Despite that moratorium, some landlords are looking for ways around the law to try to force tenants out now.

ABC 10 - A single mother of two young children has vowed that she will have to be "dragged out" of her home, after receiving notice by her landlord she's being forced out of her rental unit in Imperial Beach. This threat to evict Patricia Mendoza comes despite the current statewide eviction moratorium, which has now been extended through June.

CBS 8 - On the heels of announcing federal rental assistance in late January, Mayor Todd Gloria announced Friday the state will provide $45.5 million in assistance for San Diego residents unable to pay rent due to the impacts of COVID-19.

LA Times - Millions of Americans unable to pay their rent during the pandemic face a snowballing financial burden that threatens to deplete their savings, ruin their credit and drive them from their homes.

A patchwork of government action is protecting many of the most financially strapped tenants for now. But it could take these renters — especially low-income ones — years to recover, even as the rest of the economy begins to rebound.

Jacobin - Carroll Fife is a community organizer based in Oakland, California. She recently came to prominence for her role in helping to organize the Moms 4 Housing movement at the end of 2019, before going on to win a city council seat this past November. She won in the council district of West Oakland, the historic center of the Black Panthers that had, in more recent years, been controlled by a neoliberal representative. She still holds her position as the director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), and is looking to take her grassroots movement-building experience to city hall to achieve real material change for the working class.

Fife ran on a platform of the right to housing, defunding the police to fund public services, and implementing the Black New Deal — a local variant on the Green New Deal that takes anti-racism as a key focus. As she prepares to enter city hall, Fife sat down with Jacobin to discuss her background in organizing, the fight to build municipal power, and what it would look like to decommodify human essentials like housing.

The rent moratorium extension worked out in Sacramento is a flawed and incomplete emergency measure.

Capital & Main - Placed strictly in the context of the urgency that surrounds it, Monday’s announcement of a proposed extension of eviction protections for California’s battered lower income renters is welcome news. Moreover, since the deal was worked out among both state Senate and Assembly leaders, quick passage on Thursday is almost assured.

But a fix it is not. Rather, it’s exactly what it appears to be: a flawed and in many ways incomplete emergency measure, crafted in the high heat of the COVID-19 pandemic without the input of some significant stakeholders — and certain to require adjustments or perhaps follow-up legislation altogether.

Put another way, it is one piece of a very large puzzle. And when it comes to California’s ongoing crisis of affordable housing, that puzzle continues to grow.

CapRadio - Legislators are prepared to extend California’s eviction moratorium to the end of June while offering landlords an incentive to forgive back rent using an extra $2.6 billion the state received from the latest federal relief bill.

Legislators and groups representing landlords and tenants worked on a deal over the weekend, and the bill, SB 91, was introduced this morning, which means lawmakers can vote on it Thursday morning.  

“We have a deal,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference, noting that the deal also extended to financial assistance for unpaid utilities.

...

“If federal tenant protection policies are mandatory because of the decades of evidence that landlords discriminate, such as fair housing, why would we allow landlords to opt out of a tenant protection program where the cost to society and human life could be catastrophic,” said Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment executive director Christina Livingston in a statement.

Spectrum News 1 -  Inside the eviction defense network offices in Westlake, siblings and attorneys Nathaly and Stefano Medina are working to keep hundreds of low-income Angelenos in their home.

They’ve had a fighters spirit since they were little, activists, a bit peleones, meaning agitators.

Truthout - Rent strikes have spread across the country with the spread of the coronavirus. In the pandemic’s first months, 400 New York City families stopped paying rent in buildings with over 1,500 rental units. In May, rent strikes involving 200,000 tenants spread to Philadelphia and elsewhere. Washington, D.C., in September saw tenant unions spring up in strikes at the Tivoli Gardens Apartments and the Woodner, as well as Southern Towers in nearby Alexandria.

Rent strikes had a history as a resistance tactic before the pandemic hit. Cleveland tenants settled a rent strike in February, after 38 families forced concessions on the landlord of the 348-unit Vue Apartments in Beachwood. San Francisco had a famous rent strike that went on for three years at the Midtown Park Apartments, ending in 2017.

Telemundo 52 - Inquilinos afectados por la pandemia aprovechan el miércoles por la noche el inicio de las tradicionales posadas para demandar a los miembros de la legislatura estatal que aprueben una extensión a la ley que los protege de ser desalojados. Gabriel Huerta reporta el 16 de diciembre de 2020.

CBS 8 - There are pleas from renters who said they could lose everything if the current eviction moratorium expires. Californians owe an estimated $1.7 billion in back rent and still find themselves unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State lawmakers are hoping to extend the moratorium while Gov. Gavin Newsom looks to the federal government for help.

San Francisco Examiner - 

California tenants struggling to pay rent due to COVID-19 would have until the end of 2021 to avoid eviction under a moratorium extension a Democratic lawmaker plans to introduce Monday.

At the end of August, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3088 into law, which requires tenants to pay at least 25% of their rent from Sept. 1 to Jan. 31, 2021 to avoid eviction. Tenants weren’t obligated to immediately back-fill payments missed from the start of the emergency in March through the summer, as long as they proved economic hardship, but landlords are entitled to eventually recoup all rent lost.

The law’s protections are scheduled to expire Feb. 1, and landlords can start collecting missed rent in civil court by March.

Post News Group - Treva Reid, District 7, and Carroll Fife, District 3, are the two new City Councilmembers elected in November pledging to use the power and resources of local government to help Oaklanders turn a corner on the multiple, intertwined poverty-fueled crises that impact the city.

Among the issues their top priorities for 2021 are rampant homelessness and housing insecurity for many thousands more.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 16, 2020

Media Contact: Rekha Radhakrishnan, 832-628-2312, [email protected]

Ralph Jean, 404-895-7004, [email protected], 

Sylvia Moore, 213-804-4679, [email protected] 

TENANTS DECLARE VICTORY AS LANDLORDS DENIED INJUNCTION IN CHALLENGE TO LOS ANGELES COVID-19 TENANT PROTECTIONS

Ordinances including 12-month repayment period and ban on eviction stemming from pandemic-related financial losses will remain in place

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – On Friday, a federal judge announced a ruling denying a preliminary injunction for the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, keeping crucial citywide ordinances in place to protect tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tenants’ rights organizations the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action (ACCE Action) and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) joined the federal lawsuit Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA) v. City of Los Angeles in July to defend the City’s emergency eviction protections and rent freeze. AAGLA’s lawsuit seeks to void the City’s validly enacted eviction protection and rent freeze ordinances, thereby allowing its members to engage in mass evictions during the pandemic. Public Counsel, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Public Interest Law Project, and Susman Godfrey LLP represent ACCE Action and SAJE.

Carroll Fife, known for helping homeless mothers take charge of a vacant California home, won a seat last week

The Guardian - Carroll Fife made headlines in the US last year as the radical architect behind Moms 4 Housing, a group of homeless mothers who bonded to commandeer a vacant home in Oakland, California, and put a face to the state’s housing and homelessness crisis.

Now, the vocal advocate for tenants’ rights is entering a new chapter in her activism. Fife won a seat on Oakland’s city council in last week’s election, beating a two-term incumbent. She will oversee an Oakland district that includes historically Black and underserved communities in West Oakland and more affluent areas with prime views of the San Francisco Bay.

Fife says she has no plans to change city government and “try to turn shit to sugar”; rather she plans to open the doors of city hall for other organizers to bring their demands to officials. The Guardian spoke to her about her ambitions for office, this year’s anti-police-brutality protests and her view on the presidential ticket.

BuzzFeed - The documents arrived paper-clipped and folded in Tiana McGuire’s mailbox in early September. She owed three months’ worth in rent, $3,050, it said on the packet of pages that her landlord, Sullivan Management Company (SMC), had shoved into her and her neighbors’ mailboxes in their apartment building in Oakland.

“Pay rent in 15 days or quit,” the first page read.

This was the notice McGuire had dreaded ever since she stopped paying rent in June. Even though she knew evictions had been suspended in Oakland since late March, the letter made it clear: She had two weeks to pay the rent she owed or she had to vacate her home of the last seven years.

KQED - Nearly a year after a group of homeless moms occupied a house in West Oakland and captured the nation's attention with their protest against the Bay Area's high housing costs, they came back to the home to celebrate.

On Oct. 9, Moms 4 Housing announced the home would soon become transitional housing for other homeless mothers, with services on-site to help with jobs, credit readiness and permanent housing.

"This is officially moms' house," said Dominique Walker, one of the moms who occupied the home.

KPIX 5 - Activists in San Francisco rallied outside the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Monday afternoon to demand that she and other Senate Democrats stop confirmation hearings for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

The hearings, which kicked off Monday morning, could result in Barrett filling in the seat of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last month.

Because Barrett’s appointment, which lasts for the rest of her life, would result in a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court, the activists want to hold off on the hearings until after the start of a new presidential term following the upcoming Nov. 3 election, which they say was Ginsburg’s dying wish.

KPBS - Landlords can begin filing evictions in San Diego housing court Monday for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Landlords weren’t the only ones at the courthouse — a group of tenants also made the trip to housing court in downtown San Diego, saying a new state law meant to protect them doesn’t go far enough.

“If they kick me out of my house, where I’ve been living for four years, where am I going to go? Am I going to live in this van with my kids, and be more vulnerable to COVID?,” said Patricia Mendoza, a tenant who’s part of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). Mendoza has been fighting for the rights of tenants, including herself, for months now.

In her run for City Council, Fife pushes back on the institutional barriers to Black people that come from a history of oppression.

The Appeal - Carroll Fife, a longtime activist in Oakland, California, is running for City Council on a broad platform promising to address injustice and racial inequities across the city. It’s part of what she describes as a long overdue program of dismantling systems of racial oppression that have lingered in America for decades since the civil rights movement.

“My perspective of the U.S. is this country has never atoned for the original sin of having people enslaved and used as property,” said Fife, executive director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Oakland. “Everything we’re experiencing today is a result of not addressing that.” 

Fife’s platform pushes back on the institutional barriers to Black people that come from a history of oppression. Cat Brooks, a 2018 mayoral candidate and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, praised Fife as one of the city’s fiercest campaigners and said the City Council campaign is a chance to capitalize on the work done by local activists for years. Fife has the “right platform and the right message” for the current moment, said Brooks, and her policy priorities reflect a realistic response to the challenges faced by Oaklanders and the country as a whole. 

San Jose Mercury News - A bill signed into law this week prevents corporations from scooping up too much of California’s valuable housing stock — a shift that could help shape how the state’s housing market weathers the COVID-fueled economic crisis.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1079 into law this week — one of several housing protection or production-focused bills to make it off his desk. SB 1079, which was inspired by the Oakland activist group Moms 4 Housing, prevents corporations from snapping up bundles of homes during foreclosure auctions. Instead, it gives tenants and families an opportunity to buy them individually.

With the coronavirus pandemic pushing national mortgage default rates higher than they’ve been in years, the new state law could prove especially impactful.

CalMatters - As the pandemic stretches into its seventh month, tenants and landlords have found themselves facing the same question: Who’s going to pay the rent if unemployment continues to hover north of 11%?

After the California Supreme Court’s eviction moratorium expired Sept. 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers extended protections for residential renters and forestalled evictions until Feb. 1 for people who declared that they lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic. Without a larger national bailout, the state deal is essentially a short-term fix that will convert back rent to civil debt, meaning landlords will still be able to pursue repayment in small claims court.

What this means for renters is that while they get to stay in their homes, the debt keeps piling up. 

KQED - They raised their voices in anger, pain and poetry, speaking words of protest and calling for action in the wake of a Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to charge any Louisville police officers for the death of Breonna Taylor.

One after another, Black women representing Bay Area community organizing groups weighed in Thursday morning during a rally in front of an Oakland mural honoring Taylor at 15th and Broadway.

“Breonna Taylor did not die in a vacuum. She died inside of a paradigm in this country where the lives of Black women and girls do not matter,” said Cat Brooks, one of the event’s organizers and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project.

The county has partnered with legal aid groups and community-based organizations that will host virtual Know Your Rights workshops about permanent and emergency tenant protections covering evictions and other challenges.

LA Daily News - Los Angeles County launched a program on Monday, Sept. 14, to provide free legal services to tenants facing eviction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As many residents face immeasurable uncertainty and grapple with health, mental health and economic hurdles, we want to provide working families with as much stability and peace of mind as possible,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said. “By equipping at-risk tenants with the resources they need, Los Angeles County can ensure they stay safe, stay strong, and stay housed.”

Earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors extended a moratorium on evictions through Oct. 31, and each member expressed their strong support for the legal aid program. Dubbed “Stay Housed L.A. County,” the countywide initiative includes a website with information about tenant rights, workshops for residents who need legal assistance and other support, including professional legal support.

7 X 7 - On December 26, 2019, Sara Biel and her daughter joined a protest against the eviction of three mothers—Dominique Walker, Misty Cross, and Sameerah Karim—and their children, from a house on Magnolia Street in Oakland.

In November, with the support of Moms4Housing, a collective working toward pragmatic solutions to Oakland's housing crisis, the women had moved into the unlocked house, which had been vacant for two years. Working people who could not afford housing in Oakland, they squatted in a public and intentional manner, seeking to find a way to enter a housing market that has been manipulated by corporate developers.

"That they were being evicted at seven in the morning on the day after Christmas was straight out of the Scrooge playbook," said Biel, who is a psychiatric social worker, poet, and co-editor of Colossus:Home, a new poetry anthology that will raise funds for Moms4Housing.

The American Prospect - Among the states dealing with an expiring eviction moratorium was California. Yesterday, an eviction deal that was announced last Friday secured final passage before the end of the legislative session, and got signed by the governor minutes before the August 31 expiration date. Gavin Newsom called it “a bridge to a more permanent solution,” urging federal support.

Activists are calling it a bridge to nowhere. The moratorium, extended to February 1, 2021, only kicks in for renters who can show hardship due specifically to COVID-19. Tenants must pay at least 25 percent of new rent (not the arrears before September 1) to be eligible. Housing courts will reopen statewide tomorrow, as other types of evictions besides non-payment of rent can move forward.