Hours after replying to the ad, the 27-year-old got a late-night callback. The guy on the other end of the line was vague: He was looking for people concerned about the cost of living in Concord to attend an upcoming City Council meeting to advocate for “a thoughtful approach” to rent control.
Courthouse News - Cap on annual rent increases clears key California hurdle
"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — The rent, many California lawmakers agree, is too damn high.
The phrase appeared often during a Thursday hearing as Assembly members examined a bill that would further cap allowable rent increases, include single-family homes in tenant protections and remove an existing sunset to the Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
Over 100 people favoring and opposing the bill spoke during the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee, which passed Assembly Bill 1157. The legislation now proceeds to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
Supporters cheered as they watched the committee move the bill to its next stop along the legislative process.
“It is something that we need to address,” said Assemblymember Matt Haney, a San Francisco Democrat and committee chair, of the state’s housing crisis.
The bill’s author — Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat — said people continue to struggle with rent, despite the 2019 law. That law imposed an annual limit on rent increases to 5% plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or not greater than 10%, whichever is lower. Additionally, landlords must have a justifiable reason for terminating a tenancy after a year.
Single-family home rentals currently are exempt from existing law, which sunsets Jan. 1, 2030."
CBS News - South Park residents demand safer traffic light improvement on anniversary of 13-year-old's death
"Residents in the South Park neighborhood of Los Angeles are demanding a safer traffic light improvement on the anniversary of a 13-year-old's death.
On the one-year anniversary of Carver Middle School student Derick Serrano, family members and residents plan to hold a rally Friday at 2 p.m., demanding that LA City officials install a safer traffic light.
Last year, 13-year-old Serrano was fatally hit by a driver when he was walking home from school. Serrano was hit while crossing a four-lane intersection at Wadsworth and East Vernon Avenues.
The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action said the intersection does not have a crosswalk, crossing guard, or signal. They cite LA City traffic collision data, saying there have been 49 accidents at the intersection since 2010.
Family members and residents claim the city is offering an "inferior improvement," called a HAWK pedestrian signal. A HAWK signal flashes yellow and red lights when a pedestrian pushes a button in a marked crosswalk."
San Francisco Standard - The ad offered a quick $250. The job? Shilling for a bunch of landlords
"Jackson Brody was combing Craigslist for work when he stumbled across an ad for a paid gig in the East Bay. Pocket $250 for one evening close to home? Seemed almost too good to be true.
As a renter in Concord, Brody thought it sounded reasonable. So he signed on.
When he showed up the afternoon of March 25 to a park near Concord City Hall, he started to get the sense that something more cynical was afoot."
Mercury News - Landlord group pays ‘activists’ to oppose Bay Area rent control measure
"Facing pressure from tenant advocates, landlords and frustrated residents, the Concord City Council in March approved amendments to a hotly debated rent control ordinance that increased the annual cap on rent increases to 5% — one of the most restrictive in the Bay Area.
But dozens of the supposed activists who turned up in “Repeal Rent Control” shirts had been paid $250 to attend the council meeting and speak in support of rolling back tenant protections, said Shamelle Salahuddin, CEO of a public relations company that organized the stunt.
“If you’re asking if I pay activists, I do,” Salahuddin said. “That’s the business that I’m in.”
The paid activists were handed signs that read “Concord Rent Control is Unsustainable” and stamped with the contact information for the California Apartment Association, a landlord industry group leading the fight against Concord’s rent control ordinance. Salahuddin said the California Apartment Association did not hire her company, Sunshine State, but she declined to say who did.
When asked if it had hired Salahuddin’s firm, the California Apartment Association did not answer. In a statement, the group said those who supported the amendment had been “victimized” by rent control activists who “behaved in a disturbing and unacceptable manner” during the meeting.
The Concord City Council meetings on Feb. 25 and March 25 “highlight the need for enhanced security measures to protect community members, city staff and council members when groups engage in a pattern of behavior that disrupts democracy over policy disagreements,” Rhovy Lin Antonio, a spokesperson for the association, said in a statement.
Concord resident Jackson Brody, 27, was one of those paid to attend the March 25 meeting. He said he saw a listing on Craigslist a week ahead of the vote indicating that staff was needed for a public relations event. After he responded, he was called by one an event organizer who said he would be helping to advance a “more moderate approach to rent control” in Concord."
Davis Vanguard News - New Legislation Would ‘Combat’ California’s ‘Housing Emergency’
"SACRAMENTO, CA – In what sponsors are calling “sweeping legislation to combat California’s spiraling housing emergency,” legislation was introduced here Wednesday to “provide immediate relief to millions of renters, protecting many from displacement, preventing worsening homelessness,” according to a coalition of lawmakers, labor labors, tenant, youth activists and the unhoused.
The so-called “Affordable Rent Act,” introduced as AB 1157 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose), will, said the author and the coalition behind it, “permanently strengthen tenant protections statewide by updating the Tenant Protection Act of 2019.”
The bill would limit annual rent increases to the Consumer Price Index plus two percent or five percent, whichever is lower; includes single-family home renter and makes TPA permanent by removing a 2030 sunset.
Sponsors maintained in a statement that “California’s 17 million renters face aggressive rent increases that outpace wages; this bill would provide immediate relief from a system where current law allows landlords to nearly double rents over a decade even as wages don’t keep up.”
Noting that median rent in California has ballooned about 37 percent since 2000, when the TPA went into effect, “median renter household income has only increased seven percent,” adjusted for inflation, the coalition said.
The coalition added, “Under current law, renters could see their rent nearly double over 10 years. With half of California renters already spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, excessive increases are driving the homelessness crisis."
KPBS News - Chula Vista keeps adding new homes, but the vast majority are for wealthier residents
"In 2021, Chula Vista laid out a series of new housing goals. The city hoped to add thousands of new homes for lower and middle-income people by the end of the decade.
But three years later, the vast majority of new homes in the city are only affordable for wealthier residents, according to a new city report.
Just last year, the county’s second-largest city approved 1,500 building permits for homes aimed at households with an annual income of more than $143,000. It signed off on only 62 permits for homes aimed at all other income categories — including homes for low income and very low income residents.
In 2021, Chula Vista laid out a series of new housing goals. The city hoped to add thousands of new homes for lower and middle-income people by the end of the decade.
But three years later, the vast majority of new homes in the city are only affordable for wealthier residents, according to a new city report.
Just last year, the county’s second-largest city approved 1,500 building permits for homes aimed at households with an annual income of more than $143,000. It signed off on only 62 permits for homes aimed at all other income categories — including homes for low income and very low income residents."
La Opinión - Viven Entre La Mugre
"Alfombras ennegrecidas de mugre, goteras en los techos, pasillos oscuros y lúgubres, con escasa visibilidad de día y de noche, agua estancada en áreas comunes y basura por doquier son apenas unas de las muchas condiciones visibles de cómo han vivido por años los inquilinos de los complejos de departamentos Tesoro Del Valle, Flores del Valle y Camino al Oro en el área de Cypress Park/Lincoln Heights.
Cansados de ser ignorados y multados por los administradores y propietarios de los tres edificios ubicados entre la Avenida 25 y la calle Humboldt, se unieron para demandar respuestas y arreglos por parte de los propietarios.
Los edificios son propiedad de la empresa arrendadora AMCAL de Agoura Hills. Están subsidiados a través del programa federal de Crédito Fiscal para Viviendas de Bajos Ingresos (LIHTC).
El subsidio de LIHTC es administrado por el estado de California, y tiene como objetivo incentivar a los promotores privados a construir viviendas de alquiler asequibles."
KQED - This Bay Area City Is Cracking Down on Landlord Neglect
"No matter how many times she scrubs and paints, the black mold on Zenaida Gomez’s apartment walls always comes back.
Equally as stubborn, however, is the Richmond tenant herself, who’s determined to make her two-bedroom apartment of 20 years safe for her and her children.
“I’m worried because I have my three youngest children,” Gomez said in Spanish. Her five children have grown up in the apartment. “They have allergies, and one of my sons suffers from asthma because of the damp walls.”
Previously, landlords were allowed to self-certify that their buildings were up-to-code. The onus had largely been on renters like Gomez to drive such improvements by filing complaints with the city. However, a new city ordinance, which takes effect Thursday, alleviates some of that burden by making city inspections routine every three years.
Richmond’s new rule, which garnered unanimous City Council support last month, is just the latest win for housing advocates in the city, which already boasts some of the strongest tenant protections in California, including rent control, eviction protections and an ordinance prohibiting tenant-harassment."