It’s a common sight in Los Angeles County courts. The landlord appears in the eviction proceedings with an attorney familiar with housing law. The tenant shows up alone with an eviction application full of legal jargon he doesn’t understand.

Los Angeles County regulators pledged to change the balance of power on Tuesday, asking lawyers to draft an ordinance to provide legal counsel during eviction proceedings for certain tenants in unincorporated areas of the county.The Board unanimously approved the following: motion This gives county officials 10 months to create an ordinance to ensure that these at-risk tenants have lawyers to help them navigate the maze of landlord-tenant law. It is

Superintendent Holly Mitchell, who drafted the motion with Superintendent Hilda Solis, said “legal representation is expensive and out of reach for too many workers.”

He said a disproportionate number of renters at risk were blacks and Latinos, the racial groups with the highest rent burdens in the county. As the county’s pandemic eviction moratorium expires in March, regulators said they want to ensure that at-risk renters get the legal help they need to prevent homelessness. .

in recent years, a dozen jurisdictions – include new york city, San Francisco and Philadelphia — passed versions of these “Rights to Lawyers” laws.

The ordinance will first create legal services for about 1 million people living in unincorporated areas. The commission later said it plans to expand assistance to vulnerable tenants in the rest of the county, except for the city of Los Angeles, which the city council is working on its own. ordinance Securing legal representation for tenants.

Tenant advocates say landlords are much more likely to be represented in eviction proceedings by lawyers than renters. 2019 analysis Of the 4,200 evictions in Los Angeles County, about 97% of the tenants involved were found not to have a lawyer. Landlords, on the other hand, did not provide representation in 12% of cases.

“Landlords have more resources, knowledge and power than tenants,” said Rafael Carvajal, director of the Department of Consumer and Commerce, which oversees the county’s eviction advocacy service.

Advocates said without a lawyer, tenants were often left with no defense, no matter how many protections existed to help them.

“If you can’t defend yourself, you lose,” said Barbara Schultz, director of housing justice at the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation.

On Tuesday, tenants across the county shared stories of unfair evictions and harassment they felt powerless to stop. A woman has pleaded with the board to help her find a lawyer for two trials in August so she can have a chance to keep the home she has lived in for 17 years. . A single mother of three, she said she received an eviction notice last month, even though she is behind on her rent.

“I want to fight,” she said in Spanish.

Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, the only tenant on the board, also said she once desperately sought legal help to avoid eviction.

Horvath said that when he was mayor of West Hollywood, he received an email from a neighbor telling him that an eviction notice had just been posted on his door. She claimed her landlord had not paid her rent for three months, she said. That was not true, she said, ultimately avoiding her eviction.

“I was scared. I was ashamed. I was mayor,” she said. “And I don’t know what I would have done without my legally trained friends to protect me.”

While most of Tuesday’s testimony was from tenants, a few groups argued the board’s motion was on the wrong track and were more thorough about how much the ordinance would cost and whether it would actually stop evictions. I asked for a sensible analysis.

Max Sherman, apartment manager. The Greater Los Angeles Court said most of the lawsuits in Los Angeles County courts stem from nonpayment of rent and are therefore unlikely to be resolved through arbitration. He argued that the ordinance, which provides for the right to seek legal advice in such cases, would only prolong the legal process and would not stop evictions altogether.

“Hiring an hourly lawyer doesn’t change a tenant’s ability to pay rent,” Sherman said. “We urge the board to adopt a permanent rent subsidy program countywide for rents to be paid by renters rather than by lawyers.”