SAN DIEGO - The University of California Regents Committee on Investments discussed the performance of the UC’s portfolio of investments on Jan. 17, which currently sits at $157 billion in assets as of Jan. 15.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations joined with UC unions to call for the UC’s divestment from Blackstone. Members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) spoke at the public comment session of the Jan. 17 Regents meeting in support of divestment.

LOS ANGELES, CA - El Concejo de Los Ángeles se prepara para votar a favor de nuevas protecciones para los inquilinos en la ciudad de Los Ángeles en momentos en los que los grupos que abogan por sus derechos piden que se extienda una vez más la moratoria de desalojos o se adopte una nueva.

Entre las principales protecciones propuestas para los inquilinos destaca una ordenanza que prohíbe poner fin al alquiler de una vivienda sin una causa justa, no solo para aquellos protegidos por el Control de Renta o por el estado de California.

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Gavin Newsom will unveil the new state budget Tuesday.

The governor had previously announced that the state would have a surplus of funding, but the state is now in a deficit, in part because of the economic downturn.

On Monday, activists staged a protest, calling on higher taxation, which they say would allow for a more robust state budget.

ESTATAL - California retrasará algunos compromisos de gastos, revertirá los pasos recientes para apuntalar su salud fiscal y cambiará las fuentes de financiamiento para limitar los recortes que debe hacer para cerrar un déficit presupuestario proyectado de $22,500 millones, dijo hoy el gobernador Gavin Newsom.

El déficit, ligeramente inferior a los $24 mil millones que los analistas financieros de la Legislatura estimaron en noviembre, no impedirá que el estado cumpla sus ambiciones de transformar la educación, la falta de vivienda, la asequibilidad de la vivienda y la atención médica, insistió el gobernador demócrata.

STATEWIDE - California will delay some spending commitments, reverse recent steps to shore up its fiscal health and shift funding sources to limit the cuts it must make to close a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said today.

The shortfall, slightly less than the $24 billion that financial analysts for the Legislature estimated in November, will not prevent the state from fulfilling its ambitions of transforming education, homelessness, housing affordability and health care, the Democratic governor insisted.

SACRAMENTO - California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils his 2023-24 budget today, a blueprint that is expected to address a widely anticipated shortfall of as much as $24 billion.

The governor faces the unenviable task of determining where to cut and how deeply to draw down “rainy day” savings to make everything pencil out this summer.

As Newsom grapples with the budget, protesters gathered Monday in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego to wage a literal tug-of-war to get the governor’s attention.

Over the next few days, very different events will take place in downtown Sacramento.

Today, Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to march to the state Capitol with a group of ticketed supporters before being sworn into office for his second term, according to an invitation enclosed in a late December campaign email. About 1,000 people are expected to attend the inauguration, a permit approved by the California Highway Patrol shows.

But Newsom may be facing criticism of his own. On Monday, an alliance of labor and community groups calling itself California Common Good is set to hold “street theater actions” — complete with 10-foot-tall puppets of Newsom and California billionaires — in Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles.

OAKLAND, CA - The November election has given Oakland a batch of elected officials who, on the whole, may be the friendliest to renters’ issues of any set of city leaders in recent memory. 

Mayor-elect Sheng Thao is a renter herself, and a majority of city councilmembers either have substantial track records of passing tenant protections or have campaigned on the promise to support them.

But voters in one pivotal county race rejected a well-known renter advocate, leaving less clarity about the direction of housing policy at the county level, which could impact Oakland. 

LOS ANGELES, CA - On December 3, several hundred attendees participated in the first People’s Assembly organized by the Los Angeles Tenants Union since the pandemic exacerbated the housing crisis in Los Angeles. The union-wide assembly was held in the Student Union building at the Los Angeles City College.

The Assembly represented local chapters of the LATU, including: Baldwin-Leimert-Crenshaw, East Hollywood, Union de Vecinos from the Eastside, Lincoln Heights, South Central, Flower Drive, MacArthur Park, Vermont y Beverly (VyBe), and more. Each local presented their unique struggles, their tenants organizing tactics and tangible solutions for LA’s housing crisis. 

SAN DIEGO, CA - About a dozen activists with the advocacy group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) stormed the lobby of a downtown office building Friday morning demanding to speak to a PR representative of the real estate corporation Blackstone.

The group says the corporate landlord is threatening to evict low-income renters.

“Our main message was to demand that Blackstone, this multibillion-dollar corporate landlord, stop evicting families here in San Diego county,” said Sarah Guzman with ACCE.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Frustrated by the Los Angeles Housing Department’s (LAHD) decision not to place the Chesapeake Apartment complex into the Rent Escrow Account Program (REAP), residents held a protest and press conference at LAHD’s offices on Friday to call out the department’s failure to hold the complex’s owner, billionaire slumlord Mike Nijjar, accountable for its dilapidated and unsafe conditions.

Starting this week, California renters can use a new online tool to check their eligibility for state and local rent protections based on their ZIP code. The idea is to make it easy to figure out how much your landlord can legally raise your rent each year, since rent caps vary from city to city. No need to read through your local rent control ordinance — now renters can just follow a simple set of prompts at tenantprotections.org and get an answer.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera released a proposed framework aimed at providing greater local protections for tenants.

The framework incorporates input from residents, tenant advocates and rental housing providers gathered over the last month, following the City Council's Oct. 31 tenant protection workshop.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera on Tuesday announced a proposal to enhance tenant protections in the city.

They unveiled a framework with a series of proposed changes including just-cause eviction protections for tenants, more required relocation assistance following no-fault evictions and additional time for seniors and San Diegans with disabilities to find new homes after receiving a no-fault eviction notice.

You’ve decided to move to a new place. You scour the typical rental websites, browsing various options within your budget. Once you’ve decided on a place, you initiate the beginning of a new relationship—between landlord and tenant—through signing a lease.

While this legal contract is the foundation of the rent relationship, it’s often not simple to navigate.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Maintenance workers installed new vinyl in Ruth Perez’s one bedroom apartment over floorboards that sag under foot. They put a new drain pipe in a sink that still clogs. They screwed new cabinet hinges into rotted wood. And they haven’t yet bothered to replace the stained carpet, or the heavy wooden closet doors that keep coming off their tracks.

“It’s just back-to-back issues,” said Perez’s 23-year-old son, Yonathan, who lives with his mom and two younger siblings. “They fix one problem and then another one comes up. We don’t feel comfortable in our own home.”

SACRAMENTO, CA - In the first chaotic months of the pandemic, as the Newsom administration shut down most of the state’s economy, leaders assured working people that if they did their part to contain the virus by staying home, then the income they lost wouldn’t lead to getting evicted or becoming homeless.

Now, nearly three years later, tens of thousands of tenants from Sacramento to San Diego are heading into Thanksgiving with a complete sense of betrayal on that front.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Tenants and advocates staged a sit-in protest at the San Diego County Housing and Community Development Services building on Tuesday, calling on county officials to address issues with the defunct COVID rent relief program that left thousands of renters in the region facing eviction.

The county’s emergency rental assistance (ERA) program was part of statewide efforts to relieve the impact of economic hardship during the pandemic. Now, several months after the program ended back in March, tenants are still struggling.

Ballot measures in the U.S. to build more affordable housing and protect tenants from soaring rent increases were plentiful and fared well in last week’s midterm elections, a sign of growing angst over record-high rents exacerbated by inflation and a dearth of homes.

SAN DIEGO, CA - It’s no secret that San Diego and all of California has an affordable housing crisis. Rents in the region are near all-time highs and inflation is affecting the cost of everyday necessities.

ACCE San Diego director Jose Lopez said that’s pushing many San Diegans over the edge.

SANTA CRUZ, CA - More than 400 university scholars, students, community organizers, foundation representatives, artists, and activists came together in late October for a one-of-a-kind event to build collaborative partnerships for community-engaged research and meaningful social change at the UC Santa Cruz conference: All-In: Co-creating Knowledge for Justice.

ANTIOCH, CA - El apartamento de Kim Carlson se ha inundado con heces humanas varias veces, la plomería nunca se reparó en el complejo de viviendas de bajos ingresos al que llama hogar en el suburbio de Antioch, en el área de la bahía de San Francisco.

ANTIOCH, CA — Kim Carlson’s apartment has flooded with human feces multiple times, the plumbing never fixed in the low-income housing complex she calls home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Antioch.

Her property manager is verbally abusive and calls her 9-year-old grandson, who has autism, a slur word, she said. Her heater was busted for a month this winter and the dishwasher has mold growing under it. But the final straw came in May: a $500 rent increase, bringing the rent on the two-bedroom to $1,854 a month.

RICHMOND, CA - Emily Ross and her partner moved to Richmond together a decade ago. She was working in Napa, her partner was working in San Francisco and they couldn’t find an affordable place to live in either city.

“We looked all over the Bay and we wound up getting offered a place in Richmond,” Ross said. “We’d been looking for so long and it was the perfect halfway point.”

SAN DIEGO, CA - In late May, a family trust with rental properties scattered around San Diego County bought a small apartment building on Bermuda Avenue in Ocean Beach, paying $4.23 million. Over the next few weeks, it bought three more properties, also built in the 1960s or 1970s, for a total of 34 units.

When the deal closed, the trust’s property management company, Coast West Properties, got to work, giving move-out notices to rent-paying, rule-abiding tenants in apartments tagged for renovation, scheduling contractors and posting listings for the spiffed-up units.

LOS ANGELES, CA - In the coming weeks, Los Angelenos will vote on a ballot measure to hike taxes on the sale of multimillion dollar properties, with the expected near-billion dollars in annual revenue going towards addressing the housing crisis in the second-largest city in America.

The initiative has been strongly opposed by real estate interests — from huge corporate landlords to realtor lobbying groups and pro-business groups — who have so far poured more than $5 million into efforts to defeat the measure.

SAN DIEGO, CA - Chula Vista has approved a landlord-tenant ordinance aimed at protecting good renters from no-fault evictions by landlords acting in bad faith.

Council members passed the law in a 3-1 vote Tuesday after having delayed the issue in May due to not having a quorum. Councilmember Jill Galvez cast the lone vote in opposition and Councilmember John McCann recused himself because of a conflict of interest as he owns multiple properties.

LOS ANGELES, CA - For the wealthiest state in the nation, California’s social and economic inequality is glaringly stark. More than a fourth of America’s unhoused population lives there, according to a 2020 HUD report, and it’s the only state where more than 70% of that population is unsheltered—that is, living outside the shelter system in tents, informal communities, and camps.

And nowhere in the state is the disparity so affronting as in Los Angeles, among the 10 wealthiest cities in the world and also home to the largest unsheltered population of any U.S. city.

The COVID-19 pandemic made the wealthiest people in the US much richer. While a million Americans died, and we endured the worst health crisis in a generation, the powerful consolidated their financial position. By May 2022, US billionaires’ wealth had grown by $1.7 trillion since the coronavirus crisis began.

A key component of concentrated wealth is real estate, ie, the ownership and management of land and buildings. Controlling real estate has historically been a central piece of gaining and maintaining power. This is no less true today. The richest people in the world use land and buildings as vehicles for hiding their assets and as investments to increase their capital. In doing so, they have weaponized real estate not just to grow their wealth, but to control our communities.

RICHMOND, CA - Richmond voters are being asked on the November ballot to boost rent control measures so that tenants in controlled units would experience no more than a 3% rent hike. 

If Measure P is approved, it would keep those tenants from potentially receiving a much higher rent increase that is based on the consumer price index. In Richmond, landlords can raise the rent to 100% of inflation, which is the percentage increase in the consumer price index — currently, 5.2%. Measure P would decrease that to either 60% of inflation, or a flat 3% increase in monthly rent, whichever is lower. 

LOS ANGELES, CA - Three weeks ago, Los Angeles City Council candidate Danielle Sandoval issued a public apology, saying she was taking full responsibility for her handling of wage theft claims filed by workers at a restaurant she opened in 2014.

Sandoval said she was working to "remediate the harm" caused to the four former employees of Caliente Cantina in San Pedro, which is now closed.

ANTIOCH, CA - Residents, housing advocates and Antioch City Council members gathered at Casa Blanca Apartments to celebrate the passage of the city’s first rent stabilization rules, the strongest such laws in Contra Costa County.

The ordinance caps rent increases at 3% or 60% of the consumer price index, whichever is lower; allows only one rent increase each year; and includes government-funded, low-income housing apartments.

Most Californians value living in a multiracial democracy. We take pride in the vast distinct cultural heritages that make up California. Whether we are Black or White; Latino or Asian; immigrant or native-born — each of us strengthens our democracy and our economy when given equal rights and opportunities.

But a handful of cynical politicians and their wealthy corporate donors want us to blame our neighbors down the street who look different from us.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Los Angeles was built on stolen Indigenous land. And Black Latinos built Los Angeles as we know it now. The region’s 44 earliest settlers to this area included many Black Mexicans.

Leaked tapes first revealed on Reddit captured the anti-Black, anti-Indigenous conversation from then-L.A. City Council president Nury Martinez, who resigned on Wednesday, councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, and former L.A. Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who resigned on Tuesday, in a conversation about manipulating L.A.’s redistricting process for personal gain.

LOS ANGELES, CA: Para Estuardo Mazariegos, de la Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE, por sus siglas en inglés), la conversación racista representa "una falta de respeto" y agrega que "esta gente nos está dividiendo en vez de dar el ejemplo".

SAN DIEGO, CA - La moratoria de desalojo residencial sin causa alguna de San Diego expiró el viernes, ampliando la lista de motivos que un propietario puede alegar para poner fin al alquiler o desalojar a un inquilino.

La moratoria, que entró en vigor el 22 de mayo como consecuencia de la pandemia del COVID-19, había restringido las opciones de los propietarios para llevar a cabo desalojos, permitiéndolos solo en situaciones en las que el inquilino no pagaba el alquiler o violaba un contrato de alquiler. Impedía a los propietarios poner fin a los arrendamientos si querían retirar el inmueble del mercado de alquiler o hacer reparaciones importantes. Ahora la ley vuelve a las normas de desalojo anteriores.

ANTIOCH, CA — Tenants afraid that landlords might raise rents before new rental protections are in place will be able to rest easier after as a result of the City Council this week approving a rollback date and strengthening its new rules.

Though the council approved rent stabilization rules on a first reading last month, it ultimately did not adopt them at a later meeting when some council members decided to include a rollback date as to when they would become effective. On Tuesday, on a 3-to-2 vote – with Mayor ProTem Mike Barbanica and Councilmember Lori Ogorchock dissenting – the council approved newly worded rules, rolling back the date to Aug. 23, so that landlords won’t be able to raise rents in the meantime.

LOS ANGELES, CA: A year after Los Angeles adopted an ordinance to protect renters from harassment by taking their landlords to court, the law has largely failed its purpose. The city has not provided resources to thoroughly investigate complaints filed under the law. It has yielded no criminal prosecutions against landlords. Nor has it generated the civil lawsuits by tenants that supporters of the ordinance had hoped would deter abuses.

LOS ANGELES, CA — City Councilman Gil Cedillo faced criticism from several members of the public during Friday’s council meeting over how he conducted Wednesday’s Housing Committee meeting, during which the committee took up recommendations to end the COVID-19 eviction moratorium in Los Angeles.

Several members from the tenants’ rights group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) attended the council meeting and accused Cedillo — the committee chair — of silencing Latino voices, claiming that the Spanish translation during the meeting was poor. During Wednesday’s meeting, many Spanish-speaking tenants called for the city to extend the eviction moratorium, while landlords sought an end to the pandemic-era protections.

SACRAMENTO, CA - At the August 23, 2022 Antioch City Council meeting, former councilmember Ralph Hernandez stood to speak on behalf of a rent stabilization ordinance that was under consideration. He recounted the general challenges in the community: low-income families, including non-English speakers, being taken advantage of with raising rents on properties, non-existent maintenance, broken down appliances and pest infestations. He also mentioned tenants feeling they cannot say anything for fear that they will face retaliatory eviction with nowhere else to go.

The struggles of low-income Sacramentans are no different, and renters advocates across California consistently identify Sacramento as being one of the worst areas in the state for local tenant protections. The data on this has already been collected: The 2022 Homeless Point in Time Count reported a 67% increase in the local homeless population, more than any other California city or county, and cited housing affordability issues as a major driver. It also noted the “growing need for more preventative and rehousing strategies in the future.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Advocates from Stand Up Nashville (SUN) joined more than 100 tenant activists in Washington, D.C. Tuesday to fight for housing equity and eviction protection for renters nationally.

The activists imposed on the National Multifamily Housing Council's (NMHC) annual fall conference which is one of the nation's largest annual gatherings of corporate landlords. Renters and advocates called on lawmakers to dismiss real estate lobby money and stop opposing essential tenant protections at the behalf of real estate groups and developers.

SACRAMENTO, CA - Lourdes Diaz Gomez and her two young grandchildren have been baking in their south Sacramento apartment. They lived with a broken air conditioner in an apartment managed by Stanford Properties for over three months, including last week’s record-breaking heat wave.

That isn’t the only problem at Hampton Park Apartments, according to tenant activists with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

LOS ANGELES, CA - El jueves por la mañana un grupo de inquilinos acompañados de estudiantes activistas del colegio Occidental se reunieron frente a la vivienda de un inquilino quien acusa a su arrendataria de acoso.

El grupo indicó que este es un claro ejemplo por el cual la ciudad de Los Ángeles debe implementar la Ordenanza contra el Acoso de Inquilinos (TAHO) que fue aprobada el año pasado pero hasta ahora no ha podido ser utilizada por supuestamente no tener fondos.

OAKLAND, CA - When Maria Montes de Oca and her family moved into their apartment in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland fourteen years ago, there were already problems. The apartment clearly hadn’t been maintained; the carpet was stained and damaged, and neither the stove nor the fridge worked. Later on, there were cockroach infestation and mold issues. When Maria tried to get the landlord, Calvin Wong, to carry out repairs or fumigate, he would ignore her requests or tell her he’d use her security deposit to pay for it — a practice that’s illegal in California.

ANTIOCH, CA — Antioch tenants struggling to pay their bills could see some relief as a result of rent stabilization protections the City Council approved Tuesday.

The protections came on a split vote, with Mayor Pro Tem Mike Barbanica and Councilwoman Lori Ogorchock dissenting, after dozens of residents and advocates crowded City Hall, many carrying signs and sporting yellow or purple shirts representing some of the 15 nonprofit groups that supported capping annual rent increases for tenants.

The Antioch City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday to keep rent affordable, while also making sure landlords are held accountable.

Anita Mendoza and her neighbors at the Porto Apartments in San Pablo can finally relax a little: Their landlord recently abandoned the eviction notices he taped to tenants’ doors late last year.

When Rachel Orozco moved to the Miramar Imperial Beach Mobile Home and RV Park more than a year ago, she considered herself lucky. Her family lived nearby and the rent was cheap.  

The nearly five-acre piece of land, a mere half-mile from the Pacific Ocean, is home to about 100 people, most of whom live in mobile homes. It wasn’t much — a plot of dirt and some concrete — but Orozco, 32, was proud of it. She’d carved out a little space for her and her nine-year-old son.  

The park is one of the last affordable housing options for seniors, vets and other low-income folks in the area but it’s also increasingly difficult to hold onto because of an onerous policy. 

BERKELEY, Calif. (CN) — The city of Berkeley joins a growing list of California cities planning to ask voters whether property owners with vacant homes should be taxed to relieve unprecedented pressure on the housing market.

San Francisco, Napa, Santa Cruz and other cities all rank high in desirability and median rent rates, and are moving forward with vacancy tax measures to address a worsening housing availability crisis. Voters this November will weigh claims the strategy will free up revenue to create more affordable housing and push more units onto the strained market amid widespread home bidding wars. 

LOS ANGELES - A woman who was evicted from her home alleges her landlord harassed her and removed her toilet.

Ana Elsa Hernandez, 72, has lived in her rented garage for seven years. The unit was previously cited as substandard by the LA City Housing Department.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action launched a new tool Thursday designed to help tenants report problems with their rental units directly to Sacramento code enforcement. Organizers developed the online portal, they said, using the same checklist code enforcement officers and landlords use when inspecting units.

The tool allows renters to submit their contact information, responses to questions about a variety of characteristics of the property — from electricity, to water, to pests — and upload pictures of the unit. Those responses are then sent to the city and to ACCE Action, organizers said.

SACRAMENTO - The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment developed the online tenant tool to help tenants document repair requests.

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — After a six-year battle and nearly two and a half years without paying rent, tenants of a 14-unit apartment building in Oakland have claimed victory over their landlord. Instead of tenants being evicted, their landlord is no longer involved.

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles renters who have been relying on the city’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium for the last two years could see changes, with several city councilors signaling an intent July 27 to discuss refining or possibly ending the moratorium.

Antioch took a step this week toward helping tenants facing large rent hikes by agreeing to craft rules to stabilize rents and add other protections.

Though no action was taken at a special meeting this week, council members directed staff to draft a rent stabilization ordinance — capping yearly rent increases — and bring it back for a vote next month.

On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” CalMatters’ Manuela Tobias and the Los Angeles Times’ Liam Dillon talk to a tenant and landlord about evictions and rent relief more than two years into the pandemic and after billions in spending.

There’s a surprising gap in California‘s rent cap law that renters everywhere need to know about.

When California lawmakers passed the state rent increase cap, AB 1482, in 2019, they called it “statewide.” But “statewide” does not mean it applies to every apartment or renter. Some tenants are finding out the hard way: with a shocking letter from their landlord.

Already, tenants across California might have gotten a notice posted to their doors promising a big rent increase come Aug. 1. And there will be something familiar to blame: inflation.

Landlords will be allowed to boost the rent on millions of apartments statewide by as much as 10% starting next month. It’s the maximum allowable annual increase under a state law passed a few years ago that was designed to protect tenants from being pushed out of their homes due to exorbitant rent hikes.

As a community advocate, Joe Delgado has learned to expect dysfunction from the city of Los Angeles.

For months, he and others with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment have been trying to get help for hundreds of Black and Latino tenants living in slum-like conditions at the Chesapeake Apartments, a sprawling complex in the heart of the L.A. City Council’s 10th District.

“They’ve identified potentially 160 units that have lead exposure where kids are living,” Delgado told me. “And there has not been any action taken to come and do blood testing to make sure these kids don’t have permanent brain damage.”

California is demanding that thousands of tenants and landlords who were approved for emergency rental assistance during the pandemic return the money — often months after it has been spent — sometimes for vague or unspecified reasons.

California está exigiendo que miles de inquilinos y propietarios a los que se les aprobó una asistencia de emergencia para la renta durante la pandemia devuelvan el dinero —a menudo meses después de haberlo gastado—, a veces por razones vagas o no especificadas.

In April, Juan Carlos Cruz Mora received an eviction notice from his landlord that alleged he caused property damage and dirty, unsafe living conditions in the Sacramento suburb duplex he had called home for the last 10 years. He had only five days to file a response in court.

Mora, who blamed his landlord for those issues, tried to file an answer with the court himself but feared a mistake could land him, his wife, and his two young children on the street. He said he paid a lawyer $1,000 to help.

“With one word I could lose the case,” he said in Spanish.

In April, Juan Carlos Cruz Mora received an eviction notice from his landlord that alleged he caused property damage and dirty, unsafe living conditions in the Sacramento suburb duplex he had called home for the last 10 years. He had only five days to file a response in court.

Mora, who blamed his landlord for those issues, tried to file an answer with the court himself but feared a mistake could land him, his wife, and his two young children on the street. He said he paid a lawyer $1,000 to help.

“With one word I could lose the case,” he said in Spanish.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued recent legal guidance in response to a rise in illegal eviction lockouts along with a call for law enforcement to intervene.

Nearly 1.5 million renters in California are at risk of eviction. In San Diego County, the Legal Aid Society said it is seeing a surge of people who have been evicted by their landlords illegally.

About six weeks after a Sacramento woman called the city to report code violations at her rental home, she came home to find a letter taped to her door.

Yanika Gilbert, 39, and her nephew, 15, had just three days to get out of the south Sacramento house or the landlord would file eviction paperwork at the courthouse, the letter said. With nowhere to go, the pair did not leave.

The eviction is now underway. If they have to go, Gilbert said she will not only become homeless, but also could lose custody of her nephew Dimitris Gilbert, who’s been in her care for the last decade.

Citing “numerous” reports of illegal evictions throughout the state, California Attorney Rob Bonta on Wednesday took steps to make sure law enforcement officers are working to prevent tenants from losing their homes without a valid court order.

Illegal or “self-help” evictions take many forms, including a landlord changing the locks on someone’s home without authorization, shutting off the water or electricity in an attempt to force a tenant out, or removing a renter’s personal property, Bonta said during a virtual media briefing. In an effort to stop those breaches of law, Bonta issued legal guidance that lays out a law enforcement officer’s responsibility to intervene.

Since last spring, California has passed along federal aid to hundreds of thousands of low-income renters who faced debt and possible eviction because of the pandemic. But the state has also denied funds to nearly one-third of the applicants, sometimes with little explanation, and a judge says he will prohibit housing officials from denying any more rental-assistance applications while the legality of their actions is under review.

Although it’s not clear whether the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development has improperly rejected applications to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or failed to adequately explain its rejections, the hardships of any wrongdoing fall entirely on the renters rather than the state, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said at a hearing Thursday.

OAKLAND, Calif. - A judge has ruled the California Department of Housing and Community Development must stop denying applications for COVID-19 rent relief money, amid a lawsuit filed by tenants’ advocates, who argue the state has unfairly withheld money from low-income renters.

Tenant advocate groups sued the state alleging it wrongly denied tens of thousands of applications, failed to provide adequate reason or explanation for denials, and did not provide a proper appeals process.

An Alameda County judge has ordered the state housing department to pause denying applications for pandemic rental assistance after tenant advocates filed a lawsuit alleging officials have unfairly withheld aid from struggling renters.

Advocates contend the state’s $5.2 billion emergency rental aid program has failed to give tenants enough opportunity to appeal denials and has discriminated against some Latino and Asian renters by providing application information only in English.

When Irene Maldonado became pregnant with her second child four years ago, she and her husband realized they could not continue living in San Francisco if they wanted to provide a home big enough for their growing family.

They eventually moved into the Bissell Avenue Apartments in Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood. But while the two-bedroom apartment’s $2,000 rent was more manageable, Maldonado, who works as an enrollment specialist for social services, questions whether living in the complex is worth even that much, complaining of allegedly faulty plumbing, dirty red carpet lining the outside stairs, crumbling kitchen and bathroom cabinets, deteriorating balcony supports and an unresponsive maintenance staff.

California cannot reject tenants’ applications for COVID-19 emergency rental assistance after a renter lawsuit raised questions about whether the state program meets constitutional standards.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge on Thursday ruled the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) can’t deny pending applications for rent relief “until the court can determine if HCD’s process meets constitutional due process standards,” according to a Western Center on Law and Poverty news release.

California’s recently expired pandemic eviction ban didn’t prevent nearly 36,000 households from being hit with eviction lawsuits last year.

The data comes from the most recent annual report by the Judicial Branch of California and underscores the limits of state efforts to mute the pandemic’s effects on financially vulnerable residents. Renter advocates fear it’s also a preview of evictions to come after two years of upheaval in one of the country’s most expensive places to live.

El programa de protección contra el desalojo de California, calificado como incompleto y defectuoso, venció este viernes primero de julio.

Ante esto, activistas señalan que debido a que el programa de alivio de alquiler vencido no puede proporcionar fondos para cubrir el alquiler atrasado desde marzo, al menos un millón de inquilinos de California enfrentan un futuro profundamente incierto y el potencial de desalojo y falta de vivienda.

Following weeks of inspections, Los Angeles County officials have identified numerous health hazards in a sprawling South L.A. apartment complex owned by mega-landlord Mike Nijjar.

Tenants at the Chesapeake Apartments have long complained about pests, mold and sewage leaking into their homes. Now, the county’s Department of Public Health (DPH) has substantiated their complaints.

Un día de abril, Lenora Jackson volvió a casa de su empleo como trabajadora del Estado en South Oak Park y se encontró con el administrador de la propiedad en la puerta de su casa, pidiéndole las llaves.

Estaba tratando de desalojarla por una infestación de chinches. Temía que perder su casa, la cual rentaba desde 2017, la obligara a quedarse sin hogar y a vivir en su camioneta.

“Da miedo porque tengo muchos problemas médicos”, dijo Jackson, de 55 años. “No tendría a dónde ir”.

SACRAMENTO — A limited three-month extension to California’s eviction moratorium is scheduled to expire on Thursday at midnight, despite opposition from tenant advocates who say the state still hasn’t done enough to keep renters housed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers in March moved the eviction moratorium’s expiration date from April 1 to July 1 for California tenants who’d applied for the state’s rent relief program by the end of March. That extension also afforded the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development more time to work through a backlog of applications and disburse payments to thousands of renters who still hadn’t received aid.

Lenora Jackson came home in South Oak Park from her job as a state worker one day in April to find her property manager standing outside her house, asking for her keys.

He was trying to evict her because of a bed bug infestation. She feared that losing her home, where she has rented since 2017, would force her into homelessness and to live in her pick-up truck.

“It’s scary because I have a lot of medical problems,” said Jackson, 55. “I would have nowhere to go.”

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Rent relief eviction protections in California are set to expire.

But, more than 85,000 renters are still waiting for their rental assistance applications to be reviewed. 

Community-based organizations, including the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, are taking action to protect tenants.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, renters shared their experiences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Several speakers said they are still waiting on rent relief from California's Emergency Rental Assistance Program and now face eviction.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California rent relief eviction protections expire at the end of June, potentially negatively affecting the tens of thousands who are still waiting on a response or money from the state’s COVID-19 emergency rental assistance program.

Dozens of tenants tell KTVU they fear losing their home, despite applying, meeting income eligibility, submitting necessary documents, and waiting months for approval of relief payments from the state.

"I’m pretty sure I’m going to be out on the streets," Los Angeles renter Mario Martinez said. "The landlord has been more than patient and working with me through all of this and I just keep telling him to hold on, it’s coming."

Pese a que miles de inquilinos aún están a la espera de una respuesta a su solicitud de alivio para pagar sus rentas atrasadas, el 30 de junio terminarán las protecciones contra los desalojos de familias que han aplicado para el programa de asistencia de alquiler de emergencia de California (ERAP).

Es por eso que a dos días de que se venza la fecha límite de las protecciones que evitan los desalojos, hicieron un llamado urgente a los líderes electos del estado para que aprueben protecciones permanentes que frenen la creciente crisis de vivienda que impacta a las comunidades de color y a los trabajadores pobres.

Eviction protections that California lawmakers put in place at the beginning of the pandemic, and extended several times since then, are about to expire.

On Tuesday, a group of community-based organizations held a Zoom news conference meant to highlight what they said will be a catastrophe for tens of thousands of people in just a few days.

More than $3.5 billion in rent relief payments have gone out since the protections began. But barring any last-minute action from the state (the protection goes away on July 1) leaves people like Imperial Beach resident Patricia Mendoza in a slow building state of panic.

ANTIOCH — With the state’s last remaining COVID-eviction protections set to expire next week, dozens of renters rallied Wednesday demanding protection against steep rent hikes, landlord harassment and poor living conditions.

Waving signs that read “Housing is a human right” and “The rent is too damn high,” residents complained of roach and mold-infested apartments, sewage flooding their bathrooms and out-of-the-blue rent hikes of hundreds of dollars.

Many of the complaints centered on Delta Pines — a low-income apartment complex in Antioch with nearly 200 units. But the issues extend throughout Antioch and the entire Bay Area, tenants’ rights organizers say. A survey of 1,000 Antioch renters released this month found that respondents spend, on average, 63% of their income on rent — making it difficult to pay for food, medicine, childcare and other expenses.

IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) — Wednesday, dozens of RV tenants in Imperial Beach rallied against what they say are unfair rent increases and evictions from their new landlord at the Siesta RV Park.

Some of the tenants are part of the San Diego Chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

In front of the RV Park, people chanted phrases like "Yes, we can" in Spanish and "Fight, fight, fight. Housing is a human right." Some held a large banner that read "STOP ALL EVICTIONS."

One by one, tenants spoke about their experience living at the RV park. "As a senior and a disabled veteran, I should not have to be worrying about not being able to afford my rent," one man said.

Antioch, CA – Advocates held a rally on June 22, 2022, to demand safe and affordable housing and an immediate stop to exorbitant rent increases. Low-income tenants at Delta Pines Apartments and Casa Blanca Apartments, two government-subsidized affordable housing buildings, are facing potential displacement after their corporate landlord recently raised monthly rents by as much as $500.

Before the rally, participants gathered in the Lowe’s parking lot at nearby 1951 Auto Center Drive where they marched to Delta Pines Apartments while holding signs and chanting.

Residents of Delta Pines and Case Blanca aren’t alone in facing sudden rent increases. A new survey of Antioch residents released today finds rent hikes and housing instability are widespread across the city.  Seventy-nine percent of renters report feeling worried about rent increases, while 68 percent worried about being able to pay their current rent.

Antioch – Advocates will hold a rally on at noon on Wednesday, June 22, at Delta Pines Apartments, 2301 Sycamore Drive, to demand safe and affordable housing and an immediate stop to what critics call 'exorbitant' rent increases Low-income tenants at Delta Pines Apartments and Casa Blanca Apartments, two government-subsidized affordable housing buildings, are facing potential displacement after their corporate landlord recently raised monthly rents by as much as $500.

Before the rally, an expected up to 50 participants will gather in the Lowe’s parking lot at nearby 1951 Auto Center Drive at 11:45 a.m., then walk to Delta Pines Apartments while holding signs and chanting. Residents of Delta Pines, Casa Blanca, and residents with ECRG will speak about their first-hand experiences with unaffordable rents, fears of eviction, and alleged landlord harassment.

(KRON) – Contra Costa County has seen a 35% increase in homelessness since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s impacting families. 

Kamilah Miller, 43, is a resident of Antioch and a working mother of nine. Together she and her husband opened two small businesses a few years ago to support their family. Kamilah Cares is one of their businesses, a child care center. They also had an event-planning business until 2020. Miller even got an associate’s degree in child development, “because I knew that just working a regular job would not be enough to pay rent,” she said.

Four years ago Miller and her four kids were evicted from their home and forced to live in a hotel shortly after her mother passed away, adding an incredible amount of pain to an already suffering family. Miller says the only way they were able to afford the hotel is with the profits from her husband’s event-planning business.

Organizers from the South Central local of the Los Angeles Tenants Union were descending on Exposition Park, their arms full of tablets, laptops and smartphones. It was the evening of April 13, 2021, and as senior and immigrant tenants watched on, the young volunteers connected the park to the internet via a Wi-Fi hotspot. Then the tenants did what they couldn’t do at home: They applied for pandemic rent relief from the state of California.

When low income tenants faced eviction across the state, the primary way to stave it off was through online application to the state’s Emergency Renters Assistance Program (ERAP), which was charged with distributing more than $2.6 billion in rent relief to tenants with additional funds distributed by cities and counties. However, tenant organizers say the program was never going to succeed as it was structured, in large part because applying for relief was only possible with an internet connection and an email address, blocking thousands of the most vulnerable renters in California from paying back their debts.

Hundreds of Chesapeake residents, angry at ongoing maintenance problems at the 425-unit building, have finally won a building-wide inspection, which will take approximately six weeks.  

On June 6, the Los Angeles County Health Department and Los Angeles City Code Enforcement began conducting the inspection of the Chesapeake Apartment complex, located on Obama Blvd. in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw area.  

At the same time, tenants and members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment-Los Angeles (ACCE) held a press conference to call attention to the extensive maintenance problems at the building, and owner Pama V Properties president Mike Nijjar’s continued failure at properly addressing them.

California tenants have filed a lawsuit against the agency that runs the state’s COVID-19 emergency rent relief program, saying it “disproportionately harms tenants on the basis of race, color, and national origin.”

Tenant rights organizations Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy announced Monday they joined with research institute PolicyLink to sue the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), which administers the rental assistance program.

The groups claim the program has denied funding to hundreds of thousands of tenants without specific reasons or adequate opportunities to appeal. HCD has also made it more challenging for non-English-speaking tenants to communicate with program officials, the lawsuit said.

ANTIOCH – The state has been slow to pay the rental assistance it promised to tenants and landlords during the pandemic. Now thousands of Californians, including here in the Bay Area, are threatened with eviction in spite of the program that was supposed to prevent it. 

A year ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom proudly announced a program to completely reimburse landlords for the unpaid rent people owed during the pandemic.

"100 percent of your back rent, taken care of," he said at the time.

So, a lot of tenants and landlords scrambled to apply for the program, which was set to end on March 31. Kamilah Miller was one of them.

"I submitted my paperwork March 10th. I haven't heard a peep," said Miller.  "I even called just to say, hey, just want to make sure everything's in there.  And they're, like, 'It's in there.'  And that's it..."

Oakland officials on Tuesday evening capped rent increases at 3% for rent-controlled apartments, effectively preventing landlords from raising rents by 6.7% starting in July, which had been on track to be one of the highest one-year rent increases in the city’s history.

The City Council voted 6-1 for an ordinance to restrain the rent increase, with Noel Gallo voting against the proposal and Loren Taylor abstaining.

The move came amid strong support from tenants’ rights advocates who said a massive rent increase could have a catastrophic impact on a city grappling with a rising homelessness crisis as many residents try to emerge from the pandemic downturn.

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Oakland city leaders have voted in favor of tenants, preventing a major rent hike for people living in protected units as the end of an eviction moratorium looms.

Renters and tenant representatives spoke for hours to the City Council on Tuesday, protesting the biggest citywide rent hike for controlled units ever — and the largest seen amid the Bay Area’s housing crisis. The Council responded with a 6–1 vote to lower a cap on price increases for rent-controlled units, that can take place July 1.

The Council will conduct a second reading of the proposal and a final vote on it in its next meeting.

Problems with mold and vermin, broken tubs and showers and other slum-like conditions continue to mount at a massive South Los Angeles apartment complex even as politicians, housing and public health officials are pledging to hold the landlord accountable.

City and county inspectors are planning to reassess all 425 units at Chesapeake Apartments in early June, following a Times story in April that revealed widespread tenant complaints and public health violations, including leaking sewage and gas and electrical failures.

“It’s not acceptable,” said Robert Galardi, the chief inspector at the city housing department. “The building is in need of some major renovations.”

Tenants at a sprawling apartment complex in South L.A. have complained for years about mold, pests, raw sewage and faulty heaters, but they say their landlord — one of the largest rental property owners in the state — still hasn’t fixed the terrible living conditions in their building. And they believe the city is letting him slide.

Holding signs reading “Mold Is Killing Us” and “We Are Sick Of Nijjar Slumlord,” tenants of the 425-unit Chesapeake apartments complex gathered outside the El Monte offices of PAMA Management on Friday to demand the company fix longstanding problems. The complex is run by PAMA Management, which is among the many business entities connected to one of California’s largest landlords, Mike Nijjar.