News and Views

Residents at an East Bay apartment complex complain they are living in filthy conditions infested with roaches, bed bugs and mold. The tenants living at the Parkhaven Apartments on Clayton Road in Concord are demanding that city officials take action. A group of tenants went to Concord City Hall to make themselves heard on Tuesday, but it turned out the city is already working on the problem. It’s not just one cockroach or bed bug. They are all over.
  • Rent increases
  • Housing conditions/habitability
  • Contra Costa
The Vallejo City Council on Tuesday will get its first look at proposed amendments to the city’s mobile home rent control ordinance. Last October, the council reinstated rent and vacancy control in the city’s mobile home parks after the original ordinance was mistakenly repealed in June 2016. Changes before the council on Tuesday include creation of a five person ad-hoc committee to hear complaints related to the ordinance, and limiting rent increases for new tenants at fair market rents.
  • Rent control
  • Solano
Every year in Milwaukee, thousands of eviction notices are filed. The state Senate is expected to take up legislation later this month that critics say unfairly favors landlords -- and would increase the number of evictions. Republican proponents maintain it’s about ensuring quality housing for tenants in the most affordable way to landlords.
  • Beyond California
  • Eviction
Last year, a New Jersey Superior Court judge told the state’s cities in no uncertain terms that they’d failed in to build enough affordable housing. Now, a county judge has begun handing out some long-anticipated numbers — and two wealthy towns will be forced to build more units than they’d like.
  • Beyond California
  • Affordable housing
The average rent for tenants living in rent-stabilized buildings in New York City grew by 3.1 percent in 2016, the lowest increase in six years, according to a new study released by the board that regulates rents in the city. The smaller uptick suggests that the historic freezes imposed on some rents in 2015 and 2016 had a noticeable impact on tenants living in rent-stabilized apartments — though there were still modest increases for some apartments.
  • Rent increases
  • Rent control
  • Beyond California
March 8, 2018
Martha Simmons was born at San Francisco General Hospital, and raised in the Bayview. For nine-and-a-half years, she rented a single-family home in the neighborhood where she grew up, paying the not-cheap price of $3,300 a month for a two-bedroom house. But she could make ends meet, and a decade ago, was even in talks with the owner about a rent-to-buy situation.
  • Costa Hawkins Act
Delaine Eastin is the only major candidate for California governor to unequivocally support a potential November ballot measure that would allow stronger local rent control laws across the state. Eastin, a Democrat and former state schools chief, said she supports the outright repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which prevents rent control ordinances from applying to housing built after 1995, as well as single-family homes, duplexes and condos.
  • Costa Hawkins Act
The home at the center of a controversial eviction battle has been denied condo conversion plans by the San Francisco Planning Commission. The eviction and subsequent death of 100-year-old Iris Canada last year became the poster for displacement in San Francisco at the hand of real estate whims. Though the building owners of Canada’s decades-long home at 670 Page St. pressed on with condo conversion plans, the San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously voted Thursday to deny the application after public testimony.
  • Ellis Act
  • Eviction
  • San Francisco
(This piece first appeared in Capital and Main) New research reveals that 11 percent of 5,000 Disneyland workers surveyed—custodians, food workers, musicians, cashiers, concierges—have been homeless at least once in the past year.
  • Affordable housing
  • Orange
Residents of the Green Lantern Village in Westminster are fighting back against plans by the property owner to close the 130-space mobile home park, which they say would displace more than one hundred families in a county where affordable housing is increasingly scarce. Park residents—most of whom are seniors and low-income—have been up in arms since Walsh Properties LLC, owner of Green Lantern Village, requested a land use permit from the city last year to convert the property from a mobile home park to other types of housing.
  • Demolition/conversion of rental housing
  • Affordable housing
  • Orange
The city's controversial renter relocation law is here to stay. After kneading out disagreements over the policy, the Portland City Council this morning unanimously expanded and made permanent the requirement that landlords pay between $2,900 and $4,500 in tenant moving expenses in some instances.
  • Relocation payments
  • Beyond California
Santa Barbara, California, a coastal enclave boasting beautiful beachfront Spanish missions and a nearly $2 billion tourism industry, offers a postcard view of the state’s many natural advantages.
  • Affordable housing
California’s statewide renters’ rights organization today announced its formal support for a proposed state ballot measure to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and allow cities to pass stronger tenant protections. “Tenants Together and our member organizations across the state have been fighting for years to pass local rent control laws and dismantle state barriers like Costa-Hawkins and the Ellis Act,” noted Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together. “Costa-Hawkins has been a complete disaster and it needs to be repealed now.”  
  • Costa Hawkins Act
Nancy Buttanda, 68, has watched in horror as her rent check eats up more and more of her fixed income. The rent on her apartment in Federal Way, Wash., has increased annually at least $100 a month for three or four years, she says, and her landlord rarely makes repairs. She now pays $1,245 a month for rent, water and trash, while living on pension, Social Security and disability payments that amount to around $3,300.
  • Rent control
  • Tenant organizing
  • Affordable housing
Cities around the world are dealing with severe housing shortages and inflated housing costs. But nowhere is housing such a potent political issue as in California, whose unique geography, state policies, and activist culture have combined with a poorly distributed economic boom to create a “perfect storm”—the chosen words of multiple sources for this story.
An Oak Park area renter is fighting an eviction effort that would force her from her apartment for what she says, is no good reason. Marie Camacho, a single mother who is also disabled, claims apartment owner Blackfriar targeted her for eviction because they wanted a tenant who could pay higher rent. Camacho is backed by the Alliance of Californians For Community Empowerment in her effort to fight the eviction.
  • Eviction
  • Sacramento
Landlords who evict tenants under the Ellis Act would have to give them a year’s notice — instead of four months — under one of three tenant-rights bills being introduced Thursday in the Legislature. Another bill would require landlords to wait 10 days — instead of three — to begin eviction proceedings against tenants who haven’t paid their rent on time. And a third bill would require landlords across the state to show “just cause” — a reasonable reason — before trying to force tenants out.
  • Eviction
After a series of impassioned calls from landlords and renters representing two sides of a debate over tenant protections, Petaluma’s city council Monday opted not to pursue additional protections, instead investigating other measures to combat a housing crisis made worse by last year’s fires.
  • Eviction
  • Affordable housing
  • Sonoma
A California Senate bill would double the state’s renter’s tax credit for the first time in nearly four decades. Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, introduced Senate Bill 1182 on Wednesday to increase the credit to $120 for individuals who earn $40,078 or less and $240 for joint filers with income of $80,156 or less. “The last time renters got a break, Jimmy Carter was president and Jerry Brown was 41 years old,” Glazer said in a statement. “Rents have skyrocketed since then but the renter’s tax credit has remained frozen in time.”
The campaign to collect signatures for a potential rent control vote in November officially started this weekend with a kickoff event at MacArthur Park but it didn’t take long for opponents and supporters to clash and now both sides are claiming to be the victim. The rent control ballot initiative is being headed by a coalition of community groups including Housing Long Beach, a tenants rights group that for years has fought to bring stronger renters protections to a city that has about 60 percent of its residents paying rent.
  • Rent control
  • Tenant organizing
  • Los Angeles

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