Last January, a series of huge forest fires erupted throughout the Los Angeles region, which is fueled by the strong winds and dry temperatures. Fires broke out for weeks, and the entire neighborhoods were burned in the wealthy parties in the Pacific Ocean and in Altadena from the middle class. They killed at least 30 people and destroyed at least 10,000 homes.
With embers cooling, thousands of Angelinus displaced to find new housing in a rental market were already among the most difficult country. They have searched for Zillow and Airbnb for the units they can bear in a short notice. What they found is the high prices by real estate owners and real estate agents who rush to benefit from increased demand.
Al -Fajr Smith and her family had rented in the hands for nine years. After burning their house in the Iton fire, she combed online lists for a similar alternative. But the options were $ 10,000 a month or more, three times what they were paying before the fire.
Ultimately, I found a smaller place in Sherman Oaks, more than an hour away, for $ 7800 still. The insurance of its tenant will cover the difference for a few months, but not for the period of the entire lease. Now, as she is close to the expiration, she and her husband are trying to know where to go after that.
“The prices were crazy, but because we had to find somewhere, we rented,” Grest told.
Disagreements about price dressing throughout the country play in the wake of natural disasters as victims stood on basic commodities. New Jersey officials went after fuel stations sacrificing prices After Hurricane Sandy; Officials in North Carolina went after the fraudulent contractors After Hurricane Florence; Prosecutors in Florida said they had received more than 100 complaints After Hurricane Milton last year. Most states have laws that prohibit such behavior, but it is difficult to enforce them in disaster chaos, and some economists claim that they can precede reverse results and cause shortage or storage.
But housing is a special issue. Excessive push of water or gasoline may be difficult, but the excessive payment of a rented apartment is a long -term commitment that can lead to bankruptcy or evacuation on the road. Fears of tickets have emerged from prices for rented apartments after many modern forest fires, including 2018 CAMP Fire in Paradise and 2021 Marshall Fire in Budder. But public prosecutors and public officials failed to deter or punish this illegal behavior.
Two days after the outbreak of forest fires in Los Angeles last January, it was claimed that the founder of technology Edward Kushins and real estate agent Willie Baronite Israel raised the price of the house they were renting in Hermosa Beach Water city by 36 percent, most likely an increase of more than $ 1,000. The city is about 15 miles from the Palisades Burning area.
A month later, California Public Prosecutor Rob Punta A lawsuit against the twoQuoting the state law, which makes the crime of raising food and shelter during the emergency of more than 10 percent. If convicted, Kushens and Parunit Israel will face fines of up to $ 10,000 and up to up to one year in prison.
But the Hermosa Beach menu was just one of the thousands that expanded the price. According to Washington Post analysis From RENTCAST lists data, the average lease in the Los Angeles region increased by 20 percent a two weeks following the fire – doubling the maximum permitted by California Law. Airbnb also allowed Rental Home to users to raise prices above the legal limits on more than 2000 properties, despite its assurances that it would prohibit such behavior, According to the public prosecutors.
This lack of enforcement is common after disasters. But this time, it led to an unprecedented campaign to tougherly organize housing prices – and got results.
“The minimum application that happened has sent a signal.” “The angel expects that enforcement does not exist.”
There are three dozens of states and the province of Colombia have laws Traders prevent prices from being affected During the state of emergency, but unlike California, which prohibits an increase of more than 10 percent, many of these laws are vague, prohibiting the “excessive” or “unreasonable” increase without specifying what this means or what is covered for commodities.
“Laws are everywhere,” said the Tersa Murray, the main lawyer for consumers in the Public Authority Research Group, a non -profit institution that focuses on consumer protection. Moreover, the enforcement of these laws is little – the government cannot be everywhere at one time after a hurricane or flood, and most disaster victims do not realize their rights and do not follow or call on violations.
The risks are higher when it comes to housing, which is already in a decrease throughout the country. About half of the nation’s tenants tenantThis means that they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Forest and hurricane fires often destroy thousands of homes in a quick caliphate, which exacerbates the display crisis in local housing shares.
Research from all over the country shows that owners often raise prices after fires and main floods. Request for rental apartments It increased by 25 percent After the 2018 camp fire in Heaven, California, for example, and 44 percent In The Hagina after the Maui 2023 fires in Hawaii. Increases until the current tenants hit: more than a A quarter of the tenants In Bulder, they said they saw an increase of more than 10 percent after the Marshall 2021 fire, and a study of multiple flood events found that the inexpensive apartments see 5 percent height On average after flood. These increases hit the most difficult low -income families, forcing them to move or lower other expenses.
This dynamic itself was displayed in Los Angeles earlier this year after the fires of Palisades and Eaton. One of the people who tested this market was Blanca, a woman who lived in a residential building in Altadena, and refused to give her last name because of her migration. Eiton’s fire destroyed her work and caused severe damage to the apartment complex, where she and her husband lived. Although their unity was sound, the building lacks water, gas and electricity.
Blanca and her husband looked for other apartments, but all the available units that they found were very expensive, some thousands of dollars above what they paid in Altadena for the same area. They could not bear anything like what the angel asked, so after a few weeks, they returned to their unity in the damaged complex and lived there pay the rent in unsafe conditions for several months.
“The place has not been examined, and many people have returned since February,” said Blanca in Spanish. “But there was no other place to go.”
In the first days that followed the fire, California Ponta Public Prosecutor distributed a price sacrifice in the state several times-real estate owners can only raise prices by more than 10 percent, but they were also unable to include new units for more than 160 percent of the typical market value. But it seems that real estate owners do not know the law, or lack of attention.
Punta has sent more than 750 warning letters since a fire for real estate owners who may be at prices, but they have started only four cases, and until now You did not get a conviction. Los Angeles lawyer has submitted some of her lawsuits, including against Airbnb, but the provincial lawyer in Los Angeles Province is much greater No one case was provided to destroy prices. The non -profit organizations say they cannot pick up the recession because they need a victim named to prosecute the property owner, and most disaster victims have no knowledge or resources needed to follow up on litigation.
“We were very disappointed, I will say,” said Rodney Legit, director of litigation at the Los Angeles Housing Center, who filed a lawsuit against a few real estate owners about the nomination of post -fire prices, including the company that owns Villa Carotta apartments in Hollywood. “We got complaints about seeing people who see prices for prices, (but) we have got a few relatively few … People say:” I am effectively in prices. “
However, the price of sacrifice in Los Angeles after the fires has led to a new progress in the difficult issue of implementation. When Zillow was immersed in exaggerated homes, a group of tenants defenders began an unprecedented group outsourcing campaign to track and absent prices. Kirk, who was an advocate of politics in the progressive strategic procedures for a fair economy, was witnessing many high prices, but she knew that the Punta office and local public prosecutors lack the tracking and prosecution of all the owner who was publishing high -price units.
Kirk participated in a partnership with Lauren Harper, a data analyst and colleague in the tenant, and they together enforced In their hands. When the formation of a new organization called “Rent Bridade”, they created a spreadsheet that collected Zillow for residential lists that violate the laws of sacrifice, and also encouraged firefighters and volunteers to provide evidence of forgery. In the first few weeks after the fire, volunteers gave more than 1500 examples.
Mike Nimith, head of the California Apartments Association, said Grist that most owners tried their best to comply with the law.
He said: “The California Apartments Association takes seriously the legal and moral obligations for rental housing providers during the declared emergency situations.” “Most housing service providers want to do the right thing, and our role is to help them navigate the complex rules when it is more important.”
Partially thanks for the pressure of the lease brigade, local officials in Los Angeles are now trying to escalate the implementation. The Council of Supervisors in Los Angeles County voted in July Create a new system to punish high price. Instead of waiting for the public prosecutor or the non -profitable institution to file a complaint from the court against the property owner, the local government can harden the owner with an administrative fine, in the same way that a restaurant is punished with cockroaches in its kitchen or a driver standing near the heat of the fire. The fines can reach 1000 dollars per dayWith an additional $ 500 a day for its failure to cooperate with investigations into the province.
This type of decree can be a model for how to impose the laws of prices.
He told Grist: “There is an urgent need for this deterrent and allowing people to know that the decline in prices is not at the level of discretionary authority for the prosecution.” “People need to know that every violation can lead to a fine, not just the prosecutors who choose to prosecute.”
The inflation prohibition in Los Angeles will explode At the end of AugustTherefore, the new rules will only apply the next time that California declares an emergency of a fire, flood, or other disaster. But during the last months of the ban, Kirk and other defenders noticed something unexpected – and agree. The demand for new housing from the fire has ended, but many owners still include new units much higher than the fair market price.
Kirk and Harper concluded that the housing supply in Los Angeles was so limited that the high prices became a natural part of the market. Even in the absence of a great shock like the fire, the angel was still asking exorbitant rents, and the tenants were still paying them. The emergency advertisement would only last for a few months, but the total housing image was always as it was.
“When the fire began, we used to see a lot of these units on the Internet to get ridiculous prices from people who are not usually rented, and perhaps knowing that the people coming from the gestures will be able to withstand these types of things,” Harper said. “But whenever we reach the fires … I think it only reflects the high rents.”
This article was originally appeared in Barrier in https://grist.org/extreme-weather/legal-price-gounging-is-rampant-AFTER-Disasters- CAN-IT-BE-Stopped/. Grist is a non -profit and independent media organization dedicated to the novel of climate solution stories and a just future. Learn more in Grist.org.
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