Karen Eyres is actively involved in local government affairs in West Hollywood and Los Angeles. (photo courtesy of Karen Eyres)

Journalists sometimes turn into activists, or at least that’s what happened to Karen Eyres, president of Hollywood National Organization for Women.

“I was a newspaper journalist,” Eyres said. “I was trained to stay unbiased and not express opinions, but it gave me a lot of insights to what was going on in the world.”

She wasn’t raised to be politically active, and she said her family, most of whom still live in Des Plaines, Illinois, are not nearly as civically engaged as she’s become.

“I think there’s so many people in this country who are not engaged and politically not aware, like my brothers and sisters largely are. They don’t care about politics. They’re adverse to it. They don’t understand much beyond what might be happening in their own township,” she said.

For Eyres, it started when she moved to New York City in 1987, just as the HIV/AIDS crisis was hitting a fever pitch.

“So many people, mostly young men, were dying of HIV and AIDS in a country that was doing nothing about it – first Reagan and then Bush. It was horrible,” she This raised Eyres’ cultural awareness, so when she moved to West Hollywood in 2002, she started to get more involved in civic causes.

“I joined the local chapter of the National Organization for Women. At the time, Lindsay Horvath, our [now] county supervisor, was president of the chapter. So, that’s how I first got connected. And from there, Lindsay appointed me to the Public Facilities Commission when she became a [West Hollywood] council member,” Eyres said.

Not only did she ultimately become the president of Hollywood NOW, but Eyres began to find herself more and more involved in city and local politics. She was on the West Hollywood Women’s Advisory Board, and now serves on the city’s Rent Stabilization Commission.

“I absolutely love West Hollywood because it’s such a new city, and it was built on advocacy and activism. And they have built into the city a lot of room for civic engagement and public involvement. Doing service on the boards and commissions is one way to do that. It’s an important way to do that. So, that really clued me into the importance of being civically engaged,” she said.

Through her work on the Rent Stabilization Commission, Eyres has spoken out for both renters and landlords, and she was a key figure in the 3% rent cap that West Hollywood instituted last year.

“West Hollywood famously has a excellent rent stabilization ordinance. So, being on the rent stabilization commission is all about making sure the ordinance is followed. The main purpose of the commission is when there’s a landlord-tenant dispute, it goes to a hearing examiner who makes a decision and if either the landlord or the tenant or both dispute the hearing examiner’s decision it is appealed to the rent stabilization commission. That’s our purpose, to serve as an appeals board. It’s really interesting because I thought that we were just going to get landlords who were doing not so great things, and I’d be finding in favor of a lot of tenants. But I’ve also found that there’s a lot of tenants who don’t understand what the rent stabilization ordinance grants them, and their expectations are unreasonable. So, there are many instances in which we find in favor of the landlord.”

In addition to her activities in West Hollywood, Eyres also serves on the steering committee for the West Side Democratic HQ. Her day job is working with the Foundation for the AIDS Monument, which is currently in the planning stages to be installed in West Hollywood Park. Her activist-centric schedule keeps her so busy that Eyres cracked she has to keep her calendar alerts up to date or she “won’t show up.”

In light of the last year, which has seen the gutting of reproductive rights by the United States Supreme Court and attacks on trans rights across conservative state Legislatures, Eyres said the work of NOW is more important than ever. The organization started in New York City in the 1960s, then grew to have chapters across the country. It helps to advocate for women’s rights at the national, state and local levels. Work Horvath did while with the organization led to California state laws on rape testing kits. Eyres was heavily involved in the 2018 and 2020 elections, which saw numerous house seats in California flip to Democrats.

Additionally, NOW also helps to raise awareness with performances of shows like “The Vagina Monologues” and “The TransVagina Diaries.” Eyres said advocating for the trans and non-binary communities is part of NOW’s work.

“There are so many connections between reproductive rights and the LGBT community. Trans men need to be included, too, because reproduction rights impact trans men as much as they do cis women. Trans men are often targets of sexual violence, and they sometimes need access to reproductive health care, just as cis women do,” she said. “The more I get to know members of the trans community, the more … I see them as ordinary people in an extraordinary situation [who] through [their] experiences often become extraordinary themselves.”

Hollywood NOW has an event on March 15 called HERstory, which will honor founder and executive director of Black Women for Wellness Janette Robinson Flint. The event starts at 7 p.m. and will be held at the West Hollywood City Library, located at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. To RSVP for the free event, visit eventbrite.com/e/hollywood-now-herstory-award-and-reception-tickets-551911130047.

Eyres will be there, as she usually is when there’s a need for advocacy in the West Hollywood area. And for her, it’s never about the work she does. It’s about the work of the collective on the ground.

“[That’s] where things happen – at the grassroots level,” Eyres said. said.