Stephanie Portillo has lived in her one-bedroom Maywood apartment with her son for 12 years, with rent increases she could afford until recently.
A new landlord purchased the complex in October 2021, when she was paying $1,000, and has since raised her rent to $1,245, she said. She received no notice about the most recent raise, nor was she aware it amounted to more than the 5% annually that state regulations allowed. In April, he asked her to sign a contract that would raise her rent to $1,675, a number well beyond what Portillo — and most of her neighbors — can afford.
The hiked-up rents that have swept over so much of the region are now hitting once-affordable neighborhoods in Southeast Los Angeles County. The combination of higher prices, job losses and economic hits from the pandemic is sending some longtime residents to cheaper areas like the Inland Empire and high desert, or to different states altogether. And local officials are scrambling to keep people in their homes.
In February, Maywood issued a 60-day rent freeze, then extended it through September. On July 26, the City Council approved a rent stabilization ordinance to take effect when the rent freeze ends, limiting annual rent increases on all units to 4%.
Maywood’s efforts mirror those in the neighboring cities of Bell Gardens and Cudahy. These small, dense municipalities, three of the county’s so-called Gateway Cities, are populated largely by Latino and immigrant workers employed in the manufacturing,...
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