This article was produced by Capital & Main, an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. L.A. TACO is co-publishing this article.
By Jessica Goodheart
[dropcap size=big]J[/dropcap]orge Tejeda stands in his kitchen wearing blue jeans and a Dodgers cap explaining to reporters why he is waiting for sheriff’s deputies to arrive and evict him, his mother and four younger brothers. “We’ve been up and down with the rent,” he says. “Sometimes food is more important.” He is shy, soft spoken and only 26.
For the past few months, Tejeda, who operates a pallet jack at a food warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, has been the family’s sole source of income. He makes $16 an hour and works full time. His stepfather, a handyman named Jose Angel Silva, used to help out with the rent. But in December, he collapsed in a storeroom and spent months in the hospital with a serious case of COVID-19.
Then in April, Tejeda’s mother’s health deteriorated. A street vendor who sold tacos, aguas frescas and other wares, Maria Martinez, 44, is diabetic and can no longer ply her trade. Martinez understands that her eldest is under enormous pressure. “He’s the only one working right now,” she says in Spanish on the phone several days later, after her daily dialysis appointment. “Imagine if he lost his job and we didn’t have any income — I think we’d be even worse off.”
California’s eviction moratorium ended on Sept. 30. But tenants still have many protections now that they can be evicted in most of the state for failing to pay rent. The federal government has allocated $5.2 billion in funds for emergency assistance for California renters who have been impacted by the pandemic. That should be enough to retire the state’s rent debt, according to one analysis. Furthermore, a state law forbids landlords from moving forward with eviction proceedings based on nonpayment of rent between Oct. 1 and March 31, 2022, if the tenant has a rent relief application under review. Renters in the city of Los Angeles — like Martinez — have even greater protections than their counterparts elsewhere in the state. In fact, Los Angeles renters still cannot be evicted for nonpayment of rent if they have been impacted by the pandemic.