On February 1, 2022, the Inglewood City Council put a temporary moratorium banning all short-term rentals (STR's) in the city as a response to a gang-related shooting that took the lives of 4 individuals just 9 days earlier. A month later, the council took public comments and decided to extend the temporary moratorium until March 2023 (or until the adoption of short-term rental regulations). While the council believed this action would protect the well-being and safety of Inglewood residents, this moratorium imposes on our rights and puts great financial strain on the people of the city.

Short-term rentals allow individuals and families to utilize their property to supplement their income. They also allow visitors to the city to be welcomed and hosted by locals- a level of hospitality that hotels and other lodging cannot provide. While unregulated STR's can drive the prices of real estate up and create environments for "party houses," regulated STR's can stimulate the local economy by keeping tourism dollars within our city limits and benefiting local families.

My husband and I moved to the area in 2019, and were able to buy our first home in 2020. We were blessed to buy a home with a 1 bedroom guesthouse in the backyard, and were excited about the opportunity to utilize it as a short-term rental for the past year. In the meantime, it has contributed toward our mortgage payment and helped to support our family through the addition of our daughter in 2021. We have maintained "superhost" status on Airbnb (our primary platform) because of the more than 80 incredible guests who have stayed with us and awarded us high ratings. We pay all required taxes and follow every Airbnb guideline for the safety of ourselves and our guests, and have never had a safety incident on our property. 

This moratorium has placed a big financial burden on our family. We work in the non-profit sector, so we fundraise our family income. We employ a local woman as our cleaner, and that income helps to support her family. Every month that the city council does not take action and the moratorium continues, our family loses about $4,000 of income and impacts our cleaner's family as well. If the moratorium truly lasts until March of 2023, we may not be able to continue to live in the city of Inglewood. We chose the city of Inglewood because it's a beautiful place to live and raised a family, and are looking forward to someday sending our daughter to school here, but if the city council's actions prevent us from our short-term rental income for a long period of time, this may not be possible.

Join us in asking our city council to take action on creating short-term rental regulations that protect our community- both in preventing unsafe situations in STR's and protecting the rights of local families to earn honest income.