Lawyer’s Home Targeted in Rent Protest

By TRILBY BERESFORD | Reporter

Up to 70 rent protesters converged outside a gated community in The Highlands on the evening of Monday, April 24, seeking to confront a Palisadian attorney. Lisa Ehrlich-Chupack represents a Westlake complex at the heart of this week’s rent control debate.

The protesters were bussed into a gated community toward the summit of The Highlands to bring attention to grievances at the aging Burlington properties near Koreatown. During the hour-long protest, complete with placards and a bullhorn, one man got into the community, but was removed by security. They were focusing on Ehrlich-Chupack, a veteran property attorney, because the registered owners of the complex were believed to be overseas. It is very unusual for an attorney, or other legal officer, to be held responsible in this way by unhappy plaintiffs who are seeking a judgment in court in the near future.

The protesters could not see her home from the guarded security gate, even before night fell in The Highlands, and the homeowners’ association had employed extra personnel to protect other access points. It was uncertain she was even at home when the protesters called.

Contacted by the Palisadian-Post, the attorney appeared sanguine about the protests. “It will be resolved in court,” she said. “The cases are going to trial this week.”

The protest coincides with a citywide debate about re-introducing rent controls largely scrapped 22 years ago. Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles and presumed presidential candidate, said he is open to clamping down on rent increases, which contribute to the city’s spiraling homelessness rates.

The protesters are facing up to 40 percent rent increases in a sprawling apartment complex they claim is a plague of broken elevators, unreliable hot water, toxic mold, rats, bed bugs and cockroaches, and, maybe most ugly of all, floods of raw sewage. They regard this Palisadian attorney as part of the problem. The protesters were due to return on Tuesday, April 24, as the Post went to print.