Housing Justice
- In June Los Angeles passed the Emergency Renters Assistance Subsidy Program, establishing a fund to help tenants struggling to make rent during the pandemic. Instead of providing assistance to tenants, the program was designed to make payments directly to their landlords. However, the program required that landlords agree to some terms — such as pausing evictions during the pandemic — in exchange for the money. Now, tenants in the program have reported that their landlords are refusing to take the subsidy — echoing outcomes in similar programs nationwide — leaving tenants in the lurch.
- Members of the South Robertson Neighborhood Council (SORO NC) raised $3,650 through a GoFundMe with the explicit intention of illegally displacing unhoused people under the Cattaraugus underpass in West LA. On Sunday, they removed the belongings of unhoused residents and put down boulders in their place. Volunteers from Ktown for All, Street Watch LA, and Los Angeles Community Action Network successfully drew public attention to the incident, directing Angelenos to call into the SORO NC meeting’s public comment, as well as provoking a response from South Robertson’s Councilmember Herb Wesson. By the end of the week the boulders had been removed.
- Following some debate over funding levels, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to approve $97,000,000 in funding for the “Rapid Re-Housing” program, to be administered by LA Homeless Services Authority.
Police Violence and Community Resistance
- For several days, protesters demanding justice for Dijon Kizzee staged peaceful demonstrations outside the South LA Sheriff’s Station. But the conflict escalated over Labor Day weekend, when sheriff’s deputies fired projectiles and chemical irritants into the crowd, injuring several. No justification has been provided by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the escalation, and activists present report that it was unprovoked. Over the following few days of protests, deputies began making arrests, with 35 arrests made as of Tuesday.
- In a bizarre and upsetting press conference staged by County Sheriff Alex Villanueva in response to the Dijon Kizzee protests, a series of speakers supposedly representing the South LA community — including someone with ties to white supremacists — addressed “outside” protesters to insist that they were not welcome. Spokespeople for Kizzee’s family pushed back on Instagram, insisting that all peaceful protesters were welcome no matter where they were from.
- The open existence of gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has become a national story. Zak Cheney-Rice writes, “The particular incentive structure that governs gangs like the Executioners may be eye-catching in its boldness. But it also typifies policing in places where they do not proliferate so literally.”
Labor
- AB5, a law passed last year in California, mandated that many “independent contractors” be reclassified as full- or part-time employees. Now, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law AB2257, which creates exemptions for several professions, including journalists and musicians.
Climate
- AB 2147, which removes some of the barriers that incarcerated firefighters face in becoming professional firefighters after they are released, was also signed into law this afternoon.