Robin Urevich
How LA’s Illegal Short-Term Rentals Hide in Plain Sight on Booking Sites
Los Angeles officials are struggling to crack down on illegal rentals during a housing crisis. Here’s how to make sure you’re a responsible vacationer.
In Los Angeles, Your Chic Vacation Rental May Be a Rent-Controlled Apartment
Amid an affordable housing crisis, dozens of rent-controlled buildings are listed on short-term rental websites. A 2018 law was supposed to stop that, but the city is struggling to enforce it.
Los Angeles Orders More Residential Hotels to Stop Renting to Tourists
Twenty-one hotels have been cited so far. If the citations are enforced and upheld in court, hundreds of rooms could be turned back into low-cost permanent housing for the city’s poorest residents.
Residential Hotels Got Contracts Under the Los Angeles Mayor’s Homelessness Program Despite Violations
A city law sought to prevent low-cost housing from turning into hotels, but some landlords rented to tourists anyway. That didn’t stop them from receiving city funds for a new temporary shelter program.
Los Angeles Mayor Orders Residential Hotels to Be Used for Temporary Homeless Housing
A 2008 city law intended hotels used as primary residences to be preserved as safety-net housing. But with little enforcement, some landlords had turned their buildings into tourist hotels.
LA Housing Department Proposes Increasing Residential Hotel Enforcement
Amid the city’s homelessness crisis, a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation found, some landlords have turned buildings meant for low-cost housing into tourist hotels.
LA Housing Department Demands Residential Hotels Stop Renting Rooms to Tourists
After a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation found that landlords were turning low-cost housing into tourist hotels, the city ordered some building owners to comply with the law.
How We Found What the City of Los Angeles Didn’t: Landlords Renting Low-Cost Housing to Tourists
Hotel ads, booking sites and guest reviews. Tourists staying in rooms meant for low-cost housing. Yet the city’s Housing Department has cited few landlords for violating the residential hotel law.
LA Promised to Preserve Low-Cost Housing. These Tenants’ Homes Were Turned Into Hotel Rooms Anyway.
When the American Hotel converted into a tourist hotel, its long-term residents lost not just their affordable housing but the creative community that long thrived in the iconic building.
Los Angeles Housing Department Will Investigate Residential Hotels
Following a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation, which found that buildings meant for housing are instead being rented to tourists, the mayor’s office asked for a review.
Checked Out: How LA Failed to Stop Landlords From Turning Low-Cost Housing Into Tourist Hotels
Fifteen years ago Los Angeles passed a law to preserve residential hotels as housing of last resort. Now, amid the homelessness crisis, Capital & Main and ProPublica found some hotels may be violating that law by offering rooms to tourists.
