A new study by a tenant advocacy group shows a major increase in rent prices across the Los Angeles area during Southern California’s recent wildfires despite laws preventing price gouging

Within the week since Los Angeles’s worst-ever disaster began, rent gouging has become a crisis on top of the crisis. It’s against the law to increase a rental price by more than 10 percent once a state of emergency has been declared;

Tenant advocacy groups, landlord associations and elected officials are condemning rent gouging after tens of thousands of people were displaced in deadly fires this month.

The number of deaths from the wildfires that destroyed entire communities in the Los Angeles area this month has risen to 29, the county medical examiner’s office said Monday.

The recent infernos in Southern California have ignited a housing crisis, with rental prices exploding and home values reeling across the region, according to one senior real estate analyst.

Rent prices across the Los Angeles region have skyrocketed just as thousands of people are scrambling to find lodging after the wildfires. The Washington Post, for example, analyzed listings via RentCast and found that rent has increased 20% overall in Los Angeles County since the fires began.