Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who represents California’s 43rd District, has called for an end to the Ellis Act on a statewide level.
In her letter to the President pro Tempore and Speaker of the California State Senate, she urges that, during California’s worst housing crisis in history, the Ellis Act is being used by real estate speculators for mass evictions of mostly elderly tenants, instead of for small time landlords who simply seek to retire from the rental business. Waters’ district is located in Los Angeles County, where, she notes, there were 725 Ellis Act evictions in 2014 alone (compared to, for instance, 113 in San Francisco that year).
