San Jose Council Considers Immediate No-Cause Eviction Policy

Monday, May 8, 2017
Ramona Giwargis
San Jose Mercury News

One week after San Jose leaders approved a new law to stop landlords from ousting renters without cause, city records show nine people found eviction notices on their doors — and advocates say dozens more are at risk.

Now, city lawmakers are considering immediate enforcement of the new policy against no-cause evictions. The City Council on Tuesday will decide whether to adopt an “urgency ordinance” to enact the rules right away — a move supported by Mayor Sam Liccardo, though he voted against the law last month.

The measure appears to have the eight votes needed to pass.

“Given the well-publicized council decision, considerable risk arises for existing tenants that less savory landlords might seek eviction prior to the effective date of any new ordinance,” Liccardo wrote in a memo co-signed by Councilman Chappie Jones, who also voted against the measure last month. “Accordingly, an urgency ordinance appears in order to avoid anticipatory evictions that will likely result.”

That’s what happened in Mountain View, after voters approved Measure V in November to establish new rent controls and tie annual rent hikes to inflation. One landlord kicked everyone out of his building, according to Melissa Morris, a supervising attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.

“We’re really worried that will happen in San Jose,” she said. “There are landlords who take advantage of a period of uncertainty with respect to the law.”

Under the just-cause policy that was narrowly approved by San Jose’s council April 18, landlords cannot evict tenants unless it’s for one of a dozen specific reasons, including criminal activity, not paying rent or property damage. Landlord groups, such as the California Apartment Association, said the measure limits their ability to remove problematic tenants.

“This sends a clear signal that City Hall does not trust the hard-working, well-intentioned, good property owners in San Jose to continue to manage their properties by the law,” Joshua Howard, senior vice president of the California Apartment Association, said of the urgency ordinance. “Especially when the data has shown only a small number of no-cause evictions.”

City housing director Jacky Morales-Ferrand said her office received notice of 1,962 no-cause evictions since 2012 — mostly in low-income neighborhoods — but that’s just from the landlords who self-reported the evictions from the city’s 43,000 rent-controlled units.

A coalition of renters and housing advocates gathered at San Jose City Hall on Monday to urge the council to provide the protections right away.

“If the city chooses to wait five or six weeks to implement this law, you’ll see another 45 families or so get no-cause evictions,” said Jeffrey Buchanan, policy director at Working Partnerships USA. “Are we really willing to let another 45 families be pushed out of the city? There’s a real social and fiscal cost of these landlords taking these kind of actions.”

Morris said her organization has seen a recent spike in no-cause eviction cases. Since April 1, they’ve received 23 new cases. In an average month, Morris said, her group deals with about 10 cases.

In addition to enacting the protections right away, Liccardo and Jones propose allowing landlords to evict tenants for criminal activity without having to prove that activity was a nuisance to others. This eliminates the need for neighbors to testify against one another.

They also suggested a measure to prohibit landlords from threatening to notify immigration authorities about a renter’s immigration status or sharing that information with others.

Though the just-cause policy was approved by elected leaders last month, it requires two readings by the City Council before it can take effect. Without an urgency ordinance, that would delay its implementation for at least 45 days — and open the door for more evictions.

Issue: 
FAIR USE NOTICE. Tenants Together is not the author of this article and the posting of this document does not imply any endorsement of the content by Tenants Together. This document may contain copyrighted material the use of which may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Tenants Together is making this article available on our website in an effort to advance the understanding of tenant rights issues in California. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Help build power for renters' rights: