USC Gould law students knocked on apartment doors across Chinatown, Echo Park and Westlake during the 2025-26 academic year, looking for tenants in unsafe housing.

In one unit, they found cockroaches crawling out of electrical outlets, pests on every surface, mold on the walls and broken windows. A single mother lived there, facing eviction over $16,000 in unpaid rent.

"The conditions were so inhumane, maybe the worst I've ever seen," said Piper Mik, a third-year law student who visited the unit.

The students, working through USC Gould's Housing Law and Policy Clinic, wrote a demand letter to the landlord and filed a complaint with the city. Inspections followed. The landlord was forced to make repairs, and the tenant's $16,000 debt was forgiven.

She stayed in her home.

The clinic, in its fourth year, partnered during the 2025-26 term with Council District 1 Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez for door-to-door outreach, according to USC Gould. Students and CD1 staff visited buildings across three neighborhoods where many residents are low-income, monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Clinical Associate Professor of Law Deepika Sharma, the clinic's founding director, said the partnership helps legal services reach communities that might not otherwise have access. Sharma noted that increased immigration enforcement has made many tenants reluctant to seek legal help on their own, making the outreach critical.

Sharma helped draft a 2022 city ordinance requiring landlords to file eviction notices with the Los Angeles Housing Department within three business days. If a landlord fails to file, a tenant can raise an affirmative defense in an Unlawful Detainer case. That filing requirement lets council offices identify at-risk tenants and connect them with services before they lose their homes.

The need is steep. The LA City Controller's eviction data shows the Housing Department received 290,560 eviction notices citywide from February 2023 through April 2026. Ninety-three percent were for non-payment of rent, with the average amount owed at $3,915. Council District 1 ranked among the highest, with between 18,000 and 21,000 notices filed during that period.

Hernandez has pushed broader tenant support in the district. On Aug. 18, the Los Angeles City Council voted 13-0 to allocate about $2.04 million for food, rental assistance and beautification in CD1, including $300,000 for emergency rental assistance, The Eastsider reported. A previous round of that program distributed nearly $390,000 to 69 households representing 206 residents. Thirty-one of those households reported financial hardship tied to federal immigration enforcement.

Households served reported an average annual income of about $22,000 while paying an average of $1,530 per month in rent. Housing costs consumed more than 80% of the average household's income.

The clinic is not currently accepting new clients or eviction cases. Tenants who have received an eviction notice can contact Stay Housed LA for assistance.