The Huntington Park City Council voted last month to increase Valley Vista waste consumer services by 5% from $15.96 to $16.75 — even as residents testified during the public comment period about struggling with rising rent and inflation-related increases.

“We are a community of mostly immigrants and working-class people.  Our community cannot afford rent increases when their jobs are not paying them enough. Living expenses are high and rent increases further destabilize families,” said Celina Lopez, a Huntington Park business owner.

Several residents pleaded for the council to pass a rent control ordinance.

The current average rent for an apartment is between $1,718 and $2,231 according to Apart Maps, while the average median salary for households is approximately $54,000, according to Census Reporter, meaning almost half of the average Huntington Park family’s paychecks go toward rent. This leaves little for groceries, insurance and bills. 

Huntington Park Vice Mayor Arturo Flores said the city council drafted an ordinance that would implement rent control for residents. One of the main goals is to protect neighborhoods from rent hikes. This is the first time an attempt has been made to regulate rent prices in Huntington Park, Flores added. However, this will not be voted on until next year, according to Mayor Karina Macias. 

Flores said a combination of rising rental costs, disparities in the wage inflation index and competing cost of living expenses has made it hard for residents to make ends meet.

Huntington Park currently has a poverty rate of 17.89% which is 1.4 times the rate in Los Angeles and has an unemployment rate of 10%, most of them being people of color, mainly Latinos according to World Population Review. 

“Honestly, rent prices are not the only issue I would mainly want them to focus on. The problem is that the rent prices don’t match the quality of the neighborhood [and] city,” said Mason Cortez, a Huntington Park resident. 

Residents can find financial support assistance and programs at Find Help which connects individuals with access to healthcare and nutritional benefits, as well as housing programs found on the Huntington Parks City website. 

An early draft of the introduction of this story was produced by ChatGPT as a class experiment. Much of that has since been reworded, deleted, and changed.