L.A. City Council Leverages Eminent Domain to Buy Hillside Villa Apartment Building On Behalf of Tenants

At a May 27 Los Angeles City Council meeting, tenants and organizers from across the city flooded the City Hall chamber in a sea of red shirts and signs.

They were there to make and witness history, as the City Council voted on — in what could become a citywide model — an effort to seize a 124-unit Chinatown apartment building from its landlord under eminent domain.

Hillside Villa is home to intergenerational Latinx, Asian, African American, working class and predominantly immigrant families, many of whom have lived there for decades before their building's affordability covenant expired in late 2018. Their landlord, Tom Botz, served rent increase letters of more than 200 percent, threatening eviction for those unable to pay.

Audience members from Chinatown and beyond warned that the City Council's decision would foreshadow the City Council's future prioritization of housing for tens of thousands of working-class renters.

Tenants and organizers who packed the City Hall chamber represented community members from across Los Angeles. Union de Vecinos of Boyle Heights, Los Angeles Tenant Union (LATU) of South Central, Reclaiming Our Homes, Beverly Vermont Community Land Trust, Gina Viola and People's City Council came out in solidarity with Hillside Villa tenants.

"We are here at City Hall today from the 15th district because the lack of affordable housing and expiring [affordability] covenants are a city-wide problem that affects us all," said a non-Chinatown Los Angeles Tenant Union (LATU) organizer. "We are demanding that the city prioritizes people by funding affordable housing, by preventing our communities from falling into homelessness and by funding people not cops."

One after another, tenants and organizers approached the stand to give emotional testimonies — some breaking down in tears while baring their struggles and vulnerabilities.

Marina Maalouf, 66, who has lived at Hillside Villa for the last 25 years, spoke to council members about suffering stress and depression trying to make ends meet. She was laid off from her job cleaning offices during the COVID-19 pandemic and burdened with a "market-rate" rent increase.

"I am an elderly person who has been giving [to] this country my whole life, and we just need to be able to survive and not be thrown onto the streets," Maalouf said in Spanish. "We are citizens of this country, and we have rights. We need you guys right now."

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Fighting Against the Odds

Since October 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, over 30 families at Hillside Villa have been on rent strike. Additionally, tenants have actively protested at politicians' houses from various districts in Los Angeles, participated in mutual aid during the pandemic and teamed up with groups like Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCED) and LATU for multi-coalitional organizing.

"For the past three years, we have been fighting against all odds to be where we're at," Hillside tenant and organizer Leslie Hernandez said. "We have been hunting down whoever we can protest. You guys represent the community. You guys work for us."

As a result of this latest vote, the city will offer to buy the building from Botz. He is expected to reject the offer, triggering the process of eminent domain, Shaw said.

Cynthia Strathmann, executive director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), said leveraging eminent domain specifically for housing justice has never happened before in Los Angeles.

"Generally, eminent domain has been used to enrich wealthy people — never to protect poor people," Strathmann said.

In fact, some current Hillside Villa tenants were previously displaced by eminent domain when land was forcibly taken for the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Strathmann also mentioned the violent evictions of residents of color at Chavez Ravine — minutes away from Hillside Villa — for the construction of Dodger Stadium.

The victory at City Hall is the first step of a lengthy process, said Annie Shaw, an organizer with CCED.

The city, working with the Housing Authority (HACLA), is now conducting building appraisal and due diligence studies, said Ann Sewill, General Manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department. An early estimate valued the building and necessary improvements at $46 million.

The Grassroots Movement to Keep Families Together

Hillside Villa, completed in 1989 with a 30-year affordability covenant, was taken over by Botz in 1999. Botz described it as "absolutely unique" because at the time the building was the only one perched atop the hill overlooking Chinatown landmarks including Far East Plaza.

In late 2018, the affordability covenant — the agreement to keep rents below market-rate — expired. Botz notified residents of a 200 percent rent increase, which would be due in June 2019. Tenants mobilized quickly and by February 2019, they'd formed the Hillside Villa Tenants Association, involving approximately 70 neighbors.

In a lawsuit led by Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, a judge ruled that the June rent increases were illegal for being served too early. Botz rescinded them and then re-served new rent increases to be paid starting September 2020.

"[Botz] is greedy with the people here. He doesn't care about us. That's why I started with the tenants association," Maalouf said. "Because I always like to be right with people, to be fair with people, you know?"

Tenants then turned to the city for help. In July 2019, Councilmember Gil Cedillo of Council District 1 announced that he and Botz had come to an agreement: Botz would extend the affordability covenant for another 10 years in exchange for the city waiving the debt he still owed.

However, almost immediately after Cedillo's announcement, Botz "reneged" on the deal and served 5.5 percent rent increases, effective September 1, 2019.

In an interview, Botz said this deal was never finalized, despite media portrayals. According to Botz, he and Cedillo disagreed on the "principal amount of debt" owed. When legal issues arose, Cedillo's office evaded "the details" and went cold on him, Botz said.

Cedillo described Botz's deal-breaking as an act of "bad faith" and — at the urging of LATU organizer Jacob Woocher — responded to ongoing pressure from Hillside Villa tenants by launching the 2020 motion for the city to purchase the building through eminent domain.

On September 13, 2021, tenants gave testimony at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting, but the committee tabled the vote until an unspecified later date. In the meantime, the city conducted financial evaluations of the building.

Flawed Solutions to Systemic Housing Problems?

Botz believes the issue is not him — but the city.

He said the onus shouldn't be on him to provide below market-rate housing when Cedillo could "fast-track" tenants to Section 8 — a federal housing program for low-income tenants who pay a portion of the rent based on income with the government subsidizing the rest. In that case, Botz said he would be happy to keep long-time tenants.

"It's not easy to apply for Section 8," Hillside Villa tenant leader Leslie Hernandez said during a coalition livestream of housing justice organizations across Los Angeles, Families United: Housing by Any Means Necessary. "It takes 10 years plus, just to get a voucher."

The waitlist for a Section 8 voucher is years long. As of right now, the Los Angeles County Development Authority's Section 8 waiting list remains closed. Hillside Villa's non-Section 8 tenants were not offered Section 8 vouchers during the course of their fight.

It is illegal for landlords to discriminate against Section 8 tenants, but Botz said that other landlords aren't necessarily welcoming to program participants.

Botz, however, cited an example of why he embraces it: A Section 8 tenant would pay $1,500, and the city would pay the other $1,500 "like clockwork," totaling a hypothetical monthly $3,000 market-rate return.

Tenants who moved out in the last few years, pressured by the 200 percent rent hike, were replaced with new Section 8 tenants, who now make up the majority of the building.

Chinatown organizer Annie Shaw said that by filling his building with Section 8 tenants, Botz drains public money from the Los Angeles Housing Authority (HACLA). Eminent domain would ensure that rent from the 124 units funnels into city funds, rather than into a singular landlord's pockets.

"The city is bleeding money to subsidize all of his Section 8," Shaw said. "The market doesn't even think his building is worth [$3,000 a month]."

Shaw called Botz's claim to his building's "market-rate" status a "veneer" since the building's repairs, maintenance and renovations are not competitive for market-rate.

What "the market" thinks is "worth" upwards of $3,000 monthly rent in Los Angeles is also up for debate. Luxury apartment buildings, culprits of gentrification in Chinatown, often promise amenities that are absent at Hillside Villa for tenants who pay upwards of $3,000 a month for a 2-bedroom apartment in Chinatown, such as at Blossom Plaza Apartments.

Hillside Villa tenants have decried deteriorating living conditions for years.

"The tenants are hardworking, working class people trying to survive," Shaw said. "No one's getting rich living in Tom Botz's building. But he gets to be rich and sponsored."

"Market-rate" is not an apolitical, neutral concept, either. It reflects rising housing costs in neighborhoods like Chinatown — linked to gentrification of historical, working class ethnic enclaves near Downtown.

"Market-rate" housing prices are also a key driving force of homelessness in the city. According to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) count from 2020, the city saw a 16.1 percent rise in homelessness from 2019 to 2020, documenting 41,290 people unhoused.

The Intergenerational Fight: "Second-Generation Wisdom"

Tenant leaders like Hernandez, 36, are a part of the younger generation who grew up at Hillside Villa watching their parents forge tight-knit bonds. They use their voices to keep families safe in the home they've always known.

Anahy Hernandez (unrelated to Leslie Hernandez) is one of the youngest members at age 26. She coined the term, "second-generation wisdom," a hallmark of being children of immigrants.

She said it's characterized by a determination to navigate and expose the violence of structures — legal, political, economic — historically designed to exclude their families.

"A mother's first instinct is to provide shelter," she said. "Us as children, we see and feel these injustices, but we can't make it logical, because as kids and teens there's only so much we know."

The fight for housing is connected to larger systemic factors — race, gender, socio-economic status, immigration, education — and historical processes creating the power dynamic that she and her family are fighting back against now.

"Whether we like it or not, this is also politics," she said. "This is wrapped up with our identities too — Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). We don't choose this. The system chooses this for us, and that's why we're standing up and fighting against it."

Leslie Hernandez has lived at Hillside Villa since she was five years old. She said it was heartbreaking to see the elderly immigrant women who helped raise her face thousand-dollar rent increases.

"It hurts me to see them crying, to worry about what's going to happen to them," she said. "Living here, honestly, gives me the feeling of having family around. I know I can count a lot on these ladies."

But for the last few years, she said, she's witnessed a difference in how the building's management treats immigrant tenants for whom English was a second language — and even takes advantage of those who don't know their rights.

She added that management has policed tenants for the smallest acts, like watering the courtyard plants or feeding stray cats.

The building has undergone countless changes in the last few years, marking not only losses of neighbors who left the fight, but physical signs of surveillance from management as well. Hillside Villa's courtyard once held communal staples like seesaws for children and outdoor grills for family gatherings, which management removed in recent years.

Management also excavated community fruit and vegetable trees that has been cultivated by elders like Maalouf for years.

It's part of a life-long tradition for Maalouf, who was 14 years old living in El Salvador when she gathered fruits and vegetables from her family's farm to give to leftist organizers. She did this in secret, against her father's wishes, because a violent civil war was brewing in her country. Maalouf later fled to Los Angeles for her safety.

Over the last two decades, she's found a home at Hillside Villa, raising three children and building long-lasting friendships with neighbors. Maalouf's home is a physical testament to those relationships: The walls are covered frame-to-frame with photos of family and friends spanning decades, and her furniture, like her flat screen TV and wooden bed frame, were gifted by neighbors.

Maalouf replanted some of the uprooted trees during the pandemic, citing the empty ditches as safety hazards for children. She's been spending her time tending to herbs and papaya, mango, guava and chili plants in the building's courtyard to share with neighbors.

But the fight isn't over — because Botz contracted landscapers to replace the edible garden with drought-resistant landscaping.

Hillside Villa tenants are currently embroiled in a "plant defense" standoff with their landlord. Reinvigorated by the victory at City Hall, neighbors came together to watch over the community garden and ward off Botz's landscapers.

"I remember … all the ladies, sitting right there, talking and talking," Maalouf said, reminiscing on how the residents used to gather in the courtyard. "That was nice, but all those days, they are gone. All those good days are no more."

Hillside Villa for Eminent Domain, A Win for Tenants Across L.A.

When the unanimous "yes" votes flashed onto the City Hall television screens at the May 27 vote, the entire chamber erupted into cheers. A sea of community flooded from the chambers to the lobby — hugging, crying, chanting, FaceTiming family and announcing a courtyard party to celebrate their hard-fought win.

Leslie Hernandez fought back tears. "Thank you to all who have supported us, from the bottom of my heart," she said. "For those of us who are here, now we can say for sure that we have a home. We have a future for our kids."

She said this struggle has always been about the basic human necessity of a place to stay, the immigrant women who raised her and the children growing up at Hillside Villa now.

Hillside Villa tenants already made their mark on the city by highlighting its injustices when shelter is at stake. From projecting the neon green words "11,000 FAMILIES WERE DISPLACED HERE" onto the modernist steel wings of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, to demanding to defund the police and fund housing at the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, organizers and tenants have never backed down.

"What it really comes down to is kindness, love and care. That's why we fight — because we love our families," Anahy Hernandez said. "We don't want to see everyone go through hardships. Having to get up and leave your entire family to move because of an eviction is violent."

"But in that, we are also sacrificing ourselves, and putting our bodies on the line to get to the end goal."

However, expiring affordability covenants mean tenants across Los Angeles continue to live in precarity. A slated 3,700 affordable units will lose affordability restriction between 2021 and the end of 2023, according to the city's Housing and Community Investment Department.

Hillside Villa's victory is evidence of the Los Angeles City Council's power to act in the face of injustice on behalf of tenants. The fight has been compared to the Berlin Housing Movement in Germany that began in 2018, during which over 35,000 citizens took to the streets to protest their rent burdens. The referendum to expropriate big property owners — any private landlord possessing over 3,000 units – won in September 2021, garnering transnational solidarity against massively commodified housing.

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Hillside Villa follows in the footsteps of King County, Washington, where in 2019 the Housing Authority acquired five affordable housing properties with more than 1,000 units to alleviate their housing crisis. While King County's eminent domain precedent is unique in that it was partially privately funded by Microsoft Corporation, the precedent was cited in the June 2020 Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment (HCID) report recommending the purchase of Hillside Villa to the L.A. City Council.

SAJE's Strathmann said there are other ways cities can intervene to "get housing out of a private market and into the hands of the people who are just going to live there," too — highlighting other models like community land trusts and tenant-occupied opportunity to purchase (TOPA), where landlords are required to give tenants right-of-first-refusal when selling a building.

While Hillside Villa follows in the footsteps of landmark cases of decommodified housing from Washington to Berlin, its intergenerational, multiracial, and multi-coalitional organizing has left its mark in Los Angeles.

Hillside Villa's legacy is a reimagination of what is possible, here in Los Angeles and beyond, to keep working class people housed.

In the month following the victory, Hillside Villa Tenants Association hosted an Autonomous Tenants Union Network teach-in attended by the Flower Drive Tenants Association. The Flower Drive Tenants Association is another movement of working class tenants fighting for their homes on Flower Drive Historic District which is being overtaken by a slated University of Southern California (USC) luxury student housing development.

As Strathmann said. "There isn't any reason that public housing can't be successful."

This article was edited by Senta Scarborough.