Third in a series
Re “Meghan Looks for Aid in Rounding up Support for Rent Control Chat”
[img]2122|right|Mehaul OLeary||no_popup[/img]After listening to a plaintive plea at last week’s meeting for intervention by City Hall on zooming rent increases by unregulated apartment owners, City Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, frequently compassionate, today is assuming a cautious stance.
“I am not familiar with what the term ‘rent control’ fully involves,” he said. “But there are parts of the concept I have issues with, such as when a new landlord buys a property and raises rents on tenants – singles or families – on fixed incomes.”
It was reported eight days ago that two Culver City persons who had their rents raised 100 percent this summer died suddenly, within weeks of being handed the no-alternative news. Aroused activists are hoping to convince the City Council to adopt at least a form of rent control on apartment buildings.
The early returns are not necessarily encouraging for Culver City apartment dwellers seeking protection from new or old landlords imposing open-ended rent increases. A poll of four of the five members of the City Councils shows one firm yes for rent control, one firm no, and two others saying neither.
“There must be a way we could help,” Mr. O’Leary said, “at least in the relocation process or in some fashion where it is not as cold as throwing people out on the street.
“Examples of victims we heard about at last week’s meeting and other cases I have heard about are disturbing. These are not people with savings or who had any idea a day like this ever would come.”
Striving for clarity in his reasoning, Mr. O’Leary stands midway between two compelling principles.
• “We must be less callous,” he says, but…
• “In some ways, government being involved in this seems like overreach.
“The full rent control, I am not familiar with and I would have to learn more about it,” says the sixth-year Councilman. “I have heard the term bandied around a lot. I just don’t know enough about it, though.”
