With thousands of people displaced from their homes and apartments, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to spend tens of millions of dollars in federal housing funds to make emergency low-interest loans to displaced tenants and residential property owners who have suffered earthquake damage.

Tenants who apply for federal help at disaster assistance centers will be given $500 vouchers immediately--and up to $2,000 for first and last month's rent and security deposits--which they will have to repay to the city when their federal assistance checks are issued.

City officials said landlord associations have indicated that their members will accept the vouchers.

The housing rehabilitation loans, normally available only to property owners with low and moderate incomes, would extend for two years and be available to owners of houses or apartments in the city regardless of their incomes.

Owners would qualify as long as the total encumbrances on their property--including the value of the new loan--did not exceed the property's appraised value.

Interest would accumulate at 5%, but no principal or interest payments would be due until the two-year period is over.

"We have a responsibility to be rather aggressive to get funds into the hands of people who have been disadvantaged by earthquake damage," said City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who introduced the measure.

Assistant General Manager Barbara Zeidman of the Los Angeles Housing Department said the city probably will fund the rehabilitation loans with at least $25 million to $30 million of an advance on its $109-million federal Housing and Urban Development grant for next year. Conceivably, she said, the council could authorize use of almost the entire HUD grant.

Zeidman anticipates the city spending another $2.5 million in federal money on emergency assistance to renters displaced by the earthquake.

Money would go only to renters who had applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Small Business Administration for assistance and were waiting for it to come through.

Zeidman said experience with past disasters shows that it takes about three weeks for FEMA to begin efficiently processing applications for help. When FEMA is fully up and running, she said, the agency should be able to offer an applicant a check within three to five days.