Faizah Malik is one of LA’s leading public interest lawyers and advocates.
As a housing attorney, she has helped protect thousands of Angelenos from eviction, fought to create thousands of new affordable housing units, and promoted housing and economic stability for millions.
Faizah’s roots in LA and on the Westside run deep. Faizah was born and raised in LA and Orange County, the eldest daughter of South Asian Muslim immigrants. Her family immigrated to LA over 50 years ago seeking economic opportunities. Settling in Hawthorne, her grandparents were community leaders and small business owners.
Faizah attended public schools in Orange County, and graduated from Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School. She has spent the last 15 years as a community lawyer fighting to increase opportunities for all and improve the lives of working people. After law school, she worked for the New York City Council*, writing legislation and advising councilmembers on housing and transportation policy.
She is currently a Managing Attorney for Housing Justice at Public Counsel*, one of the largest nonprofit legal organizations in Los Angeles, where she directs a team that advocates for solutions to our housing and homelessness crisis. In 2023, Faizah was awarded the Public Interest Award from the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California.
This race is not Faizah’s first time challenging powerful, wealthy interests. She helped the City defend eviction protections from landlord lobby legal challenges three times and sued the State of California to stop it from denying rent relief to tenants. She was a leader of the campaign that pushed the City Council to adopt the most significant package of tenant protections in 40 years, including universal just cause protections for all tenants, and strengthen the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance.
She also represented the Bruce family in the historic return of Bruce’s Beach, the first time the government has returned wrongfully taken land to a Black family. She is currently fighting to cap rent increases and address housing impacts from LA’s devastating wildfires. Until recently, she was a lead attorney in a major civil rights lawsuit against the City over the obstruction of the City Council-approved Venice Dell affordable housing project.
Faizah is a renter and mom raising 4th generation Angelenos in Venice, where she enjoys spending her weekends at the North Venice Little League fields cheering on her kids.
*Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not constitute endorsement.