Rent increases

Patrick Greene could soon see his rent double.

The 70-year-old man lives with his wife, Karen, in a two-bedroom apartment in Montgomery, Alabama.

He pays $460 a month for the apartment, and the rest of his $940 rent is normally covered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Due to the stalemate in Washington, D.C., however, his landlord informed tenants that she hasn't received the government funds.

"We literally have no idea what's going to happen," Greene said, adding that he and wife live off around $1,500 a month.

Hundreds of low-income tenants at housing complexes in four states now face rent hikes thanks to the government shutdown.

A property management company told the tenants in a letter this week that because of the shutdown, the federal government is no longer subsidizing their rent.

“As of February 1, 2019, all tenants will be responsible for full basic rent,” said the letter, an image of which was tweeted Friday by a low-income housing advocate.

More than 50 people rallied in front of San Rafael City Hall on Monday demanding city officials adopt tighter renter protections as a planned 65 percent rent increase in the Canal area threatens to displace many long-term tenants.

The rent hikes were sent to residents by the new landlord of a 28-unit apartment complex on Dec. 1. Many residents received notices that their rent would increase by $900 or more, effective Feb. 1.

It was a stifling mid-August afternoon when Jennifer learned she had until the end of the year to move out of her cramped studio apartment in the East Village of downtown Long Beach. She suspected the eviction was coming. For the past year, she had been looking for a new place as her landlord slowly remodeled her modest building, the place she’s called home for more than 13 years. He knew she could not pay the increase in rent, so he told her it was time to go. Jennifer, who is in her 50s, qualified for Section 8 low-income housing and searched futilely for an opening in the area.

Sacramento’s relative affordability has attracted streams of people fleeing the high rents and housing prices in the Bay Area. Along the way, California’s capital city has become less affordable.

Though rent increases happen often enough, especially in the Bay Area, it’s illegal amid a state of emergency like the North Bay wildfires.

But a real estate agent is accused of raising the monthly rent on a property in Novato amid the devastating blazes. On Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed three misdemeanor charges for alleged price gouging against Melissa Echeverria.

Two years ago, City Limits wrote about an affordable housing preservation deal under Mayor Bloomberg that tenants and advocates say was disastrous and non-transparent, leading to skyrocketing rents and evictions for many tenants. Those tenants, with the support of Legal Services Corporation A and the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, have now filed a class-action federal lawsuit against the owner as well as the federal and city agencies who signed off on the deal.

As the price of housing in California spirals out of reach, more than half of Los Angeles County residents fear being priced out of living in the region, and younger residents are even more apprehensive.

Fifty-five percent of LA County residents said they, a close friend or family member have considered moving from their neighborhood in the last few years due to rising housing costs, according to the 2018 Quality of Life Index.

San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer will introduce legislation Tuesday to eliminate what she and many housing rights advocates call an unjust loophole in the city’s rent ordinance that landlords can use to raise rents so they can pay mortgage loans and property taxes.

As in many cities, when the costs of operating and maintaining an apartment building in San Francisco outpace the annual allowable rent increases set by the city’s Rent Board, landlords may request permission to pass on some of those expenses to tenants.

The city is suing a landlord who authorities say tried to bypass Oakland’s rent control ordinances and nearly triple his tenants’ rent by pretending to move into the duplex.

The city attorney’s office, alongside tenant rights legal firm Centro Legal de la Raza, filed a lawsuit March 20 against landlord Rong Fu Lee alleging that he claimed to be living in the downstairs unit of the duplex in 2016 and attempted to drastically increase the rent for Salvador Sotelo — who had lived at the West Oakland duplex with his family since 2003.