News and Views
November 1, 2017
Last Tuesday we mobilized to attend the first-ever State Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee informational hearing on “The Housing Affordability Crisis: Exploring the Effects of Renter Displacement” and asked you to contact your local state representatives to demand the repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
October 31, 2017
From September 18-24th, over one hundred organizations took part in over 55 coordinated actions and assemblies across the country for the #RenterWeekOfAction. While the week itself was striking, the brewing and growing national housing justice movement behind it signals a dramatic shift in the fight for safe, secure, sustainable, affordable housing for all people in the country.
October 20, 2017
With renters becoming 60 percent of city residents and median rent on Craigslist pushing $3,000 per month, students at UC Santa Cruz are talking with community members about a rent control campaign in 2018.
A representative of the Santa Cruz Tenant Organizing Committee announced the campaign at the end of “No Place Like Home,” showcasing a survey of 1,737 renters around the county by UCSC faculty and undergraduate researchers attended by 600 people at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Thursday night.
he petition filed at the beginning of this month to introduce a form of rent stabilization in the city of Glendale hit an administrative setback last week as the city clerk’s office deemed the filing of more than 11,000 signatures invalid due to compliance issues with state election codes.
Philadelphia is taking steps to protect renters from unfair evictions amid what Mayor Jim Kenney has described as a “housing crisis due to a shortage of safe and affordable housing.”
October 19, 2017
The race is on for the chance to become the home of Amazon's second headquarters.
The Greater Sacramento Economic Council announced the region's bid for Amazon's second headquarters Wednesday morning outside Golden 1 Center. Sacramento is among a number of cities -- San Diego, Houston and Minneapolis to name a few -- competing for the headquarters. Amazon says they'll hire as many as 50,000 employees with an average annual salary of more than $100,000.
Proposals are due midnight Thursday.
October 19, 2017
Glendale affordable housing advocates have been forced to start over on a ballot initiative which would have forced limits on rent increases throughout the city,
After turning in 11,000 signatures to the Glendale City Council on Oct. 3, the Glendale Tenants Union learned on Oct. 11 that the City Clerk had rejected their petition because it did not comply with state election laws.
A landlord has agreed to pay more than $1 million to tenants who were evicted after a fire swept through their illegal apartments in a warehouse space in the Inner Mission District in 2014, the first legal settlement related to the rash of fires that have displaced residents in the neighborhood over the past four years.
October 18, 2017
California’s statewide tenants’ rights organization warned on Wednesday that double-digit rent increases following recent wildfires violate Penal Code 396, the state’s anti-price gouging laws. The cap on rent increases was triggered by the Governor’s declarations of states of emergency in nine counties due to wildfires. Tenants Together is holding a webinar at 10am-11am on October 26, 2017, for media, policymakers, lawyers, and organizers on the issue. To sign up for the webinar, visit http://bit.ly/RentBan
October 18, 2017
Steve Kalmbach was in a meeting in the conference room at his Pleasanton office when he looked through the glass windows to find a crowd of unwelcome visitors in the reception area. Some were his tenants from a Deep East Oakland neighborhood — there to protest his doubling of their rents.
“He got really angry and didn’t want to talk to us so we put fliers all around his office,” said Jorge Rojas who rents a two-bedroom house on 76th Avenue with his wife, two children and two dogs. The cops showed up and told the tenants to leave.
October 18, 2017
Stacey Falls, a science teacher at Santa Cruz High School, has been keeping a nervous eye on rents in recent years, as she’s watched friends and colleagues move away.
Falls, who sat on the high school’s hiring panel, says Santa Cruz High won’t even consider candidates who would have to relocate to Santa Cruz “because it would be too challenging.”
October 17, 2017
A landlord with buildings all throughout New York City flouted housing discrimination laws and made it extra tough for families with small kids to find places in their properties, according to a Brooklyn federal lawsuit filed Monday.
The Parkoff Organization allegedly lied to African-Americans about availability and rental rates in at least one Brooklyn apartment, turned back applicants with public rent assistance elsewhere and made children undergo unnecessary lead tests.
October 17, 2017
Palo Alto's foray into rent stabilization blew up at the starting line Monday night after the City Council majority struck down a proposal from three council members to strengthen the city's tenant-protection laws.
October 16, 2017
The day before a Bay Area affordable housing complex opened up its waiting list, seniors formed a line at the entrance of the building, which quickly spilled into the street.
The older adults stayed all day—despite sun so intense that staff supplied water—and camped overnight, recalled Priscilla Haynes, the executive director of the Santa Clara Methodist Retirement Foundation.
The fast-moving fires that ripped through Northern California last week worsened a problem North Bay officials have struggled with for the past two years: A severe housing shortage that is pushing poor and working class residents out as prices continue to rise.
October 16, 2017
Rent stabilization for mobile home parks may soon return to the city.
The Vallejo City Council voted 6-0 during its Oct. 10 meeting to hold on first reading an ordinance which would protect those living in mobile home parks from excessive rent increases.
To make the action final, the council must approve an ordinance for a final time at a future meeting. Then 30 days after the final vote, the ordinance becomes active.
The move comes after city officials discovered it had inadvertently repealed its rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks in April 2016.
September 29, 2017
Today, the “housing package” passed by the state Legislature was signed by Governor Brown. Two bills - SB 2 and SB 3 - will raise desperately needed funds for affordable housing. AB 1505, known as the “Palmer Fix” and previously vetoed by Governor Brown, will at long last restore the authority of local government to require a percentage of affordable housing units in new rental housing developments. Together, these bills will help get back some of the affordable housing funding that California has lost thanks to drastic cuts under the Brown Administration.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Maria Zamudio, Causa Justa :: Just Cause
805-617-6359 - maria.i.zamudio@gmail.com
Momentum Grows for Rent Control: Hundreds to Attend Statewide Tenant Conference
Legislation sponsored by the California Apartment Association to impede voters from passing local ballot measures on key land use issues is dead for this year, thanks in part to the growing power of California’s tenant rights movement. The bill was tabled yesterday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.