Student housing creates community instability through Ellis Act Evictions

By Angie Orellana Hernandez

Towering above yard signs, gates and trash cans, the red sway of Tripalink housing ads narrow in on two important words — “Now Leasing.”

The ads are dispersed throughout USC’s west side, which encompasses the streets between W Jefferson Boulevard and Exposition Boulevard. The advertising is intended to reach college students, Tripalink’s target audience, as advertised by the blurb on the company’s website which states “Tripalink creates co-living communities and student housing opportunities across the US.”

Student housing companies such as Tripalink, though, have now come under scrutiny by local community organizations which advocate on behalf of long-term tenants in the area. 

“What we’re seeing is there’s a lot of affordable or rent-controlled units being demolished and what they’re building for the community is not affordable,” Sergio Vargas Rozo, lead organizer for housing advocacy organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said. “We know that they’re charging $1,000 per bed. An apartment could be like $4,000 or $5,000 if you’re charging by bed. Obviously, that’s not affordable for the community.”

In order for developers to proceed with such developments, they have to acquire the property from local landlords or from homeowners. This process can take many forms, but often stems from developers seeking “desirable housing markets” they seek to buy out, according to Joshua Cantog, a graduate search assistant at the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation.

“And then within a year of their purchase of the property, what they do is they evict everyone who lives there — all the tenants who live there — through the Ellis Act,” Cantog, a graduate student studying public policy, said. “And then after that, they either demolish the property and convert it into luxury housing or they rehabilitate and convert it into something else.”

The Ellis Act is a 1985 California state law that allows landlords to “evict tenants in rent-controlled units if they are planning to ‘go out of business,’” according to the Los Angeles Tenant Union. The law’s intention was to allow small property owners to leave their business and sell their property.

However, property owners who seek to upturn the housing market and maximize profitability have taken advantage of the act, Cantog said.

Cantog has assisted in the creation of a website created as part of an agreement between USC and community-based organizations following the construction of the USC Village in 2017.

The website contains an information dashboard that tracks affordable housing, which stemmed from activism from South Los Angeles residents’ activism who “basically came together and formed a coalition to say to USC: you’re expanding development in South LA and you need to ensure that you give back to the community,” Cantog said. 

The dashboard shows the progression of Ellis Act evictions in the USC area, with a steep increase from 4 to 47 evictions per 10,000 units that occurred after 2015 — nearing the completion of the Village’s construction.

The overall rate for Ellis Act Evictions in the USC area is “substantially higher” than that of the city average, according to the NDSC website.

“It’s really the removal of affordable housing, to make housing unaffordable, and kind of exclusive, which is the main contradiction, and why a lot of housing activists focus on it,” Cantog said.

The area west of USC is particularly impacted by Ellis Act evictions, as seen by the steady rise in evictions since 2013. In 2020, landlords evicted 20 households, the area’s highest rate.. In the neighborhood itself, there are construction projects peppered amongst family dwellings and other buildings soliciting to USC students, with signs such as “USC Student Leasing” or “USC Rent.” 

Within the confines of 37th Street and Raymond Avenue, Exposition Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, there are nine properties that have undergone the Ellis Act process. These properties have Ellis Act file dates ranging from 5/9/2014 to 7/10/2019, according to the Los Angeles City Planning Zone Information and Map Access System

Most of the Ellis Act filed submissions occurred in 2017, around the time the USC Village was unveiled. One property in particular, 1185 W 37th Street, was a modest single family home, complete with a white picket fence, meager metal gate and shrubbery in the front yard. Now, it is a red and white apartment complex.

The property is described on Zillow, a housing market website, as a “good development opportunity” due to its closeness to the “new USC Village Development” which “could potentially feature retailers such as Trader Joe’s & Target.”

Such language is also noted in the description of1212 W 37th Drive. While the property has been obtained and not demolished, it was promoted as a “great opportunity to build multi-units, multiple bedroom student housing building where $1,250 to $1,600 bedroom proforma rents are the norm.”

Satellite imagery points toward an altering neighborhood in USC’s west area, where single family households are being demolished in lieu of towering apartments. While not all of the buildings have undergone the Ellis Act process, the idea of a changing landscape that caters toward profitability over affordability remains.