What Happened
Council Members Yaroslavsky and Price recused themselves from portions of Item 13 as landlords or duplex owners. The meeting's central and most contentious matter was Item 13, a Hernandez-authored Housing and Homelessness Committee report directing the City Attorney to draft ordinances prohibiting certain evictions of tenants who attest to economic hardship from the January 2025 wildfires, and suspending LAMC Section 151.06(G) (the RSO's "substantial remodel" eviction ground). After roughly a week of committee process, Council Member Hernandez pushed to vote on the item that day rather than continue it, arguing the city was already seeing evictions accelerate — she cited Housing Department data showing weekly eviction filings had risen from about 1,500 to 2,400 — and that funding-based solutions like the United to House LA (ULA) tax could take six to eight months to disburse, too slow to prevent displacement now.
Council Member Soto-Martinez authored the operative compromise amendment, capping the rent debt a hardship tenant could accrue at three months of fair market rent and requiring documented proof of fire-related income loss, while explicitly leaving eviction for other lease violations available to landlords. Council Member Rodriguez led opposition, arguing repeated ad hoc tenant-protection measures unfairly burden small, often immigrant-owned "mom and pop" landlords who are themselves working/middle-class families, and that such policies discourage new housing construction citywide. Council Member Blumenfield said he supported the general direction — a version close to what he proposed in committee — but was not comfortable with the proof requirements and other details as drafted and voted no.
After an extended, multi-stage voting sequence — including a failed continuance motion, two rounds of amendment votes, and a contested "receive and file" motion that ultimately also fell short after Council Member Raman asked to reconsider and change her vote — the underlying eviction-protection directive (excluding two mom-and-pop-landlord-specific recommendations that passed separately, unanimously, while Yaroslavsky was recused) failed to secure the eight votes needed to pass. The final attempt to formally close out the item via "receive and file" also failed with only five ayes, leaving Item 13 on the desk to carry over to the council's next meeting rather than being either adopted or formally disposed of.
Contested Votes
Motion to continue Item 13 to February 25 failed 5-7, with Harris-Dawson, Hernandez, Hutt, Jurado, Raman, Soto-Martinez, and Yaroslavsky voting no (i.e., opposing further delay and wanting a vote that day).
First motion to "call the question" and end debate on the pending amendments fell short of the 10-vote threshold required (received a nominal 8-3 tally), with Lee, Park, and Rodriguez voting no.
Amendment 13B (Hernandez-Yaroslavsky), capping rent debt accrual for qualifying hardship tenants at three months of fair market rent and setting documentation requirements, fell short of the votes needed to pass (nominal 7-4), with Blumenfield, Lee, Park, and Rodriguez voting no.
Amendment 13C, a related provision considered alongside 13B, likewise fell short (nominal 7-4), with Jurado, Lee, Park, and Rodriguez voting no.
Motion to reconsider Amendment 13A (Hutt-Harris-Dawson), a carve-out addressing mom-and-pop landlords, passed 8-3 after it had initially failed, with Lee, Park, and Rodriguez voting no.
Amendment 13A itself, on reconsideration, passed 8-3 with the same three members — Lee, Park, and Rodriguez — voting no.
Final vote on the underlying Item 13 recommendations (excluding recommendations 6 and 7, as amended by 13A) fell short of the eight votes needed to pass (nominal 6-5), with Blumenfield, Jurado, Lee, Park, and Yaroslavsky voting no.
Original motion to receive and file Item 13 (minus recommendations 6 and 7) — which would have formally closed the matter without adopting the eviction-protection directive — passed 8-3, with Hernandez, Jurado, and Soto-Martinez voting no.
Motion to reconsider the receive-and-file vote, after Council Member Raman asked to change her vote from yes to no, passed 8-2, with Lee and Rodriguez voting no.
Final, reconsidered vote on receive-and-file failed with only five ayes — well short of the eight votes needed — with Hernandez, Hutt, Jurado, Raman, and Soto-Martinez voting no (opposing closure of the matter). Because it could not be reconsidered again that day, Item 13 remained on the desk and was set to carry over to the council's next meeting.
Separately, recommendations 6 and 7 of Item 13 (addressing mom-and-pop landlords specifically) were bifurcated out due to Council Member Yaroslavsky's recusal and passed unanimously, 10-0.
Public Comment
Public comment on Item 13 drew a large crowd, with speakers describing rising eviction filings and rent gouging in the aftermath of the January wildfires and urging the council to act quickly rather than continue the item further.