The Hollywood Arts Collective continues to manipulate and mistreat tenants despite their misleading advertising photos. (Photo: Entertainment Community Fund)
On February 13, 2025, at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) meeting, a large group of tenants living at the Hollywood Arts Collective housing complex rallied to demand public housing subsidies to account for the increasingly high rents they face at the hands of Thomas Safran & Associates (TSA).
Hollywood Arts Collective management has failed to deliver on its promises, both in terms of amenities for artists and in terms of affordable living.
The building is located on city-owned public land and was leased by TSA, a for-profit affordable housing developer, for only $1. The listing, which states an “artist preference,” originally advertised a recording studio, an audition room with a stage, and other resources for artists who qualified for low-income housing. Those amenities were never added, even though they were included in the original plans for the building; they’re now being used as management offices.
According to the Entertainment Community Fund, “The Hollywood Arts Collective comprises two buildings that together will provide affordable space for arts and entertainment professionals to live, work and create in the heart of Hollywood; open new opportunities in creative careers for underserved youth in the neighborhood; and host the new Western Region Headquarters for the Entertainment Community Fund.” The construction for said headquarters has created a headache for tenants since move-in, and contrary to its promises, it doesn’t plan to offer any community spaces or support for artists living at the complex.
Maria, who moved in August 2024, told Knock LA, “They kind of agreed to let people in before they finished construction. They were doing mind-numbing construction. I was waking up at 5 AM, 6 AM. it felt like it was into my walls, it was so obstructive. It was for a long time — it was for a year.”
The units were filled on a lottery system, based on criteria involving proof of employment as an artist and income verification. Maria said she was threatened that her spot would be given away if she didn’t agree to move in within 24 hours of being approved.
“It was like you were being cornered,” she said. “I remember having a conversation with a friend and I was really scared. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to go over the decision and I didn’t know what anything entailed because I hadn’t seen any paperwork.”
Another tenant, BB, said, “The language used was finite and aggressive. Mind you, I [hadn’t] even seen the place yet.”
The major concern now is that the rent has been raised, despite the fact that the property was advertised as “affordable housing” and tenants were verbally promised that they wouldn’t experience rent increases. The complex was built under the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), a Reagan-era program that gives tax breaks to developers who set rents below the “fair market rent” (FMR). However, the FMR is calculated based on inflated rental prices set by landlords, and many artists who survive off of gig work and other inconsistent forms of revenue are unable to afford the rent they are being charged based on a projected income calculation that does not accurately reflect the often unstable nature of their work. The tenants’ request for public housing subsidies would enable them to afford the already high rental cost as well as combat the next expected rent hike, which they are also fighting.
In September 2024, tenants were told their rent would be raised by 7%. According to Sandra, who moved in June 2023, when they protested, TSA told them that “they could have raised it by 13%.” This isn’t true, as the maximum allowable annual rent increase under LIHTC is 10%. After receiving pressure from the tenants, who began to organize and have now formed a union, the rental increase was changed to 4%.
“Our next worry is that rent will be raised again,” said Sandra. “They kept using the excuse of raising the rent because of operating costs. One example is trash — they say ‘oh it’s utilities, it’s electricity.’ We pay for electricity. We pay utilities for the entire building, we split the cost.” Utilities at the building are charged to tenants through the ratio utility billing system (RUBS), a system by which the landlord divides the cost of utilities among the tenants and is not required to disclose how utility rates are calculated.
As of publication, of the 151 units in the building, a total of 43 households have received eviction notices, and many others are afraid of what will happen with the next rental increase.
“The threat of constantly raising rent, I’ve never experienced this ever,” Maria said. “It feels excessive.”
Sandra adds, “Our number one ask is not to increase the rent. After that, lower the rent to what it should be, and pay me back the money. They’re taking advantage of LIHTC.”
HACLA, which is responsible for providing, operating, and owning public housing, has the ability to aid tenants by subsidizing the tenants’ rents through their public housing programs. Ben Cohen, an organizer who has been supporting the Hollywood Arts tenants in their fight, explains that HACLA is at least 2,000 units below the limit of public housing units they can provide, and that they’ve been choosing to demolish and privatize entire public housing communities instead.
“They take all these subsidies and assign them to projects that are like 25 years from coming online,” said organizer Tabatha Yelos. “Who knows when those buildings and those units will come online? We really need those units now. They just kind of sit on these subsidies that go unused for years instead of giving them out to buildings that are actually built.”
By prioritizing vouchers and subsidies for public housing that they are privatizing — as opposed to providing them to low-income tenants living in units that are already built or to new developments who need them in order to operate — HACLA is catering to the needs of for-profit landlords. They are also failing to address the shortage of affordable units, contributing to the housing crisis and to the displacement of artists, particularly in Hollywood.
“At the very least, this suggests that HACLA might be overly selective with what they provide subsidies for, which is a problem because we have an affordable housing crisis,” said Cohen. “HACLA has not been placing vouchers in wealthier neighborhoods, and we all know it’s really easy for wealthy people to move into poor neighborhoods, but it’s almost impossible for lower-income folks to enter into wealthier neighborhoods, which have so many more amenities available to them.”
Yelos added, “The Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to address economic and racial segregation in our housing by creating mixed-income housing in low-income neighborhoods, but they should do this by building low-income units in neighborhoods where they traditionally haven’t been, instead of gentrifying neighborhoods by bringing in high-priced units.”
“The fact that HACLA has not been giving subsidies to projects like the Hollywood Arts Collective is really concerning,” said Cohen. “It suggests they’re not strategically thinking about how to integrate areas and give lower-income folks access to these more exclusive neighborhoods.”
Faced with the longstanding history of such racist and classist practices on the part of HACLA and HUD, the Hollywood Arts Collective tenants will continue to fight. Alongside other tenant unions and organizers for public housing, they are demanding a rent freeze as well as lower rents, the acceptance of partial payments, and an end to evictions for non-payment of rent.
