owned by an entity that owns 10 or more properties in LA County;
14 (5%) are owned by an entity that owns 50 or more properties in LA County; and -
8 (almost 3%) are owned by an entity that owns 100 or more properties in LA County.
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Each brown dot has the number of properties owned by this owner in LA County.
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Each red dot has the number of rent-controlled units in this building illegally taken off the market and used as hotel rooms and/or short-term rentals (STRs). These are all on Ocean Front Walk or adjacent and total about 220.
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The one gold dot represents a property that falls under the Residential Hotel Ordinance. In 2008 the City of Los Angeles established the Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance (RHO) to preserve housing for low-income Angelenos in longterm, large lower-income buildings; it is unlawful to convert or demolish residential units in a residential hotel without first obtaining proper clearance from the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD), but the city has not been enforcing the law (see Capital & Main).
1008 (of 1395) units that were lost using the Ellis Act in Venice are currently identified by the City as rent-stabilized units in their new forms. But are these units affordable? With vacancy decontrol, established by the Costa Hawkins Act in 1995, each apartment can be raised to market rent when a previous tenant moves out. Removing apartments using the Ellis Act speeds up the process of moving units to unaffordable levels.
(September 2023)
WORKSHOPS
Between February and April 2023, we had a series of seven workshops where we explored our personal housing experiences and housing policy in LA, interviewed community members and experts, wrote poetry, took photos, and thought about how to turn it all into an exhibition. We also visited various sites where important Venice housing activism has taken place: Lincoln Place where over 700 units of rent-controlled housing were preserved through years of activism; the First Baptist Church of Venice, now being developed into a community center and low-income housing; and Ocean Front Walk, where over 220 units of affordable rent-controlled housing have been illegally converted into hotel rooms and short-term rentals.
Photo by Pat Raphael
Photo by Pangea
Photo by Suzanne Thompson
Photo by Suzanne Thompson
Photo by Marilyn Ramirez
