SACRAMENTO, CA - As California’s 2024 legislative session begins, the California Working Families Party (CA WFP) is launching a three-pronged poster campaign today to denounce the strong influence that Big Oil still retains over California politics. The panels denounce three Democratic lawmakers who took money out of fossil fuels and voted for the industry’s agenda. These lawmakers illustrate how big oil companies retain power in Sacramento, as nearly two-thirds of fossil fuel donations went to Democratic state lawmakers last year.

Despite California’s bold steps to hold polluters accountable, from suing big oil companies for the climate damage they’ve caused to passing laws requiring big companies to disclose their carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, only a handful of Democratic state lawmakers can block action on climate and consumer protections. Analysis by the California Working Families Party reveals that these Democrats consistently support the interests of big oil, often in conflict with their voters’ progressive voting history.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Mayor Todd Gloria will deliver his fourth State of the City Address Wednesday, addressing the city's ongoing issues, such as homelessness, housing affordability, infrastructure and public safety . . .

Gloria has continued to change to a punitive tack on the homelessness issue, joining with City Councilman Stephen Whitburn in pushing for the Unsafe Camping Ordinance, which the council passed 5-4 in June.

The proposal is intended to ban tent encampments at all times in certain sensitive areas -- parks, canyons and near schools, transit stations and homeless shelters -- regardless of shelter capacity. Signs have gone up across the city, effectively criminalizing homelessness in large swaths of the city.

Barbara Pinto, a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, compared the proposal during public comment "to pouring water on a drowning man."

Pinto urged the council to focus on providing more affordable housing. Others suggested the council either table the proposal or scrap the plan altogether and craft a new one. More than a few opponents urged the council to go with 2019 community action plan to tackle homelessness.

BAY AREA - Invitation Homes, the nation’s largest owner of single-family rentals, will pay $3.7 million to settle allegations it illegally hiked rent for hundreds of California tenants, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced.

The attorney general’s office says the company — which is also the single largest owner of residential property in the Bay Area — raised rents between October 2019 and December 2022 on 1,900 homes in California beyond the amounts allowed by the Tenant Protection Act. That state law, passed in 2019, caps annual rent increases to 5%, plus a percentage change in the cost of living, up to 10%.

“Californians are facing a housing crisis of epic proportion. California has laws in place to protect tenants from sudden, large rent increases, and landlords need to be diligent in ensuring that they abide by those laws,” Bonta said in a statement on Monday. “The settlement announced today should serve as a reminder to landlords in California to familiarize themselves with the law and protections put in place to keep homes accessible to Californians.”

REDWOOD CITY, CA - A new ordinance filed in Redwood City would create one of the most expansive rent control policies in the county, as well as include anti-harassment provisions meant to close what advocates say are loopholes in the state’s tenant protection laws.

If passed, a new rent stabilization program would be created to set the allowable rent increases for applicable properties, not to exceed 5% each year. Landlords would pay a monthly $7 to $10 fee to fund the program, which would also oversee other tenant protection-related issues. 

“Local advocates have been trying to get the council to pass the same policies, so it’s now been years and years of asking for the same policies that exist in so many other Bay Area communities and asking them to adopt them in Redwood City,” ACCE Institute Legal Director Leah Simon-Weisberg said. 

BAY AREA, CA - Tenant advocates are pushing to put rent control measures on the ballot in at least four Bay Area cities this November, the latest effort to expand such protections across the region as tens of thousands continue struggling with sky-high housing costs.

Advocacy groups this month plan to file proposed rent control ordinances with Redwood City, San Pablo, Pittsburg and Larkspur, the first step toward gathering the thousands of signatures needed to bring the measures before voters . . .

Campaign organizers, including the influential Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, contend there are few other options after cities resisted years-long efforts to adopt adequate tenant safeguards.

“They’ve been trying and trying and trying at the local level to go before their local officials,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the alliance. “These are all cities that have an affordability crisis in their communities.”

BAY AREA - In a coordinated effort, tenants in four Bay Area cities have submitted the initial filings to place local rent control and tenant protection measures on the November 2024 ballot.

The measures that could come before voters in Larkspur, Pittsburg, San Pablo and Redwood City would limit annual rent increases (5% or 3%, depending on the city), prohibit “renovictions,” and limit owner move-in evictions, among other protections. Advocates have also proposed a similar ballot initiative in the Kern County city of Delano.

Trinidad Villagomez, a 22-year resident of Redwood City, said the proposed city ordinances would help stabilize renters amid continually rising housing prices. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Redwood City is $2,500, according to Zillow, and ranges from more than $2,800 per month in Larkspur to nearly $1,700 in San Pablo.

“This law will help stabilize families, particularly low-income families,” Villagomez said.

BAY AREA, CA - When California lawmakers passed a rent cap four years ago to protect tenants from large and frequent rent hikes, they exempted hundreds of thousands of units reserved for some of the state’s poorest renters.

Low-income housing, after all, is usually built with public subsidies that already impose rent ceilings on developers and property owners. Some are already managed or overseen by local public housing agencies.

But California also has more than 350,000 privately owned low-income housing units — built with the help of federal tax credits — exempted from the state’s rent cap. Residents of some of those units have seen their rents soar despite being the exact demographic the law sought to protect.

AREA DE LA BAHIA, CA - Cuando los legisladores de California aprobaron un tope de pago alquiler hace cuatro años para proteger a los inquilinos de aumentos grandes y frecuentes, eximieron a cientos de miles de unidades reservadas para algunos de los inquilinos más pobres del estado.

Después de todo, las viviendas para personas de bajos ingresos generalmente se construyen con subsidios públicos que ya imponen límites máximos de alquiler a los promotores y propietarios. Algunas ya están administradas o supervisadas por agencias locales de vivienda pública.

Pero California también tiene más de 350,000 unidades de vivienda de propiedad privada para personas de bajos ingresos (construidas con la ayuda de créditos fiscales federales) exentas del límite de alquiler estatal. Los residentes de algunas de esas unidades han visto dispararse sus alquileres a pesar de ser exactamente el grupo demográfico que la ley buscaba proteger.