ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The wildfires around Los Angeles this month destroyed thousands of homes. The families that lived in them are scrambling to find new places to live, and state officials worry this could make an already tight rental market even more expensive, so they've triggered a law that prevents landlords from price gouging. That has not stopped some from seeking exorbitant rents. NPR's Adrian Florido has the story of a group of activists who are trying to fight back.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: A couple of days after the LA wildfires started to rage, Chelsea Kirk had a thought.
CHELSEA KIRK: The rent's going to go up. And I was like, in fact, it probably already is.
FLORIDO: Kirk is an LA tenant organizer. She went onto Zillow to browse rental listings in her Eastside neighborhood and says she came across a three-bedroom home for $12,000 a month.
KIRK: And I was like, look, I've lived in this neighborhood for 10 years. I know the rent's increasing, but not - $12,000 a month seems really high. Poking around some more and finding sort of similar situations - and I'm looking at the price history on these Zillow listings, and I'm seeing that their rents have increased after January 7.
FLORIDO: The day the fires broke out - Kirk says she saw it across Los Angeles. A house in Santa Monica, for example, listed around $12,000 a month less than a year ago, was relisted at more than $28,000 a few days after the fires. Other Zillow listings NPR reviewed showed similar increases in the days after the fires of around 30-, 50-, close to 130%. This was illegal, Kirk knew, because California law prohibits raising prices by more than 10% after a state of emergency is declared. Kirk started posting about it on social media.
KIRK: People started forwarding me outrageous Zillow listings of just exorbitant rent prices, and I was like, we got to do something about this.
FLORIDO: She started a public online spreadsheet for people to submit what they were finding. Hundreds of submissions flooded in. Dozens of people offered to help take screenshots of the price histories and report them to a price-gouging hotline officials set up. Some volunteers called to confront the landlords or listing agents directly. It's unclear how widespread the price gouging has been, but state Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a recent press conference that his office is seeing a lot of it.
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ROB BONTA: The price gouging that we're seeing and hearing about so often, so frequently, so many egregious examples, needs to stop now.
FLORIDO: This week, he sent warning letters to 500 landlords and hotels. He filed criminal charges against one realtor and said his office is investigating others. One of LA's main landlord advocacy groups has said it's warned its members against price gouging and that it supports punishing offenders. Chelsea Kirk thinks people's massive response to her spreadsheet reflects frustration that was already simmering over LA's longstanding housing crisis.
KIRK: And they're angry about it.
FLORIDO: On a recent evening, she invited about a dozen people who contributed to her document over to her apartment for pizza. They sat around her dining table.
KIRK: Thanks for coming over. OK, so...
FLORIDO: They were here to verify each of the more than 1,000 listings that had been submitted to the spreadsheet so that they could turn it over to law enforcement. Kendra Miller is one of the volunteers who came.
KENDRA MILLER: It's important to make a really strong stand and show that this kind of price gouging and taking advantage of your fellow Angelenos in a moment of huge disaster and tragedy is not OK.
FLORIDO: Miller hopes the list will help officials go after the price gougers and be aggressive about prosecuting them. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Los Angeles.
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