Striking Hollywood workers are feeling the strain when rent is due

Good morning. It’s Friday, Sept. 22. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

• Some Hollywood workers are struggling to keep up with housing costs.
• Echo Park Lake has a goose problem.
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• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

Striking Hollywood workers are feeling the strain when rent is due

For Hollywood’s striking workers, it’s been quite a few months of waiting and their pockets are stretched thin.

Back in July, Deadline reported that one studio executive said the “endgame is to allow things to draw on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

In a city with notoriously high housing costs, eviction is a real threat. It remains unclear whether the length of the strikes have contributed to a rise in evictions.

Still, entertainment industry workers told me they’re struggling more than ever to afford housing. And for some, time may be running out — despite positive signs of progress in negotiations this week between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Some workers struggle to pay for rent and other living expenses

Buffy Charlet moved to Los Angeles from Reno in 2004 and has worked as an actor and as a casting associate for the last 19 years. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she and her husband, both members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, worked as COVID-compliance officers.

She is one of the thousands of workers who have been affected by the strike since July, when SAG-AFTRA authorized a walkout. Two months later, money is getting tight and she’s still looking for work.

Although her family lives in a rent-controlled apartment in Miracle Mile, Charlet is struggling to pay her $2,700 rent, especially with other expenses that include $1,270 a month for child care for her 4-year-old son. Her neighbor’s unit is twice the price of hers and she’s afraid that her landlord will eventually increase prices.

“It would be absolutely devastating to us because we’re barely hanging on right now,” Charlet told me. She’s had to go through her savings and cash out part of her 401(k).

“We are literally selling things that we have right now. Like, ‘can we get 100 bucks for this? $50 from this? It’s just a daily grind and a struggle,’” she said.

Avenues for help are overwhelmed

Organizations that distribute aid to Hollywood workers have distributed thousands of grants, but officials say demand is only growing higher and more widespread.

Keith McNutt, a former social worker and the director of the western region of the Entertainment Community Fund, has overseen aid distribution to performing arts and entertainment workers throughout different forms of crises. He said that social workers at the fund have seen more people with three-day eviction notices asking for help. Rent is often the first fire to put out.

“In normal times and in crisis times, the number one thing that people come in asking for help with is rent,” he said. “No matter how you’re doing, no matter what your station in life is, your biggest monthly expense is going to be your rent or your mortgage. That certainly carries through to the strike.”

As of this week, the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly known as the Actor’s Fund) has distributed more than $7.1 million to more than 3,400 film and TV workers. The SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Emergency Financial Assistance and Disaster Relief Fund has distributed more than 2,100 grants to its union members. Grants for both organizations can range between $1,000 to $3,000.

The nature of the entertainment industry is gig work and in order to receive aid, workers must meet certain conditions and work-history requirements.

That means some of the workers most affected by a lack of work are the lowest paid — such as those starting out or those with inconsistent work due to disabilities or other life circumstances.

But even those who do qualify have limited options. With the overwhelming need, each individual can receive only one grant.

Charlet and her husband together received $3,500 in grants from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation fund, which helped cover rent and child care for September. But given an uncertain end to the strike, she is not sure what to do for October.

Relief could come through a bill passed in the California Legislature last week, which would allow striking workers to apply for unemployment benefits. But Gov. Gavin Newsom still needs to sign off on it.

For now, workers must wait and Charlet is willing to hold out. When I asked her whether the financial strain is putting any pressure on negotiations, she said “absolutely.” But she’s been feeling a decline in wages for years now.

“It’s been hard to survive even before this and it’s getting harder to make a middle-class living in this industry,” Charlet said. “The only way that we’re going to have a full and vibrant and exciting entertainment industry, and one that is in any way equitable — we just have to keep going forward.”

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