Re “Council, mayor approve temporary moratorium on no-fault evictions,” Oct. 24 issue

Our City Council probably means well as it tries to prevent no-fault evictions and rent gouging, but I fear their efforts are doomed to failure.

Clever landlords are bound to find ways around evictions of renters. Many years ago, it happened to me. The landlord simply told us that their 20-something-year-old daughter was moving into our apartment (he was nice enough to give us three-months notice). Simple as that!

As for the rent gouging, with the shortage of rental units in the L.A. area, it is easy to find tenants willing to pay more. Limiting annual rent increases to 5% plus inflation won’t give much help to the many renters who already struggle to earn enough to pay their current high rents.

Think about it. That 5% increase plus 2% inflation would raise that apartment rental cost by 7% per month, and continue to increase it likewise in future years. It would require a comparable salary increase for the renters to keep up. Of course, that renter could double-up with another renter, or take a second or third job. Hardly the way to solve this problem, as important as it is.

The solution is to build more readily-affordable rental units, preferably in sparsely populated areas while providing inducements for business growth (more jobs) in those areas. This would also alleviate our growing traffic congestion. Our City Council needs to get back to the drawing board.

George Epstein

Detroit Street