Santiago, Kevin de León, and Advocates Call for Expedited Rent Relief Payments

(Los Angeles, CA) – This morning, Assembly Member Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles Councilmember Kevin de León joined several housing, tenant, and small landlord advocacy leaders to call upon the City of Los Angeles to expedite rent relief payments. Assembly Member Miguel Santiago released the following statement:

“The bureaucratic pipe is clogged. We need to unclog it and let the dollars flow out,” said Assembly Member Santiago. “About 88% of my district are renters and are still playing catch-up on rent. We fought hard to get this money to protect low-income renters from landing on the streets. It’s absolutely unacceptable that it’s taking this long. We need to speed things up and give rent relief to those who need it the most.”

The City of Los Angeles received over 113,000 applications for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which is funded by state and federal dollars. The total amount requested for assistance is about $530 million and yet only $35 million has been paid out of an estimated $235 million in first-round funding. Governor Newsom and the State Legislature recently approved another $2.6 billion in rent relief funding, totaling $5.2 billion.

Assemblymember Miguel Santiago is the Chair of the Assembly Committee on Communications and Conveyance Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on Los Angeles County Homelessness. He also sits on the Assembly Committee on Health, Public Safety, Higher Education and Utilities and Energy. He represents the 53rd District composed of the cities of Los Angeles, Huntington Park, and Vernon.