Charlotte’s 3rd & Fernwood has closed, and its owner is citing financial and staffing troubles as the cause.
The restaurant known for modern Southern cuisine owes $203,859.97 in back rent, Charlotte Business Journal reported, citing a complaint filed in Mecklenburg County court.
NW Met LP, owner of the Metropolitan shopping center development in Midtown, is pushing to evict the eatery from its space at 1100 Metropolitan Ave., according to CBJ.
“We aim to delve into the foodways of the African diaspora and its connection to the American South,” Chef Greg Collier said. “In doing so, we will take on a fresh but elevated perspective that acknowledges the substantial influence of the South and its culinary traditions, specifically the renowned ‘meat and three’ meals.” Jonathan Cooper
Chef Gregory Collier, a four-time James Beard Award-nominated chef, and his wife, Subrina Collier, opened 3rd & Fernwood in August 2024.
The couple hasn’t previously addressed the 3rd & Fernwood closure publicly, although Gregory Collier pointed to high rent, staffing issues, cost-conscious customers and other challenges for the restaurant’s woes in a brief text exchange with CharlotteFive on Wednesday, Dec. 10.
“Same issues most restaurants are dealing with right now,” he said.
Greg and Subrina Collier and their daughter, Seleah. Greenwood Ave
The acclaimed chef said he’s actively working with the landlord to settle the back rent.
3rd & Fernwood stopped accepting reservations several weeks ago, and its website went dark soon after, Unpretentious Palate reported last week.
The restaurant’s windows are now covered over, and “a call to the development’s leasing agent confirmed that 3rd & Fernwood is no longer a tenant,” according to the outlet.
3rd & Fernwood opened at Metropolitan Charlotte in August 2024. The mural is by Georgie Nakama. Jonathan Cooper
Chef Collier draws national attention
In 2019, Collier was a semifinalist for the James Beard Award’s Best Chef Southeast distinction at the now closed Loft & Cellar, and he was again honored in 2020 for the Colliers’ first venture, Uptown Yolk.
That restaurant opened first in Rock Hill, then closed for a move to Charlotte. Uptown Yolk remains open, serving upscale brunch options such as mojo hash, sweet potato waffles and a fried chicken thigh sandwich called A Bird in the Hand.
In 2022, Collier was a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef Southeast for his work with Leah & Louise and was again named as a James Beard Award Outstanding Chef semifinalist the next year.
Despite critical acclaim that included Esquire naming Leah & Louise one of the Best New Restaurants in America in 2020, the restaurant closed at Camp North End in 2024 with plans to move to a new location in the future.
Since then, the Colliers have faced multiple lawsuits involving unpaid funds, along with state and federal tax liens, the Charlotte Observer has reported.
Chef Greg Collier in the kitchen. John D. Simmons The Charlotte Observer
Tanasia is a service journalism reporter at the Charlotte Observer | CharlotteFive, working remotely from Atlanta, Georgia. She covers restaurant openings/closings in Charlotte and statewide explainers for the NC Service Journalism team. She’s been with McClatchy since 2020.
The Minnesota Supreme Court chambers, Monday, June 9, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
Minnesota renters who use Section 8 housing vouchers or other subsidies now enjoy the same eviction protections as all other renters, thanks to a Minnesota Supreme Court decision reversing precedent it set in 1995.
Landlords in Minnesota can evict tenants over lease violations, like using drugs or committing other crimes. But If a landlord accepts a rent payment after finding out about a lease violation, they can’t evict the tenant over that specific breach of the lease. In other words, by accepting a rent payment despite knowing about a lease violation, the landlord waives their right to evict.
This protection did not apply to renters who received public subsidies, including Section 8 housing vouchers, until Wednesday.
“This case actually advances the law and restores fairness to what we thought was the correct outcome prior to the court’s 1995 decision,” said Julia Zwak, managing attorney for housing at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, which brought the case.
The Minnesota Human Rights Act prohibits landlords from discriminating against tenants who receive rental assistance. Wednesday’s court decision brings case law in line with state statutes, Zwak said.
The previous precedent allowed landlords to bring evictions against subsidized renters at any time based on conduct that the landlord didn’t consider serious enough to warrant an eviction at the time, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Sarah Hennesy wrote in the decision.
“But even when retaliation is not in play, it is important for landlords to decide quickly whether to evict based on a known breach. When a tenant’s breach harms or disturbs other tenants, the other tenants benefit from a system that requires a landlord to act quickly,” Hennesy wrote.
The case originated from a tenant, Nichole Nalewaja, who was living in Hook & Ladder Apartments in Minneapolis and using a Section 8 voucher to cover rent. The voucher doesn’t cover utilities, however, and she fell behind on electricity bills; her electricity was shut off in early October 2022, according to court records.
Nalewaja and her boyfriend broke into the building’s electrical box to reconnect their service, but accidentally shut off others’ electricity in the process. Hook & Ladder learned about the electrical box tampering — a lease violation — on Oct. 5, 2022. The landlord continued accepting rent payments from the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, which administers the rental assistance vouchers, over the following months.
The landlord initiated an eviction against Nalewaja in March 2023 over the electrical box break-in, despite having received thousands of dollars in public money after the lease violation. A renter who didn’t receive assistance likely could’ve had the case quickly dismissed because Hook & Ladder had accepted several rent payments between the time of the violation and the initiation of the eviction; Nalewaja could not.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid took on Nalewaja’s case and saw an opportunity to challenge the court precedent. Gary Van Winkle, a 35-year veteran Legal Aid housing attorney, carried the case all the way to the state Supreme Court — and got the outcome Legal Aid was hoping for.
“Nichole Nalewaja stood up for herself, her neighbors and for all tenants who receive housing subsidies across the state,” Van Winkle said in a statement. “She challenged a 30-year-old court precedent and she won.”
Denise Richards is evicting her estranged husband! AND his family! This just escalated like crazy!
As the Denise Richards & Her Wild Things stars continue to battle it out in a messy divorce, she’s leaning on a certain legal strategy to access the home they used to share: eviction! As we’ve been following, Aaron Phypers is living in a Calabasas home which has both his and Denise’s name on the lease. Denise hasn’t lived there for two years, but Aaron’s parents have been occupying it. Now after the split Aaron is there, too, along with his brother, the dogs he and the Scary Movie 3 actress share, as well as tokens from her late mother.
We previously covered that Denise attempted to enter the home to retrieve her pooches, but that the restraining order she has against him — dictating she stay 100 yards away at all times — made it difficult. So now she wants to clear him out of the place so she can freely access her belongings!
And she thinks she’s got grounds due to… unpaid rent??
In filings seen by People, Denise claimed that the landlord informed her of the eviction after reaching out to Aaron multiple times with no luck:
“I left many of my personal items and my late mother’s items at the house based on Aaron telling me that his family would be moving back to Canada and we would be moving back into the [property]. If I am not able to [retrieve] my dogs and belongings, I believe my dogs will be harmed and my property destroyed or discarded during the eviction process.”
She further alleged that “Aaron and his parents and brother have severely damaged” the residence, leaving it “in a state of disarray.” The reality TV star noted she was “shocked at the condition of the home, having not lived there for over two years,” and “will have no way of retrieving my dogs and belongings in a safe manner that ensures Aaron and his family do not come near me or harm me.”
Messy, messy, MESSY. Like, literally this time, but also holy cow, we can’t think of the last time we heard about a divorcing couple EVICTING each other!
What are your reactions to the latest in this ongoing split? Let us know in the comments down below.
In her entire law career, Sarah McCracken has never seen anything like the email she received on June 25.
McCracken, a tenants’ rights lawyer at Tobener Ravenscroft, is currently representing a Latino family suing a landlord and real estate agent for illegal eviction after being kicked out of their Baldwin Park home last year.
A few weeks after being served, amid a series of ICE raids primarily targeting Latino communities in L.A. County, Rod Fehlman, the lawyer who appeared to be representing the agent at the time, sent McCracken’s team a series of emails disputing the lawsuit and urging them to drop the case.
He ended the correspondence with this: “It is also interesting to note that your clients are likely to be picked up by ICE and deported prior to trial thanks to all the good work the Trump administration has done in regards to immigration in California.”
“It’s racist,” McCracken said. “Not only is it unethical and probably illegal, but it’s just a really wild thing to say — especially since my clients are U.S. citizens.”
The comment arrived as ICE raises tensions between landlords and Latino tenants. According to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, ICE has been pressuring some landlords to report their tenants’ immigration status.
Bonta’s office issued a consumer alert on Tuesday reminding landlords that “it is illegal in California to discriminate against tenants or to harass or retaliate against a tenant by disclosing their immigration status to law enforcement.”
Fehlman didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did the clients he seemed to be representing: real estate agent David Benavides and brokerage Majesty One Properties, Inc. Fehlman’s role in the case is unclear; following requests for comment from The Times, Benavides and the brokerage responded to McCracken’s complaint using a different law firm.
But according to McCracken, Fehlman serves as the defendants’ personal attorney and will likely still take part in the lawsuit in an advisory role.
Evicted
From 2018 to 2024, Yicenia Morales rented a two-bedroom condo in Baldwin Park, which she shared with her husband, three children and grandson. According to her wrongful eviction lawsuit filed in May, the house had a slew of problems: faulty electricity, leaks in the bathroom, bad ventilation, and a broken heater, air-conditioning unit and garage door.
“There was a lot that needed to be fixed, but we accepted it because we were just happy to find a place to live,” Morales said.
The real problems started in 2024, when her landlord, Celia Ruiz, started asking the family to leave because she wanted to sell the property, which isn’t a valid reason for eviction under California law or Baldwin Park’s Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, the suit said.
According to the lawsuit, Ruiz then changed her story, alleging that she wanted to move into the house herself, which would be a valid reason for eviction. According to the suit, Ruiz and her real estate agent, David Benavides of Majesty One Properties, constantly urged Morales and her family to leave.
In September, the pressure mounted. Ruiz penned a handwritten note saying she needed the house back, and Benavides began calling them almost every day, the suit said.
In November, assuming Ruiz needed to move back in, Morales left. But instead of moving in herself, Ruiz put the property on the market in January and sold it by March.
“I really believed she needed the house for herself,” Morales said. “I’m just tired of people taking advantage of others.”
Lawyer tactics
Depending on your interpretation of California’s Business and Professions Code, Fehlman’s comment could be illegal, McCracken said. Section 6103.7 says lawyers can be suspended, disbarred or disciplined if they “report suspected immigration status or threaten to report suspected immigration status of a witness or party to a civil or administrative action.”
In addition, the State Bar of California bans lawyers from threatening to present criminal, administrative or disciplinary charges to obtain an advantage in a civil dispute.
You could argue that Fehlman’s email isn’t a threat. He never said he’d call ICE himself, only claiming that Morales and her family “are likely to be picked up by ICE and deported.”
Morales and her entire family are all U.S. citizens. But she said she feels racially profiled because of her last name.
“It’s not fair for him to take advantage of that,” she said. “I was born here. I have a birth certificate. I pay taxes.”
Just to be safe, Morales sent her birth certificates to McCracken’s team. Even though she’s a citizen, if Fehlman reports her to ICE, she still doesn’t feel safe.
Federal agents have arrested U.S. citizens during its recent raids across L.A, and a 2018 investigation by The Times found that ICE has arrested nearly 1,500 U.S. citizens since 2012, detaining some for years at a time.
“I was already depressed over the eviction. Now I’m hurt, embarrassed and nervous as well. Will he really call ICE on us?” Morales said.
McCracken said Fehlman’s message is a byproduct of the current anti-immigrant political environment. Fehlman sent the email on June 25, the end of a jarring month that saw the agency arrest 2,031 people across seven counties in Southern California, 68% of which had no criminal convictions.
“People seem to be emboldened to flout the law because they see people at the top doing it,” she said. “It’s totally unacceptable behavior.”
An ironic twist, she added, is that Fehlman’s own client at the time was also Latino.
“I don’t know if Benavides was aware that his lawyer is making racially profiling comments, but I don’t think he’d want to work with someone like that,” McCracken said.
The case is still in its early stages. Benavides and Majesty One Properties responded to the complaint on July 17, and McCracken’s team hasn’t officially served the landlord Ruiz yet because they’ve been unable to locate her.
In the wake of the ICE comment, communication between McCracken and Fehlman halted. McCracken decided Fehlman’s rant and possible threat didn’t warrant a response, and Fehlman hasn’t said anything else in the meantime. Her team is still deciding how they want to proceed in the wake of the comment, which could justify legal action.
She called it a dangerous attempt to chill her client’s speech and a failed attempt to intimidate her into dropping the case. But he took it way too far.
“We’re at a point in time where lawyers need to be upholding the rule of law,” she said. “Especially in a time like this.”
WASHINGTON — With two conservatives in dissent, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down a property-rights claim from Los Angeles landlords who say they lost millions from unpaid rent during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Without comment, the justices said they would not hear an appeal from a coalition of apartment owners who said they rent “over 4,800 units” in “luxury apartment communities” to “predominantly high-income tenants.”
They sued the city seeking $20 million in damages from tenants who did not pay their rent during the pandemic emergency.
They contended that the city’s strict limits on evictions during that time had the effect of taking their private property in violation of the Constitution.
In the past, the court has repeatedly turned down claims that rent control laws are unconstitutional, even though they limit how much landlords can collect in rent.
But the L.A. landlords said their claim was different because the city had in effect taken use of their property, at least for a time. They cited the 5th Amendment’s clause that says “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.”
“In March 2020, the city of Los Angeles adopted one of the most onerous eviction moratoria in the country, stripping property owners … of their right to exclude nonpaying tenants,” they told the court in GHP Management Corporation vs. City of Los Angeles. “The city pressed private property into public service, foisting the cost of its coronavirus response onto housing providers.”
“By August 2021, when [they] sued the City seeking just compensation for that physical taking, back rents owed by their unremovable tenants had ballooned to over $20 million,” they wrote.
A federal judge in Los Angeles and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 3-0 decision dismissed the landlords’ suit. Those judges cited the decades of precedent that allowed the regulation of property.
The court had considered the appeal since February, but only Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch voted to hear the case.
“I would grant review of the question whether a policy barring landlords from evicting tenants for the nonpayment of rent effects a physical taking under the Taking Clause,” Thomas said. “This case meets all of our usual criteria. … The Court nevertheless denies certiorari, leaving in place confusion on a significant issue, and leaving petitioners without a chance to obtain the relief to which they are likely entitled.”
The Los Angeles landlords asked the court to decide “whether an eviction moratorium depriving property owners of the fundamental right to exclude nonpaying tenants effects a physical taking.”
In February, the city attorney’s office urged the court to turn down the appeal.
“As a once-in-a-century pandemic shuttered its businesses and schools, the city of Los Angeles employed temporary, emergency measures to protect residential renters against eviction,” they wrote. The measure protected only those who could “prove COVID-19 related economic hardship,” and it “did not excuse any rent debt that an affected tenant accrued.”
The city argued that the landlords are seeking a “radical departure from precedent” in the area of property regulation.
“If a government takes property, it must pay for it,” the city attorneys said. “For more than a century, though, this court has recognized that governments do not appropriate property rights solely by virtue of regulating them.”
The city said the COVID emergency and the restriction on evictions ended in January 2023.
In reply, lawyers for the landlords said bans on evictions are becoming the “new normal.” They cited a Los Angeles County measure they said would “preclude evictions for non-paying tenants purportedly affected by the recent wildfires.”
A girl walks up the stairs in Aurora’s recently closed Fitzsimons Place apartments as people forced to leave move out their belongings. Aug. 12, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Denver landlords are filing eviction cases in record numbers.
Denver County Court has already seen 13,478 cases this year, breaking a record set last year.
In fact, it’s the highest number of eviction court cases on record, and there are still two months left in the year. Data tracked by the courts goes back to 2008.
This year also saw a record number of monthly cases in April, while October saw the third-highest number.
Prior to the pandemic, Denver averaged about 9,000 eviction cases yearly.
After COVID-19 hit, the rate of eviction cases dropped radically because of dramatic government action. The federal government declared eviction moratoria. And the American Rescue Plan spent millions on renter stability.
In 2020, there were fewer than 4,000 Denver eviction cases, and in 2021, there were fewer than 5,000.
The federal government lifted the last eviction moratorium in September 2021. Since then, the numbers have shot up, especially as rents have remained out of reach for many.
Money from ARPA will dry up entirely by the end of this year. And though the city poured $30 million into rental assistance programs, court cases continued rising.
As it’s tried to extend the resources, the city’s Department of Housing Stability has put new restrictions on who can get help.
Three types of households currently qualify:
People who have been ordered by a judge to leave their homes
People subject to a utility shut-off notice
People who moved from their previous home because of the threat of eviction.
What are the advocates saying?
Courts and attorneys are struggling to keep up with the sheer number of Denver eviction cases, Neumann said previously. And eviction cases represent a fraction of people facing housing insecurity.
The personal costs of eviction are high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention associates eviction with higher rates of suicide, addiction, mental health problems and homelessness.
Denver eviction rates are growing faster than the population.
Apartment owners say eviction is an important function in the rental market. Landlords say the state of Colorado has made it too hard to remove tenants, which has consequences for property owners and managers.
Drew Hamrick of the Apartment Association of Metro Denver previously said “eviction numbers are a reflection of the growth of rental units.” With the city’s growth, there are simply more people to evict.
But housing growth alone doesn’t explain the rise in evictions. The eviction case count is rising far faster than the number of new units opening in the market.
There is one bright spot in the numbers: While landlords are filing more eviction cases, the percentage of those cases ending in sheriff deputies carrying out an eviction has dropped since before the pandemic. In part, this is because policymakers have invested more in rental assistance and legal support.
The courts have become a tool to connect tenants to eviction assistance programs, legal support and resolutions with landlords. Another potential source or relief: The median rent in Denver has dropped to $2,150 — down $111 year over year. But those prices remain unaffordable for many working people.
Denver voters and leaders are making big decisions
On Nov. 5, voters will decide whether to authorize a new sales tax that would raise billions over the next few decades to create and preserve income-restricted housing units for low- and middle-income residents.
Also, the Denver City Council will weigh Mayor Mike Johnston’s proposed 2025 budget. The spending plan includes $20 million in temporary rental assistance. Separately, another $2 million would go to legal defense services.
Johnston also proposed spending $60 million on the longer-term solution of creating and preserving affordable housing, plus $57.5 million on his efforts to end street homelessness, in 2025.
How are you faring in the Denver rental market? Shoot us an email here.
The owners of Machine, a Wicker Park cocktail bar and lounge, are facing an eviction lawsuit. Their landlords filed the lawsuit on July 29, claiming the bar’s owners owe $31,584. The next court date is October 25, according to Cook County records.
Machine’s owners, Chireal Jordan and Brian Galati, confirm via a spokesperson that they permanently closed the bar in July and they failed to negotiate a lease. Online listings only show a temporary closure.
The bar struggled in recent months to attract customers and cut hours. Jordan and Galati are also behind Headquarters Beercade. In June, they opened another cocktail bar, Dearly Beloved, in Pilsen. The rep says the two want to soon open Machine in a different space and hope to settle their eviction dispute with their landlord, Newcastle Retail Management.
Dearly Beloved shares similarities with Machine, which opened in March 2019 at 1846 W. Division Street. While Division Steet isn’t really Chicago’s longest street (sorry, Mr. Terkel), the stretch around Wicker Park does come with complications for restaurant owners — and that was even before 2020 and COVID’s spread. Before Machine’s debut, Jordan and Galati described their upcoming project as a cocktail restaurant. It had gimmicks — interactive elements like a tiny hammer used to break caramelized sugar lids covering cocktails. A burger came topped with foie gras and that angered animal activists. The bar also had a floral display cooler that was regularly stocked. Customers could buy fresh flowers to impress dates and parents or make themselves happy.
However, after the politicians closed bars and dining rooms during the pandemic, Division Street launched into another phase. Wicker Park was once a hub for nightlife with customers routinely crawling through multiple taverns on a weekend night. In the ‘90s, it was more of a hipster vibe, with art and music leading the way. That environment quickly dissipated when sports bars, like the Fifty/50, set up shop in the ‘00s. The co-owner of Club Foot, a Ukrainian Village bar that closed in 2014 and was filled with pop-culture trinkets catering to customers who didn’t care for pop music and football, dubbed the sports bars popping up and threatening her business as “bro-holes.”
But the neighborhood has yet again shifted with more families in the neighborhood — just check out the “stroller parking” sign at Parlor Pizza. Throw in economic challenges including rising labor and food costs, and restaurant owners don’t know which way to pivot. There have been more recent closures along the strip: Fifty/50 and Whadda Jerk are shuttered just west of Damen Avenue. The owners of Takito Kitchen, which has been on Division for more than a decade, have repeatedly warned that they’re close to closing, begging customers on social media to return to help business.
Machine enjoyed a five-year run along Division Street, inside a space whose past lives included Taus Authentic and Prasino. The space now joins a list of growing vacancies between Ashland and Western.
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey signed a $5.1 billion bond bill Tuesday aimed at boosting the state’s dwindling housing stock, but critics say the plan will do little to help struggling renters and people now at risk of losing their homes.
The measure, approved on the final day of formal legislative sessions, includes a mix of bonding, policy changes, tax breaks and other incentives to help spur the much-needed development of new homes.
Healey, a first-term Democrat who has made housing a key part of her legislative agenda, described the measure as the “most ambitious” in state history to address what she called the state’s “toughest” challenge.
“The Affordable Homes Act creates homes for every kind of household, at every stage of life, and unlocks the potential in our neighborhoods,” Healey said in a statement. “Today we are taking an unprecedented step forward in building a stronger Massachusetts where everyone can afford to live.”
Under the plan, at least $2 billion will be devoted to the rehabilitation of more than 43,000 public housing units, with 25% of the money dedicated to preserving housing for those with low incomes.
The bill also calls for diverting $800 million to the state’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund to create and preserve affordable housing for households whose incomes are not more than 110% of area median income.
Among the policy initiatives in the bill is a proposal to authorize accessory dwelling units equal to or less than 900 square feet to be built by-right in single-family zoning districts in all communities.
The plan expands funding for the state’s Community Investment Tax Credit Program, which funds community development corporations that partner with nonprofits to build affordable housing across the state.
Under the tax credit program, donations to community development corporations that qualify are eligible to receive a 50% refundable tax credit.
The Senate approved the $5.4 billion housing bond bill in May and the House followed in June with a $6.5 billion bill. Differences between the two bills were worked out by a six-member committee, which announced a compromise on the final day of formal sessions.
Lawmakers rejected Healey’s controversial proposal to give communities the authority to add transfer fees from 2% to 5% onto property tax bills to fund affordable housing, which faced opposition from the real estate industry.
Lawmakers also rejected a plan to spend $1 billion to allow the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s water system to be expanded to the Ipswich River Basin, which includes Beverly, Danvers, Ipswich, Middleton, Peabody, Salem and other communities north of Boston.
And some housing advocates say the changes in the new law will do little to help people who are now struggling to pay the rent or facing foreclosure.
“The housing bond bill includes meaningful funding to support public housing and build new affordable housing, but legislators failed to include any tools to help renters who are facing enormous rent hikes and eviction today,” said Carolyn Chou, executive director of the group Homes for All Mass.
Homes for All Mass was pushing for inclusion of a proposal that would allow cities and towns to stabilize rents by pegging increases to the rate of inflation with a cap at 5% and protect tenants by banning no-fault evictions.
“We need strong rent stabilization now to protect people during the decades it will take to make housing more affordable in Massachusetts,” Chou said.
The housing bill was a top priority for Healey and other Beacon Hill leaders, who are trying to spur more home building amid a shrinking inventory that is edging first-time buyers out of the market.
The prolonged housing crunch is affecting the state’s economic growth, making it much harder to attract new families and companies, they say.
Massachusetts has some of the highest housing costs and rents in the country. The median price of a single-family home hit a record $609,000 in June, according to real estate industry reports. Meanwhile, single-family home sales were down in June versus the same month last year.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com
Cyndi Lauper‘s son is in BIG trouble with his luxury Manhattan apartment building!
Declyn “Dex” Lauper-Thornton — who is the son of the music icon and her Law & Order star husband David Thornton — is facing being evicted from his $7,200 per month apartment in a swanky high-rise in the heart of New York City. And the claims being made against him by other tenants and building management alike in the Financial District spot are WILD!!
Of course, Dex is already the focus of legal action following an incident in which he allegedly threatened to shoot a nurse in the head. But now, the Girls Just Want To Have Fun singer’s progeny is facing even more legal trouble!
According to the New York Post, Dex’s landlord lodged an eviction petition against the 26-year-old last month in the building’s first official bid to try to boot him. That’s according to a New York County Civil Court filing first unearthed by that outlet on Friday. The filing claims that Dex has violated a number of lease rules since he moved into the place back in October. And neighbors are claiming the same thing, too!
One unnamed neighbor spoke to the Post about it on Friday, saying that Dex’s one-bedroom apartment almost immediately became the source of considerable noise pollution in the very early hours of the morning:
“I never had any problems with any of the neighbors before. Then a new tenant moved in … and immediately there was very loud music at the most bizarre times, like 3 a.m. or 7 a.m. — it felt like there was a nightclub right behind my wall.”
That source went even further, too. They claimed that they confronted Lauper-Thornton about his loud music and unruly behavior after a particularly wild night. Then, the day after the confrontation, the neighbor found a BULLET in the hallway near his apartment!! OMG!! Horrified of the finding, that neighbor up and moved out of his apartment shortly thereafter. Honestly, we would probably do the same…
The bullet is an interesting and concerning detail for a number of reasons. Not only for the most obvious — what it means about the things Dex may have access to and/or the possible intimidation tactics involved — but also because the Time After Time singer’s son has been arrested twice before. Those arrests include an illegal gun rap in Harlem back in February, and being in possession of a stolen vehicle in Manhattan in July of 2022.
Speaking of the gun charge from February, on the night before he was arrested for that one, the Post reports that Dex walked into the management office of his apartment building and got into a terrifying verbal altercation with them. Per the civil court papers, he was “holding a marijuana blunt and looking visually inebriated” during his confrontation, which was over an email that he’d been sent about building policies. The court filing claims he threatened management officials like this:
“If you don’t fix the email, I will come back with people and have everyone’s face broken. I will break your legs. I have friends and an uncle that will f**k you up. Don’t play with me because I will bring someone with me and tear this whole place up.”
OMG…
Another frightened tenant later reported to building management that they could hear “constant screaming” and threatening language coming from Dex’s apartment after he moved in. Management made this notation regarding that claim:
“The resident advised the yelling, shouting and/or screaming sounded very aggressive in nature and was filled with explicit language and threats of bodily harm.”
A third tenant called the building “unlivable” with Dex in it, and a fourth reported:
“[I am] scared for my safety because of the constant yelling and noise.”
Other complains include tenants alerting management to cigarette and marijuana smoke constantly wafting from Lauper-Thornton’s apartment, even though the building has a very explicit ‘no smoking’ policy.
That aforementioned first neighbor confirmed the other tenants’ complaints to the Post. They explained to the outlet that noise was a significant and persistent issue, including one morning in which they actually confronted Dex about it:
“I would hear the disturbing music every other day. There were plenty of times when it was 2 a.m., 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. I had an important meeting one day, on a week day, but I was woken up at 3 a.m. the night before because the music was blasting. I could feel the bass. I put on a robe and went to confront the guy, in a nice way, and I had to bang on the door so loud because he just couldn’t hear.”
The neighbor went on:
“He tried to take the high road with me, saying, ‘oh, is this how you talk to people?’ I said, ‘yes, at 3 a.m., I’m not going to be overly nice about it.’ So we had this conversation for 30 seconds. I left, and the music continued.”
Ugh.
Other residents began seeking rent concessions to make up for Lauper-Thornton’s alleged bad behavior. In turn, the building’s landlord served him with eviction papers. Womp, womp! Now, the battle is making its way through court. In the meantime, Dex’s attorney Darryl Vernon said to the Post:
“We are talking about ways to resolve the situation.”
Uh-huh…
Not a great look for Cyndi’s kid here — to say the very least. But what say U, Perezcious readers?? Sound OFF with your reactions down in the comments (below)!
The Hall on the Yard food hall in Ivanhoe Village has closed amid a lawsuit with its landlord over unpaid rent, according to court records. Records indicate that the Hall on the Yard owes nearly $250,000 in unpaid rent.
Marketed as “the world’s first full-service food hall,” the space housed nine food stalls, five event spaces and three premium cocktail bars. Now, a sign that reads “Permanently Closed” hangs on its front door, although the hall has not made an official announcement pertaining to its closing.
The Hall’s parent company, Ivanhoe Place Propco, filed a lawsuit against The Hall April 15, alleging the hall owes $249,105 in unpaid rent plus utilities. Ivanhoe Place Propco asked the court that the food hall be evicted, in addition to paying the rent.
According to the complaint filed by Ivanhoe Place Propco, The Hall on the Yard’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2023. They were supposed to continue to pay rent, which did not happen even after notices were served, according to records.
One of the hall’s vendors, Shay’s Kitchen, released a statement on Facebook Thursday, stating that they were unexpectedly served a five-day notice to vacate the premises. The statement also says that Shay’s Kitchen fulfilled all of its financial obligations and that they’re looking for another location to reopen.
“In the notice, Shay’s Kitchen was named as a Defendant. In a letter attached to the notice, we were informed that we are not legally responsible for any of the issues but are named merely because the court system requires the landlord to do so,” the post reads.
“The issues at hand are entirely beyond our control or involvement,” the post continues.
Jamal Wilson, owner of The Hall at The Yard LLC, faced a similar fate with his other concepts a few years back. The Hall on Franklin in Tampa closed in 2020, as well as The Hall at Ashford Lane in Atlanta. Wilson’s New Orleans concept also closed in 2022.
Wilson is also selling his Tampa home, according to property records.
The Hall on the Yard opened in 2022. It was originally supposed to open in 2020, but faced delays due to supply shortages.
Nearly a year ago, every tenant at the massive Westside apartment complex Barrington Plaza was served with an eviction notice by their landlord, who said the residents of nearly 600 units needed to move out so the company could install fire sprinklers following two major blazes.
In the months since, most of the tenants have left. But more than 100 stayed behind, vowing to fight in court for the right to stay in their rent-controlled units, suspecting that the owner’s real intent was to upgrade the complex and re-rent the units at market rate.
On Wednesday, their day in court finally came as lawyers for the tenants and the owner, Douglas Emmett Inc., presented opening arguments in a civil case that will decide whether the evictions are legal. The tenants and their advocates see the case as an important test of renter protections in a city faced with an affordable housing crisis.
“I wanted to make sure I’m represented in this fight for tenants in Los Angeles,” said Barrington tenant Chuck Martinez, who has lived in the building since 2021. “To lose this affordable housing is a step backward for L.A.”
For the owner, the case at the Santa Monica Courthouse is about landlords having the legal right to choose not to continue renting their units. “Inside the courtroom, this is a case about upholding the law,” said John Samuel Gibson, attorney for Douglas Emmett.
The company wants to evict the residents under the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict rent-stabilized tenants to remove units from the rental market — for instance, to build condos.
The heart of the case revolves around whether the company truly intended to take the units off the rental market and whether the law requires them to do so permanently.
Frances M. Campbell, the tenant’s attorney, said evidence presented during the trial would show that the company for years had plans to “transform and upgrade” the complex and to re-rent the apartments “at a new market rate.”
Campbell said the law requires owners who invoke the Ellis Act to remove the units permanently from the rental market.
“Defendants can point to no case that allows a landlord to invoke the Ellis Act to temporarily go out of the rental business while it remodels or makes repairs to its buildings. And that makes sense, because that is not the purpose of the Ellis Act,” the tenants’ lawyers wrote in a trial brief.
The lawyer pointed to an email sent by Douglas Emmett CEO Jordan Kaplan to city housing official Mercedes Márquez in May 2023, just days before the eviction notices were filed, as evidence that the company intended to re-rent the units.
“This project is likely to take many years and assuming we bring the rental units back online within 10 years (which is a very good assumption) they will still be subject to the RSO,” Kaplan wrote, referring to the city’s rent stabilization ordinance.
In his arguments on behalf of Douglas Emmett, Gibson pointed to that same email as evidence that the company wasn’t trying to evade rent control.
“I personally assure you we are not doing this to remove Barrington Plaza from the RSO,” the email said.
Installing fire sprinklers and making other safety upgrades is a multiyear project, and the apartments will be removed from the market during that time, he said.
The law allows owners to use the Ellis Act to “take the property off the rental market for a longterm period,” the company’s lawyers argued in a trial brief.
The Ellis Act does not require owners to remove the properties from the rental market forever, he said. Only that they do not “conduct a sham removal” in order to evade rent control.
“This is not one of those sham situations,” Gibson said.
“(The bill) ensures nonbinary and trans people are seen and represented in every part of Colorado law, which is especially important now with the wave of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation across the country,” said Garrett Royer, political director for LGBTQ advocacy organization One Colorado. “It helps the state remain a leader on LGBTQ rights with a very simple legislative fix.” Read more
Colorado legislators set aside $7.2 million to fund longer psychiatric hospital stays
Low-income Coloradans with mental illnesses are poised to receive longer hospital stays after state legislators set aside money to expand a decades-old Medicaid rule.
Federal law requires that Medicaid patients hospitalized in psychiatric facilities be discharged after 15 hospital days in a month or the facility doesn’t get paid. The rule was intended to prevent hospitals from warehousing patients, but advocates and psychiatrists say that it instead pushes hundreds of vulnerable Coloradans out of the facilities prematurely and into a cycle of homelessness, incarceration and emergency room visits. Read more
Parks, bars, protests stripped from bill that would create gun-free zones in Colorado
A proposal to limit where people can carry firearms in Colorado, openly or with concealed carry permits, was narrowed substantially Wednesday as sponsors fought to win a key committee vote in the state Senate.
The bill as introduced would have banned firearms from being carried at a slew of places, including stadiums, protests at public locations, bars, places of worship, public parks, libraries and more. It was amended to only ban firearms at schools, from preschool to college, as well as polling places, the state legislature and local government buildings, though local governments could opt out. It would allow exceptions for security and law enforcement. Read more
Colorado lawmakers’ $40.6 billion budget caps tuition hikes, includes money for auto theft prevention
Colorado lawmakers unveiled a state budget proposal Tuesday that would provide more money for higher education, address long waitlists of jail inmates with competency issues and boost pay for home health care workers.
Those are among the highlights as legislators look to spend about $40.6 billion in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The bipartisan Joint Budget Committee will now usher the bill — one of the few must-pass measures considered by the General Assembly each year — through the legislature and to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk in coming weeks. Read more
“For-cause” eviction protections for renters overcome moderate Democrats’ challenge in Colorado Senate
Democrats in the Colorado Senate fought off a challenge from within their own party Monday and advanced a bill that would increase displacement protections for tenants — clearing that hurdle nearly a year after the legislative death of a similar proposal.
The bill generally would give renters of apartments and other housing a right of first refusal to renew an expiring lease. Landlords would need to have a good reason for not allowing them to renew, such as failure to pay rent or plans for substantial renovations. Read more
How Wyatts Towing allegedly circumvented Colorado’s new towing law — and why legislators are pushing for further reform
HB24-1051, introduced this legislative session, would outlaw property owners from using automated emails to authorize tows. The bill also would mandate that the authorizing party must be a property owner or someone from a rent-collecting third party — banning parking management companies from doing this on the tower’s behalf.
Colorado poised to ban cities’ limits on how many people can live together
Colorado lawmakers are poised to ban occupancy limits in cities and towns across the state, clearing the way for more roommates to live together as part of Democrats’ push to reform local zoning regulations and address the state’s housing crisis.
Roughly two dozen cities and towns in Colorado have the type of occupancy limits that would be prohibited under HB24-1007, which cleared the state Senate on Tuesday. The measure would prohibit local governments from limiting how many unrelated people can live in one home or housing unit, except for health and safety reasons. Read more
Why Colorado’s push for more high-density housing near transit irks cities — even some that allow it
Colorado cities are ready for a legal fight if necessary to stop a state push to overhaul local housing density rules and allow more tightly packed development along train and bus routes.
While many local governments support the goal of concentrating people in apartments around transit hubs so they drive less, mayors have objected to what they see as state leaders intruding on local power. It’s the same local control problem that led to the defeat of a similar state push last year in the Colorado legislature.
Lawmakers revived the transit-focused housing density bill last month and are moving it through the state House. Read more
Next year’s state budget, gun restrictions and Front Range trains under debate in Colorado legislature this week
The budget package, known as the long bill, lays out how the state will spend some $18 billion in general fund dollars in the next year. It also reveals some of the state’s priorities — such as the end of the so-called budget stabilization factor that has shortchanged state education funding — as the proposal works its way through both chambers. Read more
Landlords in Fort Worth lodged just under 46,000 eviction notices in 2023, the report found. (Its data, sourced from research group Eviction Lab, includes Tarrant and Denton counties under the Fort Worth umbrella.) The Fort Worth area registered more total filings than both Austin and Dallas.
Fort Worth renters, shielded by pandemic eviction moratoriums and cushioned by rent subsidies, received 19,505 notices to vacate in 2020. The tally crept up a couple thousand the following year before skyrocketing to 42,425 in 2022, as legal protections faded and state support funds dwindled. Eviction filings in the city have outpaced the national average almost every month since.
Black residents in Fort Worth account for 40% of eviction defendants, despite constituting only a quarter of the city’s renters, the study added. Fort Worth women also experience disproportionately high filing rates.
Fort Worth hasn’t escaped the swell in rents sweeping Texas’ booming major cities; nor has it been immune from the trend’s most dire symptoms. Evictions have climbed in tandem with homelessness, which has pierced record levels in recent years (though it has dropped off in 2024, according to the city’s latest estimates).
The city report proposes a roster of policy changes to combat the crisis. Forcing landlords to pay slightly more to submit eviction notices, and guaranteeing legal counsel to tenants who receive them, could reduce both the number of filings and the number of removals. Affording renters more time to pay back overdue rent could also ease the pain.
HB 2127, a state law passed last year banning any and all city or municipal statutes “regulating evictions or otherwise prohibiting, restricting, or delaying evictions,” would complicate tenant-friendly reforms introduced on the city or county level, the report notes.
The regulation further emptied an already limited toolbox available to local leaders. In 2015, lawmakers outlawed local ordinances preventing landlords from discriminating against renters that paid for living costs with government vouchers. Fort Worth on March 19 forbade voucher discrimination for one demographic exempted from the state ban — veterans.
In the meantime, the report advises, policymakers can pursue a timeworn remedy for evictions: building more homes for less.
“Evictions are a symptom of a housing market in which the supply side represented by landlords has great power on account of high demand by renters,” the study notes. “Where there is ample affordable housing available, tenants can have greater market choices and are more likely to find rental housing that meets their income limitations.”
Lupe Breard remembers coming to live in the Queen Anne Victorian house in Echo Park with her mother and siblings when she was a child. The memory is still vivid decades later, she says, because she didn’t want to move there — until she saw the chimney and told herself Santa Claus could bring presents down it at Christmas. She’d never had a fireplace before.
She has stayed ever since, raising her three children in the historic home and watching as the neighborhood changed from a quiet, under-the-radar community to one where homes routinely sell for well over $1 million.
Breard stayed even after her mother died in 2018, leaving the house in her will to three of Breard’s older siblings. She stayed after the family estate tried, unsuccessfully, to evict her. And she has continued fighting to stay after the house was sold in 2022 to an investor who wants her and her sister, Sarah Padilla, 73, out.
Inside Lupe Breard’s Echo Park home, various rooms are filled with decades of belongings that she sought to sell in case she had to leave.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Over the years, Breard, 64, has come to see herself as the guardian of a historic house with an important history. “The Queen of Elysian Heights,” as it is now known, is one of the earliest homes built in Echo Park. In the 1960s it was owned by members of the Arechiga family, who moved there after they drew national attention as the final holdouts resisting eviction from their home in Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium.
“I know that once I’m gone it’ll be impossible to defend it,” Breard says. “I love that house. I love the walls. I love the staircase. I love walking out on the balcony at night when you can see the stars. I love the brick underneath the house where I used to hide when I was little.”
The history of the Queen of Elysian Heights is not entirely clear, but it is believed to have been built in 1895, around the time when the community was first subdivided.
Many locals see the triplex as the cornerstone of a historic neighborhood whose connection to the Arechiga family serves as an important reminder of a dark moment in the city’s past. Though it was once stadiums, freeways and city redevelopment that regularly displaced people in Black and Latino neighborhoods, today it is more likely to be gentrification and residential real estate investors.
“The house is very special,” said Paul Bowers, a resident of the neighborhood who helped petition the city for historic status. “It’s the first house in this entire area. And there’s something magical about it.”
A sign hangs in support of Lupe Breard, 64, who faced eviction in Echo Park.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Breard’s mother was a waitress at a restaurant near Placita Olvera who stretched her tips to make ends meet. She rented the house for a few years, then bought it in 1975 for $18,500, according to public records. The neighborhood was quiet.
“You really had to tell people where Echo Park was,” Breard says.
Breard continued living in the home as an adult and raised her children there alongside her mother. Breard and her older sister, Sarah Padilla, lived in separate units in the triplex at the time of their mother’s death in 2018.
Soon after, Breard says, she learned that she and another sister had been excluded from their mother’s will. The home had been left to Padilla and two other siblings. Their older brother was named executor of the estate. Family representatives of the estate did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment.
Soon, plans were in motion to sell the house, which over the years had grown to be valued at more than $1 million.
Breard says she feared that she would be evicted and the house would be torn down to make room for apartments or condos. She saw it as history repeating itself. She, like the Arechigas, would soon be ripped from her home.
“It’s not just an apartment you rent. I grew up there. It took part in raising me,” she said.
Members of the LA Tenants Union were on hand during a recent yard sale to support Lupe Breard, who was facing eviction.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
She began organizing with the LA Tenants Union and along with other supporters worked to file an application to have the property designated a historic-cultural monument with the city planning department, hoping that it would deter a developer from buying the property and tearing it down.
The estate framed the moves as stalling tactics meant to keep the house from being sold, according to court records.
Breard’s supporters circulated a petition calling for a show of community support so that the sisters could remain in the house and for “the rejection of tearing it down for future development projects.”
When the home went up for auction in the spring of 2022 there were multiple bidders. It sold for a little more than $1.2 million to NELA Development. Padilla, who according to court records refused to cooperate with the sale, received about $290,000 when the estate was settled.
“Buyer to be aware that the property will be delivered with its current occupants who are not paying rent,” read a notification issued with the sale.
Padilla did not respond to requests for an interview. Representatives for NELA also did not return emails and phone calls requesting comment. The company bills itself on its website as a “family-run real estate and investment company dedicated to preserving and enhancing the many precious neighborhoods that make Los Angeles a special place to live, work and play.”
Charles Fisher, a historian who prepared the application for the home’s historic designation, said the company has been a good caretaker for historic homes in the past.
It “has got a fairly good track record in dealing with historic properties,” he said. “They’ve bought houses and fixed them up properly.”
He noted that the company had received an award from the Highland Park Heritage Trust for its work fixing and preserving two local homes.
In June 2022, shortly after the company purchased the home, Breard was given a three-day notice to “perform or quit.” It said that she had “failed and refused to permit an appraiser or other workmen to enter the property” and gave her three days to do so or face eviction.
One month later, the property management company filed an eviction case against her in court, saying she had not complied with the notice.
Breard says she was never given the opportunity to comply. In November 2022, with the eviction pending, the home won the historic designation from the city over the new owner’s objection.
In January, a jury ruled against Breard in the eviction case, setting the stage for sheriff’s deputies to soon arrive and lock her out of the house.
Not long after, Breard saw a video posted to Facebook by the new owners, with the hashtag #realestateinvesting.
“Super excited to announce our first project for 2024,” a man says, standing in front of the house, its pastel facade looking worn but stately.
“This house here in Echo Park is absolutely amazing. It’s a Queen Anne Victorian … Let us know if you have any questions or if you’d like the private viewing of this property.”
Breard began preparing for the possibility that she would have to leave the home, though she wasn’t sure where she would go. She is disabled and cannot work, she said.
This month, Breard hosted a yard sale to get rid of many of the possessions that filled the house over the decades.
A couple of days later, she got some good news. A new attorney representing her had asked the judge to set aside the jury’s decision, arguing, among other issues, that the notice to quit had been defective as it never gave Breard specific instructions on how to fix the alleged lease violation.
The judge ruled in her favor, putting an end to the eviction proceeding.
After the ruling, Breard said, she went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and gave thanks at the tomb of St. Vibiana, the city’s patron saint. From her perspective, the win was a victory for a city where people without money are constantly being pushed out.
“I love Los Angeles, it’s my home,” she said. But “this is happening to so many people. You see people on the street and nobody even looks at them.”
Despite the win, the home’s future is still unclear. Breard’s sister still has a pending eviction case.
“The Queen of Elysian Heights” is one of the oldest homes in Echo Park.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Lupita Limón Corrales, an organizer with the LA Tenants Union, said a lawyer for the owner reached out to them and raised the possibility of selling the property to a community land trust, which would create a nonprofit that would be responsible for the home. The lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Corrales said the group is working with the sisters to come up with a proposal that it will present to the company.
If it were to happen, it could take a long time, she said. For now, their main focus is helping Padilla win her pending eviction case.
There is another migrant crisis brewing. Unlike the one at the southern border, this one will be all over the country.
A recent Harvard study found that half of the country’s renters are spending a third or more of their income on housing. Those are the people fortunate enough to find housing when there’s a nationwide shortage of affordable homes. Combine the rent line item with the soaring cost of child care, and don’t forget groceries, and … well, you can understand why evictions have spiked and homelessness has reached a record high.
Opinion Columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.
Unaffordable rent is a continuation of the wealth redistribution that accompanied the economic policies of President Reagan.
Before disco, the top 10% shared 30% of the nation’s income, while the remaining 90% lived off the rest. Today, the bottom 90% is getting by with less than 60% of the income. The top 1% took in 14.6% in 2021, which is twice their 7.3% share in 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
After 1979, Reagan convinced voters to make capital more important than people. Give the rich more, and the extra will “trickle down” — remember that? Greed is a part of capitalism, but it’s not a part of patriotism. Reagan’s characterization of our economy conflated those two concepts, and many Americans embraced that fallacy as truth. Those who struggled to achieve prosperity were viewed as lazy and unworthy of help. Something had to be wrong with them, the thinking went, because nothing was wrong with this “land of opportunity.”
This was the era when well-paying manufacturing jobs went elsewhere. This was when large, successful companies were able to rake in record profits, while hardworking employees began to rely on food stamps to feed their families.
And now Congress is trying to solve the housing crisis by offering housing developers more tax credits. So much for the invisible hand of the free market, right? Although there is a desperate need for more affordable housing, developers apparently do not make enough money to want to do it, so government has to dangle a carrot to ensure that thriving corporations will thrive even more.
Conservatives often talk of the country’s unsustainable spending. It isn’t federal debt that should worry them most, though. How much longer can 22 million people spend a third or more of their earnings on rent?
In 2023, some states saw eviction filings jump more than 50% compared with pre-pandemic levels — and back then, the unemployment rate was higher. That’s not sustainable either.
Whether it’s living off borrowings in order to avoid taxable income or reporting losses legally while still making money, the various ways billionaire owners end up paying a lower tax rate than many of their employees are well-documented. When rising costs are passed down to consumers — rent, baby formula, bacon — we are conditioned to blame the government and not the price-gougers. When gas prices are up, many point fingers at the White House, even though, of course, presidents don’t control gas prices.
This sorry state of the American economy is not attributable entirely to either party or any one presidential administration. This redistribution has continued on everyone’s watch. However, we are reaching a point where a lot of people are fed up with their hard work not paying off, and they’re going to take action. That’s why the Wall Street Journal dubbed 2023 “the year of the strike.” Workers saw the prosperity at the top and demanded their fair share.
Now more than ever, we need Congress to close the tax loopholes that have allowed trillions of dollars to be redirected away from the many and hoarded by the few. Because the rent crisis isn’t a new problem: It’s the latest incarnation of the one that started when policymakers began to pretend that greed is good.
Renting in Los Angeles is about to become more difficult for many people.
The last of Los Angeles’ pandemic-era renter protections expired Feb. 1. For the first time since April 2020, owners of rent-stabilized apartments — 70% of rental units in the city — are allowed to increase rents. And the last chunk of any unpaid back rent is due.
Don’t expect a soft landing. Depending on how the city responds, it could find itself escalating a lose-lose conflict with local landlords, and the pain would be widely felt: More than half of Angelenos live in rental units.
Already the city is bracing for a spike in evictions and homelessness. An estimated 90,000 households have outstanding rent debt from the period when pandemic protections were in place, and roughly 60% may be unable to pay it.
The city’s fledgling renter assistance program has distributed only a fraction of its $30-million budget; it has 30,000 applicants requesting a total $473 million to cover back rent. A small minority of applicants have been approved but have not yet received money; they have been given a 120-day grace period to avoid eviction. But most applicants still have no idea whether they’ll be approved.
The dominoes started falling last year. Eviction filings doubled from 5,000 in February to 10,000 in April and May after tenants were once again required to pay full monthly rent (separate from unpaid back rent) to avoid eviction. Ever since, evictions have remained 20% to 25% higher than the old baseline.
After the uncertainty of recent years, many landlords are likely to be looking for more revenue and stability. The pandemic was a scarring experience for smaller landlords, many of whom found themselves squeezed as their nonpaying tenants were protected by the city and as rents remained frozen amid historic inflation. Of course, landlords are not entitled to perpetual positive returns. Housing, like any asset, has downside risk. Some landlords — especially those who aggressively scooped up new rental units anticipating a surefire payday — lost that bet during the pandemic.
At the same time, landlords are within their rights to evict tenants who don’t pay. They would also be justified in more carefully vetting potential tenants within the bounds of the Fair Housing Act. Rather than rent units quickly, they may let units sit empty as they wait to find more financially established tenants. This could make it even harder to secure affordable housing in L.A. — especially for those with unsteady incomes (gig workers, contractors, artists) as well as those with potential red flags that background checks will inevitably uncover (such as justice-involved individuals and renters with poor credit histories or past evictions).
The city has launched a tenants’ rights awareness campaign, which could deter some overzealous landlords. The city also aims to aggressively expand the availability of legal counsel for those facing eviction.
Legal representation is a core part of the judicial process — and it’s crucial that tenants be protected from unlawful evictions. However, paying a fleet of public defenders to contest and delay every attempt at eviction might add fuel to the fire while draining the resources of the city and landlords alike.
While universal right-to-counsel programs boast high success rates of keeping people housed, it’s unclear what percentage of these successes involve averting an illegal eviction versus a landlord giving up and eating the cost of lost rent. Ninety-six percent of evictions in L.A. in 2023 came from nonpayment of rent, which should mostly be cut-and-dried cases. There are also other, less costly ways to prevent illegal eviction filings from reaching court. In some cities, tenants with complaints about living conditions can protect themselves from landlord retaliation by legally withholding rent and depositing it in a third-party escrow account.
It’s expected that providing counsel will cost the city $68 million each year — and recall that the city dredged up only $30 million for its rental assistance program. These resources could be focused on rehousing displaced families as quickly as possible. Instead the city is pursuing a policy that further antagonizes landlords and sends tenants the message that they might be able to get away with not paying rent if they fight hard enough.
Los Angeles doesn’t have to go straight to the most costly and adversarial policy to reduce evictions and prevent homelessness. In Philadelphia, lawmakers made permanent an eviction diversion program at a cost of $15 million. Landlords seeking an eviction are required to participate in a 30-day mediation period with a single goal: settling disagreements out of court and without an eviction. Under this program, more than 70% of disputes have successfully come to an agreement outside of court. Hawaii did similarly, with 87% of cases resulting in settlement.
Los Angeles can ill afford a drawn-out power struggle with landlords. That risks creating a “survival of the fittest” landscape where only property owners able to weather and adapt to renter protections stay in the market. Corporations already own more than 40% of the city’s rental units, a figure that could grow if smaller landlords make good on their threats to exit the market, either selling out to corporate owners or taking units off the market. That’s potentially a huge problem for this rental market, which is already among the worst in the nation when it comes to housing production.
On a more promising note, the economy has been roaring with job creation and higher wages for those at the lower end of the income distribution. Many have been back at work after a tumultuous year of strikes. That bodes well for tenants facing their first rent hikes in four years.
But the fact remains that Los Angeles is one of the least affordable places to live in the country. That’s the root cause of the impending eviction crisis and why renters needed so much protection in the first place. If the city prefers to keep strengthening renter protections while simultaneously blocking developers from constructing affordable housing, brace for a new status quo: a stricter, even pricier rental market under the growing watch of aggravated landlords and faceless corporations.
George Zuo is an associate economist at Rand and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee Rand Graduate School.
Most renter protection programs launched during the pandemic in Los Angeles have expired, and tenants who couldn’t pay rent due to economic hardships brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak must pay rent again starting Thursday.
That includes back rent owed from Oct. 1, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2023. Tenant advocates say it is preposterous to expect renters to pay the full amount from that period. The end of such renter protection programs are likely to result in many struggling renters becoming homeless or leaving the city and state altogether, said Larry Gross, executive director with the tenants advocacy group Coalition for Economic Survival.
“For those who are struggling to make ends meet, this is going to place a tremendous increased burden,” Gross said. “These tenants are essentially on the track to economic catastrophe, and there’s not much being done for them.”
Rent increases can resume
Evictions for nonpayment can resume starting Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Housing Department. Anyone who receives an eviction notice from their landlord — referred to in the courts as an unlawful detainer — should file a response to the courts within five days or risk losing their case by default. The city offers assistance for tenants facing an eviction notice at stayhousedla.org.
Bianca Lopez, an outreach worker with We Are Los Angeles, signs up a tenant for an information seminar on renters’ rights on Jan. 18, 2024.
(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Landlords can also increase rent over the next four months by as much as 6% annually if they pay for gas and electric in the tenant’s rental unit. This applies to rental units built before Oct. 1, 1978, and covered by the city’s Rental Stabilization Ordinance. These residents cannot be evicted without just cause, but tenants in units not protected by the RSO could see higher rent increases.
“The key thing for every tenant to know is their rights, and they need to not just react to whatever notice they get for from their landlord,” Gross said about rent increases and eviction notices.
Tenants should consider whether they face a legal or illegal eviction effort by their landlord. Renters can turn to legal aid clinics, such as the weekly Zoom meeting hosted by Coalition for Economic Survival, to determine what their options are and what resources they can use.
Landlords also cannot evict a tenant if they owe rent that is less than a certain threshold called the fair market rent of the unit. For example in 2024, the rent of a one-bedroom apartment is $2,006, and if a tenant owes less in rent, then they cannot be served notice, according to the city’s Housing Department.
The pet stays in the picture
The city enacted a tenant law during the pandemic that would not penalize renters who took in a pet, even if the pet was not allowed under their lease agreement.
The rule remains in effect for as long as the pet is alive but does not apply to pets who moved into the rental after Jan. 31, 2023, according to the ordinance. It was meant to deter people being forced to choose between keeping their pet or keeping their housing.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said the new law is designed to address the wide-ranging effects that the pandemic had on some people’s lives.
“Many people lost their loved ones and were dealing with isolation from quarantine, which led many to get new additions to their families,” Hernandez said. “These pets have helped people get through difficult times, and tenants should not be evicted from their homes because of the pets.”
Rent relief from the city
Mayor Karen Bass’ office encourages renters to know their rights and suggests tenants who face eviction contact the Housing Department hotline at (866) 557-7368. Tenant advocates warn renters to seek advice if they receive a notice to vacate from their landlord, rather than self-evict.
“In order to confront this crisis, we must do all that we can to prevent people from falling into homelessness in the first place,” Bass said in a statement. “Together with locked arms, we will continue our work to provide resources for the people of Los Angeles.”
The city of Los Angeles operates a rental protection program, known as United to House L.A. Emergency Renters Assistance Program, but it has had problems. The program set aside $30 million for rental relief but accepted applications only for a few weeks in September and October. So far, the program has approved about 3,200 tenants to secure rental relief of up to six months of rent, but most have yet to get their payments. About a quarter of the $30 million in funding has been dispersed, and an additional 25,000 tenants who applied for the program are still waiting for an answer.
On Jan. 26, the City Council voted to protect tenants from eviction if they were approved to receive funding through the program but have not yet received any money. That protection could extend to more renters who get approval in the meantime, which should stave off an eviction notice from their landlord.
“Tenants who have already been approved for emergency rental assistance should not be evicted while they’re waiting for their checks,” Councilman Paul Krekorian said at the council meeting. “Their landlords are going to get paid, so they shouldn’t be putting tenants out just because the city took a little longer to get them the money.”
But there is uncertainty surrounding the funding and who could qualify.
“Unfortunately, many tenants in the queue haven’t been notified whether or not they’re even eligible,” Gross said. “So they’ve been holding on and waiting. Some of them waiting for letters and approval that will never come.”
“Households who reported being behind on rent were more likely to have children, to have a disability, to identify as Black or Latinx, and to have larger household sizes compared to other renter households,” the study authors wrote.
The survey said the number of tenants behind on their rent is greater than what is projected in publicly available data from local government agencies.
According to the survey, those who are newly vulnerable to eviction in Los Angeles include about 60% — or 90,000 households — who recently fell behind on rent and could be evicted for nonpayment. The remainder fell behind on their rent payments before Oct. 1, 2021, or fell behind the last several months. The most vulnerable group in danger of eviction for nonpayment are tenants who hold graduate degrees and are less likely to be in the labor force, compared with others with outstanding debt, according to the study authors.
Among Los Angeles landlords with outstanding debt due to tenants behind on their rent, about 70% reported problems paying for repairs and maintenance and about half said they are having trouble paying property taxes and other payments. Out of the landlords surveyed, fewer than half said they would move forward with filing evictions after August 2023. But landlord companies that own properties with 50 or more units said they were more likely to file for eviction.
“Our surveys show that 71% of large landlords intend to evict, compared to just 39% of small landlords (1-4 units) and 40% of medium size landlords (5-50 units),” the study authors wrote.
After a lengthy discussion, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to prohibit the eviction of tenants whose rental assistance applications have been approved but who have not yet received their funds.
The move comes days before a deadline for tenants to pay pandemic-era rental arrears. Under the city’s plan to end COVID-19 eviction protections, unpaid rent accumulated from Oct. 1, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2023, is due Thursday.
More than 25,000 applicants are waiting to find out if they are eligible for funds from the United to House L.A. Emergency Renters Assistance Program, which provides up to six months of unpaid rent for qualified and selected renters and property owners.
Roughly 3,200 applicants were approved for the program, but most have not received their aid. Only 25% of the $30.4 million allocated for emergency assistance has been distributed.
Renters who did not apply for the program or were not approved could face eviction if they do not make their outstanding payments by Thursday. The deadline to apply was in October.
The City Council motion, introduced by Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Paul Krekorian, originally aimed to protect every renter who applied to the United to House L.A. program, regardless of their application status.
After pushback from groups representing property owners, the motion was amended to prohibit evictions only for applicants whose applications have been approved. Those individuals will be protected from eviction for 120 days after Feb. 1 while their rental assistance funds are processed.
“Tenants who have already been approved for emergency rental assistance should not be evicted while they’re waiting for their checks,” Krekorian said. “Their landlords are going to get paid, so they shouldn’t be putting tenants out just because the city took a little longer to get them the money.”
Applicants who have not yet been approved but are qualified will receive the same protections once granted approval.
Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said the motion was unfair to small property owners who rely on rent payments for their livelihood.
Before the amendment was enacted, the motion would have prevented landlords from evicting tenants for an indefinite period of time while they waited for their application to be processed.
“Owners would not be participating in the program if they knew this would be the ramification,” he said. “It’s not as egregious as it would have been without this amendment.”
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Fred Sutton, senior vice president of local public affairs for the California Apartment Assn., also said the amendment was key. But he’s still wary of how long it might take for renters and owners to receive their money.
“It’s just a matter of those funds getting to the individual,” he said, “but we are very concerned about the procedural bureaucracy that takes so long to get these dollars out the door.”
Sutton also criticized the “rushed” timeline of the City Council motion, which was introduced on Wednesday.
“There was one business day to review a very broad and somewhat complicated motion and on a procedural level, that shouldn’t be acceptable,” he said.
Hernandez said it was necessary to get the motion approved prior to the rent payment deadline.
“With the Feb. 1 rent debt deadline looming and thousands of tenants at risk of eviction, it’s incumbent on us to do everything we can to stop the eviction-to-homelessness pipeline and keep people in their homes,” she said. “The city can and must do more to keep Angelenos housed.”
Landlords across the country have been empowered to act as a kind of police force in the name of crime prevention for decades. How? Through local “nuisance property” laws and “crime-free housing” programs that require them to evict tenants for vaguely defined “criminal activities.”
Such laws target low-income and minority renters for eviction and violate their civil rights. That’s bad enough. But they also fail to reduce crime.
Cities across the country have been implementing these policies for about 30 years, building on the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which stepped up evictions in federally subsidized housing. By 2019, about 2,000 American cities had a crime-free housing program, and 37 of the 40 largest U.S. cities had a nuisance property ordinance.
Even as these policies spread, their efficacy was in doubt. I led a recent analysis of California’s crime-free housing policies that found they had no effect on crime. Other researchers have found that by driving people into desperation and homelessness, nuisance property ordinances may actually increase property crime.
Crime-free housing policies backfire partly because they treat 911 calls as an indicator of criminal activity. This creates a perverse incentive: For fear of being evicted, tenants don’t call authorities when they need them.
My study of California found that city blocks with apartments certified as crime-free saw 21% more evictions than blocks without such housing. Other researchers have found that nuisance property ordinances increase eviction filing rates by 16%. In the six months after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development instituted a “One Strike and You’re Out” policy on criminal activity in 1996, reported evictions from public housing surged 40%.
Evictions are deeply harmful in many ways. People who are evicted struggle to find housing again, and tenants removed from public housing are prohibited from receiving housing assistance. That can lead to more homelessness and desperation. Evictions also cause disproportionate housing insecurity for children, more unemployment, additional use of emergency room resources, and accidental drug and alcohol deaths.
Legal experts have argued persuasively that punishing people with eviction instead of through criminal justice procedures also denies them due process. These policies don’t require an arrest or conviction or even an indication of crime anywhere near the property. They don’t even require a crime.
People have been evicted under crime-free housing policies over kids playing basketball or jumping on a trampoline and because of complaints about barbecues. Tenants can even face severe consequences for the behavior of their guests. One federal court case concerns an Illinois city trying to evict a family because of a burglary committed by a friend of their teenage son who had slept on their couch.
The policies tend to be selectively enforced, with low-income, multifamily properties bearing the brunt. This has led the Department of Justice to take action against cities for violations of the Fair Housing Act and other federal laws. In 2022, the San Bernardino County city of Hesperia signed a consent decree with the federal government related to selective application of its crime-free housing program. Lawsuits have been filed on similar grounds against cities in Washington, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
What is the point of these harmful policies if they aren’t reducing crime? Public officials have suggested their real goal is segregation.
A Hesperia official acknowledged that the purpose of the city’s crime-free housing program was to remove what he described as “those kind of people” and “improve our demographic.” The mayor of Bedford, Ohio, said the city’s nuisance property ordinance was about taking “pride in middle-class values” and curtailing “urban immigration.” The analysis I led found that cities with crime-free housing programs had larger Black populations and that the affected apartments were on lower-income blocks with larger Black and Latino populations.
HUD has issued guidance to cities on how these policies may violate the Fair Housing Act by disproportionately evicting women, victims of crime and people with disabilities. But more needs to be done.
Following California’s lead, other states should limit evictions under these policies without an arrest or conviction or based on the behavior of nonresidents. Cities should also be required to report the number of evictions resulting from crime-free housing policies and nuisance ordinances. Similar federal policies also need reconsideration, including the one-strike policy for public housing and the rules that prevent evicted tenants from obtaining future housing assistance.
These policies and the evictions they cause are at best an ineffective means of preventing crime. At worst, they’re a harmful form of discrimination that leads to more crime and homelessness. Ending them could make all our communities safer.
Max Griswold is a policy researcher at the Rand Corp.
Reports of anti-social behaviour in Adelaide’s CBD including intoxication, large gatherings, street harassment, and shop theft has seen media headlines declaring a “crime wave” in the city.
But are the claims accurate?
What has been reported so far?
Businesses and city-dwellers have been raising concerns about anti-social behaviour in Adelaide’s CBD in recent months — especially in the North Terrace precinct.
Law student-turned-opposition staffer Simran Bacchal said she regularly felt fearful working in her family’s Bank Street cafe, and had considered abandoning the CBD for a “safer” location.
Simran Bacchal says she does not feel safe after witnessing violence near her family’s cafe in the North Terrace precinct.(ABC News: Isabel Dayman)
“We would witness a crime near the cafe every single day,” she said.
“We just don’t know what comes next — [people] might hit you, or they might get aggressive, and there have been multiple occasions where this has happened in the cafe.”
Ms Bacchal said every Monday morning was spent cleaning “alcohol, spit and bodily fluids” from the front of the cafe, pushing her customers away.
Owner of O’Connell’s Bookshop, Ben O’Connell, said property damage was common in the area, especially overnight, and greater police presence was always welcome.
Ben O’Connell says more mental health services is needed to support those in need.(ABC News: Isabel Dayman)
But he said he had not witnessed anything to suggest a “crime wave”.
