SAN PABLO, California - Tenant advocates are ready to put a rent control measure on the November ballot in San Pablo, while renter and landlord groups across the Bay Area have launched dueling campaigns.

Tenant groups led by the Los Angeles-based Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment have submitted to the East Bay city more than 1,500 signatures needed to bring a measure to cap rent increases and add renter protections before voters, the East Bay Times reported.

Officials will now work to verify the signatures.

In addition to San Pablo, tenant groups led by the alliance are coordinating signature gathering campaigns for rent control measures in Redwood City, Pittsburg and Larkspur, according to the Times.

The proposed ballot measures in each city would cap yearly rent increases to 60 percent of the inflation rate and no more than 3 percent or 5 percent in total, depending on the city. They would also beef up enforcement of current renter protections and add rules against tenant harassment.

SAN PABLO, California - Over 1,600 signatures were submitted to the San Pablo city clerk by activists Tuesday for a renter protection legislation package to go on the November ballot.

The Contra Costa County registrar of voters has 30 days to approve at least 1,278 valid signatures before it goes to voters.

If it goes on the ballot and is approved in the election, the package would establish a rent program under the city manager's office, where tenants can file petitions if the landlord fails to make repairs or takes away housing service and landlords can file a petition if they are not receiving a reasonable return on their investment. It also includes ordinances for rent stabilization, tenant anti-harassment and just-cause evictions.

"There is no state law that makes these requirements," said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a UC Law San Francisco professor who directs the legal nonprofit California Center for Movement Legal Services that wrote the ballot initiative for San Pablo.

SAN PABLO, California - Tenant advocates in San Pablo are one step closer to getting rent control on the ballot this November.

On Tuesday, advocates submitted to the city more than 1,500 signatures needed to bring a measure to cap rent increases and add renter protections before voters. Officials will now seek to verify the signatures.

In recent months, renter and landlord groups across the Bay Area have launched similar ballot-box campaigns, including competing measures to either expand or roll back tenant protections in Berkeley. In Concord, a landlord-backed effort was underway to repeal a newly approved rent control law but didn’t have the signatures.

In addition to San Pablo, tenant groups led by the influential Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment are also coordinating signature gathering pushes in Redwood City, Pittsburg and Larkspur.

LOS ANGELES, California - Tenant rights organizations gathered Wednesday afternoon on USC’s campus to express their outrage with the university’s building plans for upcoming expansion projects. The protest started at the S Vermont Ave and Downey Way intersection and ended at Doheny Memorial Library.

In attendance were representatives from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Eastside LEADS, Inner City Struggle, Legacy LA and ACCE Action.

The protestors wrote and posted an eviction notice to USC President Carol Folt. They delivered it to Rene Pak instead, chief of staff in Folt’s office. The eviction notice stated: “YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that effective THIRTY (30) DAYS from the date of service on you of this notice; the tenancy of the premises known as the USC Health Science Campus and South L.A. Campus is terminated, at which time you are required to vacate and surrender possession of the premises.”

The notice demands fair union contracts for shuttle bus drivers and maintenance workers, various community benefit agreements, support of legacy businesses and defunding USC’s Department of Public Safety (DPS).

LOS ANGELES, California - Protestors mobilized at Viterbi today and marched throughout campus to Bovard Auditorium. They called attention to the increasing presence of wealthy investors building and buying homes at the expense of local residence.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, led the protest. Sergio Vargas is the co-director of ACCE.

Sergio Vargas: They’re building this three, four story buildings where they’re charging $1,000 per bed, which is unfair for the students. It’s unfair for the community. And it’s created a lot of chaos for our people, our folks are being taken out of their communities so they can make space for students who are going to come here are going to be here for maybe three months, six months, a year, and they’re going to be gone. They truly do not care about this area and the historic community that has been here for years.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, California - The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved removing immigration requirements and raised income eligibility limitations for the county’s basic healthcare program.

The amended policy aims to assist 10,500 uninsured people by providing access to general care, mental health, specialist medical care, and emergency and inpatient treatments within the county’s healthcare network and community clinics.

Supervisor John Gioia described the healthcare expansion as a corrective measure for a “mistake.” During the 2009 recession, the county added legal status as a requirement to qualify for its public healthcare. This measure would rescind that requirement.

“We are creating equity by removing the barrier we placed in 2009 on undocumented [people] when they were kicked off the program,” said Gioia during the board meeting.

LOS ANGELES, California - Al grito de “viviendas asequibles, ahora” y con conmovedores testimonios de desamparadas que afortunadamente ya pudieron dejar las calles, líderes sindicales, trabajadores, funcionarios de la ciudad de Los Ángeles celebraron el primer aniversario de la entrada en vigor de la Medida ULA, que ha permitido hasta la fecha la recaudación de 215 millones de dólares que están siendo utilizados para la construcción de viviendas accesibles y para el programa de ayuda a los inquilinos con problemas para pagar la renta.

En lo anterior coincidieron el director de United to House LA, Joe Donlin, los concejales Hugo Soto Martínez y Bob Blumenfield, la presidenta del Comité de Supervisión Ciudadana de la ULA, Michelle Espinosa Coulter, la presidenta del Sindicato de Profesores de Los Ángeles, Gloria Martínez, durante el acto de celebración que se realizó el pasado jueves, 4 de Abril en Santa Mónica/Vermont Metro Plaza ubicado a un lado del edificio de apartamentos asequibles de 187 unidades que se está construyendo con fondos obtenidos a través de la Medida ULA.

Last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders reintroduced the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, which would enable the spending of a much-needed $230 billion to weatherize, electrify, and repair all public housing.

For over fifty years now, the federal government has grossly neglected and slashed the budget of our nation’s public housing stock. Government programs have actively privatized and demolished public housing. Policymakers, through the “war on drugs,” have subjected public housing residents to racist criminalization and overpolicing.

Public housing remains a critical source of deeply affordable housing for the lowest-income families. Yet, in the midst of growing houselessness, we lose fifteen thousand of these precious homes every year to decay and lack of repair. Instead of allocating direct public funding for affordable housing, we rely on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC), a scheme offering tax breaks to Wall Street investors, which diverts public money toward their profit-skimming. Meanwhile, policymakers’ decisions to gut our public housing directly fueled the explosion of mass homelessness we’ve seen across the United States since the 1980s.

“Blackstone and corporate landlords like them are worsening the housing crisis, as they seek to extract maximum profits for their investors. We need to stop allowing these big corporate landlords to buy up our neighborhoods,” says Amy Schur, campaign director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “Instead, we should publicly fund housing that is off the private, speculative market.”

NEWPORT BEACH, California - Muchos propietarios que ofrecen viviendas nuevas para personas de bajos ingresos en California no podrán aumentar el alquiler de sus inquilinos en más del 10% anual, según una regla impuesta esta semana por un comité estatal.

El límite, aprobado el miércoles por el Comité de Asignación de Créditos Fiscales de California, afecta a todos los desarrollos futuros construidos con la ayuda de Créditos Fiscales para Viviendas de Bajos Ingresos. California otorga créditos federales y estatales para construir alrededor de 20,000 nuevas unidades al año; El programa es la principal fuente de financiación gubernamental para que los promotores privados construyan viviendas asequibles. 

La regla es similar a una ley estatal de 2019 para otros inquilinos: restringe los aumentos anuales al 5% más la inflación o al 10%, lo que sea menor.

NEWPORT BEACH, California - Many landlords providing new low-income housing in California won’t be able to increase the rent on their tenants by more than 10% per year, under a rule imposed this week by a state committee.

The cap, passed Wednesday by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, affects all future developments built with the help of Low Income Housing Tax Credits. California awards the federal and state credits to build about 20,000 new units a year; the program is the primary government funding source for private developers to build affordable housing. 

The rule is similar to a 2019 state law for other tenants — restricting annual increases to either 5% plus inflation, or 10%, whichever is lower.

ANTIOCH, CA - El Concejo de la Ciudad de Antioch ordenó el martes al personal a redactar una ordenanza de desalojo por causa justa que tenga como objetivo fortalecer las protecciones para los inquilinos más allá de las leyes estatales actuales.

Los defensores de la ordenanza dicen que podría proteger a los inquilinos de desalojos sin causa y prevenir que algunas familias se queden sin hogar.

Organizaciones de defensa de los inquilinos y políticas y de igualdad racial como ACCE Action, Rising Juntos, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, Monument Impact y Movement Legal, junto con residentes y líderes religiosos de Antioch, han estado presionando por una ordenanza que proteja a los inquilinos de desalojos sin causa, como renovaciones para evadir las prohibiciones de aumento de alquiler a los inquilinos de larga data.

ANTIOCH, CA - Over the last several years, organizers and housing rights advocates in Antioch have made significant progress in fighting for tenant rights: they’ve established rent control and helped pass a tenant anti-harassment ordinance. Now, they’re working to prevent unjust evictions.

“Now we're pushing for just cause ordinance in order to essentially protect as many families who have been left out by state policy when it comes to evictions and why somebody can be evicted.”

This is Luis Fernando Anguiano, he’s with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE. He says that Antioch has some of the highest eviction rates in the Bay Area, mostly due to loopholes in various tenant protection laws.

For example, renters living in single family owner-occupied homes aren’t protected by “just cause” eviction protections, nor are tenants who’ve been renting for fewer than 12 months. Again, Aguiano.

“We don't think that that is quite reasonable.”

BERKELEY, California - Berkeley is now the latest battleground in the fight over rent control in the Bay Area, with landlord and tenant groups working to bring competing measures before voters this November to either expand or roll back renter protections in the city.

Across the Bay Area, advocates on both sides of the contentious housing debate have started ballot-box campaigns in recent months, including a landlord-backed effort to repeal a newly approved rent control law in Concord. In Larkspur, in Marin County, a similar referendum on the March 5 ballot to overturn caps on rent hikes appears likely to fail by a narrow margin.

“The housing crisis is so bad that it’s touched everybody,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a tenant advocate, attorney and chair of the Berkeley Rent Board, which developed one of the two latest ballot measures. “We need all the tools in the toolbox to address the housing crisis.”

ANTIOCH, California - El martes, el Ayuntamiento de Antioch considerará crear una ordenanza de desalojo por causa justa que agregaría protecciones para los inquilinos dentro de la ciudad, y los defensores de los inquilinos se manifestarán antes de la reunión.

Los defensores de la ordenanza aseguraron que podría proteger a los inquilinos de desalojos sin culpa y evitar que algunas familias se queden sin hogar.

Grupos de defensa de inquilinos planean asistir a la reunión para compartir sus experiencias y describir cómo la aprobación de tal ordenanza afectaría sus vidas.

"Durante los últimos meses, hemos estado hablando con la gente, escuchando historias sobre la falta de protección en la ciudad y las preocupaciones que tiene la gente sobre quedarse sin hogar", dijo Luis Fernando Anguiano, asociado de comunicaciones a nivel estatal de la Alianza de Californianos por Acción de Empoderamiento Comunitario.

LOS ANGELES, California - Inquilinos de diferentes áreas de Los Ángeles se reunieron con lideres y activistas de organizaciones comunitarias quienes les ofrecieron información sobre sus derechos para evitar que sean víctimas de acoso por parte de los propietarios de sus viviendas.

LOS ANGELES, California - En Estados Unidos, las comisiones por sobregiros bancarios cuestan a los consumidores más de 8,000 millones de dólares cada año, y más del 80% de este beneficio adicional para las grandes instituciones bancarias provino del 9% de los clientes más pobres, afroamericanos y latinos

Gracias a la ley AB 1177 del asambleísta Miguel Santiago, aprobada en octubre de 2021 por el gobernador Gavin Newsom, personas como Javier Enrique Sarmiento, un hondureño de El Progreso Yoro, ya no tendrá que pagar los $15.00 de recargos mensuales que le hace su banco, cada vez que no puede tener al menos $300.00.

“Me arrepiento de haber abierto una cuenta con el banco”, afirma Sarmiento, quien trabaja como pintor independiente. “En 10 años me han cobrado mucho dinero”.

SAN DIEGO, California - A new express bus line in the South Bay has survived a campaign to get rid of it, just months after the route went into service.

The Rapid 227 electric bus line, which connects the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and Imperial Beach, has faced a blooming debate in the small waterfront city. Dozens of residents there said they were frustrated by the arrival of new noise and street traffic and accused county transit authorities of not doing enough to consult with the neighborhood.

The bus also drew passionate support from dozens of other Imperial Beach residents, along with a number of community advocates and city officials. They said the new bus line was an essential resource for binational commuters and students and argued it was far too soon to consider winding it down.

After a lengthy public hearing last month, the Imperial Beach City Council said they would support keeping the bus line in place. They recommended transit authorities consider shifting the route slightly so it would be less disruptive to some neighborhoods.

Advocates and many residents celebrated the decision.

“We believe that it's going to provide a lot of benefits for our South Bay communities,” said transit advocate Randy Torres-Van Vleck. “It's a lifeline for our communities to get around, participate in the economy, get across the border, get to school, get to resources, and get to the beach.”

ANTIOCH, California - Antioch will for the first time in history fly the Pan-African flag at City Hall through Juneteenth in honor of Black Americans who contributed to the enrichment of the community.

Originally proposed as a Black History Month display, the flag flying was extended because it came on the agenda so late in the month on Feb. 27. Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, who sets the agenda, requested an extension because of the delay, noting the requester – Antioch’s Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment – had done so in a timely fashion.
“I reviewed the request and thought it was a great idea,” the mayor said of the flag flying in what is now one of the Bay Area’s most diverse cities.

Mayor Pro-Tem Monica Wilson moved for approval, with an extension until Juneteenth, the June 19 holiday that commemorates the end of slavery.

Union workers and students at seven UC campuses called for the UC to “break up” with Blackstone — the largest commercial landlord in the U.S. — and promote more affordable housing options in tandem with Valentine’s Day at a Feb. 14 rally.

The joint action was organized by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action, which previously helped pass the Homeless Prevention Act in 2019 to protect tenant rights. The collective effort was also supported by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3299, a UC-wide union representing over 30,000 service workers and patient care technical workers, among others. The union is currently undergoing contract negotiations with the University for better wages and benefits and wants to include a clause for divestment within their contract, according to AFSCME 3299 UC Santa Barbara organizer and union representative Wendy Santamaria.

“Right now they’re bargaining for better wages, better benefits, but one of the specific things that we’re negotiating is a housing package that is able to provide financial assistance for members,” Santamaria said. 

A San Francisco lawmaker introduced what’s believed to be first-in-the-nation legislation this month that would require California landlords to accept pets.

The bill, AB 2216 by Democratic Assemblymember Matt Haney, is currently a spot bill with details to be fleshed out in the coming weeks and months. Haney said the intention is to bar property owners from asking about pets on applications, prohibit additional monthly fees for pet owners — or “pet rent” — and limit pet deposits.

The legislation, which is sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, is aimed at solving a big problem Haney said he sees in the rental world: an overabundance of tenants with pets and a shortage of landlords willing to accept them.

“A two-tiered system that punishes people for having pets, or treats them differently, or has a greater burden on them just for that fact should not be allowed in the law,” Haney said.

LOS ANGELES, CA – In a hotly debated Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board meeting February 13, a motion to lessen the negative impact on public schools from charter school co-location passed 4 to 3.

The original September 2023 motion, by Jackie Goldberg and Dr. Rociso Rivas, basically called for a study by the superintendent on the negative impact of charter schools that reside inside public schools. At the Tuesday meeting, a new policy was approved that will help hold back the growth of charter school co-locations.

Antonieta Garcia of East Los Angeles, an advocate and mother of children in LAUSD, stated: “This is a big victory for our ELA community. We have been fighting co-location and the saturation of charter schools for many years!”

BERKELEY, California - UC Berkeley students and Berkeley residents joined a rally led by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME-3299. The procession marched from Blackwell Hall to the chancellor’s office on Valentine’s Day to push the UC system to divest from Blackstone.

Starting at 11:45 a.m., protesters took a stance against the university, alleging several billion dollars worth of investment in Blackstone, to which protesters attributed the skyrocketing rent prices in Berkeley. Campus is a large shareholder in Blackstone, a private equity firm and one of the largest residential and corporate landlords in the United States. Several student housing residencies in Berkeley are also owned by Blackstone.

“This is the first of many protests we’ll be holding in solidarity with AFSCME, to bring attention to the irresponsible policies of the university,” said Eric Lerner, director of climate change and corporate accountability with ACCE. “We want to send a message that the UC needs to divest its (billions) invested in Blackstone, a company that is causing a national housing crisis.”

On Valentine’s Day, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, students, the University of California’s (UC) union of low-wage frontline service and patient care workers – members of AFSCME Local 3299 – alongside Blackstone tenants and community members with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) called on UC Chancellors to “Break up with Blackstone” and invest in affordable housing. The global Wall Street private equity firm Blackstone has become the largest landlord in America and has been accused of worsening high housing costs and evictions.

Actions were held across the state in seven locations on the campuses of UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego. The renewed call to divest from Blackstone follows the announcement of its $3.5 billion acquisition of Tricon Residential Inc. UC invested $4.5 billion in Blackstone’s BREIT in 2023 to boost investor confidence amid a wave of shareholder redemptions.

LOS ANGELES, California - In celebration of Valentine’s Day, 75 UC employees and community members demanded the University to “break up” with and divest from Blackstone outside the chancellor’s office in Murphy Hall.

The workers – who are represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 – alleged that the University’s ties to Blackstone prevent the UC from being an “ethical landlord,” and they urged the UC Regents to invest in affordable housing, divest from Blackstone and bargain a fair new contract for the union.

AFSCME Local 3299, which represents service, patient care technical and skilled craft workers employed by the University, held simultaneous actions Wednesday on eight UC campuses. Workers at UCLA, alongside members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, began their march to the chancellor’s office at 11:45 a.m. as the UC Board of Regents met at the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center a short walk away.

Union members marched in unison, chanting slogans such as “Break up with Blackstone,” “No housing, no peace,” and “UCLA, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side.”

Once they arrived inside Murphy Hall, union and community members delivered handwritten “breakup letters” to Chancellor Gene Block and the regents with the union’s demands. They also posted a sign on the wall that read, “University of CA, invest in the housing we need, not Blackstone’s greed.”

“We’re struggling beyond any point that we can understand,” said senior custodian Enrique Rosas in a speech. “Yet we show up every day. We show up every single day, Monday through Friday, doing our job – and do they care? No.”

LOS ANGELES—Blackstone’s planned acquisition of the single-family rental company Tricon Residential will further exacerbate the housing affordability crisis and harm tenants and workers, according to UNITE HERE Local 11, AFSCME Local 3299, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP).

As Blackstone seeks to grow as a landlord, workers at its hotel properties struggle to afford rent. Workers at the Blackstone-owned Fairfield LAX/El Segundo, Aloft LAX/El Segundo and Sheraton Phoenix went on strike last year and continue to fight for a contract that will provide living wages, affordable benefits, and adequate staffing. While 29 hotels have settled agreements that will enable workers to survive in Southern California, Blackstone’s hotels have failed to do so.