A Review of the Unlawful Detainer Pilot Program

In 1997, the City of Los Angeles sponsored legislation (Havice, Ch. 613, Statutes of 1998) to allow city attorneys or district attorneys to evict tenants engaged in drug-related activity, arguing that landlords often did not “in large part due to a fear of retaliation.” This bill changed the law in two ways. It allowed an entity other than the landlord to initiate an eviction action and it enabled a court to issue a partial eviction of tenants. By enabling partial evictions, the state provided the court with a tool to target only the tenant(s) engaged in unlawful drug activities and not an entire household. The resulting pilot program allowed five Los Angeles County court districts to participate