Should the state guarantee a right to housing for all Californians?

A coalition of anti-poverty advocates led by Matt Haney, a Democratic state assemblymember from San Francisco, is proposing an amendment to the state constitution that seeks to do just that.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Con los alquileres por las nubes, la crisis de personas sin hogar en California continúa creciendo.

Este viernes, la Senadora María Elena Durazo, de Los Ángeles, inició su campaña para evitar que más californianos (trabajadores, familias y personas mayores) sean expulsados de sus hogares y salgan a las calles, en Dolores Mission Church en Boyle Heights, junto con todo el estado líderes de coaliciones a través del trabajo, la fe, la organización, los servicios comunitarios y la defensa.

La Senadora, autora de la Ley de Prevención de la Falta de Vivienda (SB 567), busca abordar la crisis de vivienda del estado al fortalecer la Ley de Protección de Inquilinos de California de 2019, para crear protecciones más sólidas para los inquilinos que ayuden a todos los californianos a tener acceso a refugio.

LOS ANGELES, CA - In her small studio apartment in Westlake, Leticia Graham stared at her tablet as the courtroom on her screen filled with people like her: renters facing eviction. With mounting panic, she realized she was supposed to have been there in person.

She had little saved for a new apartment and knew losing her case would leave her homeless.

But like a majority of renters in eviction court, she did not have a lawyer, and the judge was explaining that she had made crucial mistakes as the clock ticked on her trial, which was scheduled for that day. It was her only shot at staying longer in her home.

Contrary to what she believed,the judge said, a county eviction moratorium did not prevent her from being evicted. That was a mistake being repeated by renter after renter in the county’s eviction courts. And since Graham did not have a car and was appearing remotely, she would not be able to present evidence, other than her word, to win her case.

BAY AREA - Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute, wants local leaders to think bigger. Housing affordability in California was a crisis before the pandemic. And, she said it’s still a crisis for millions of families in the state.

“The real question is, what do we do for the folks who can't pay for their housing on minimum wage, who can't have three jobs now because there aren't three jobs to have?” she said. “We've now returned to our regularly scheduled housing crisis.”

ALAMEDA COUNTY - The Alameda County Eviction Moratorium Ordinance was adopted in March 2020 to help renters financially affected by the pandemic.

Three years later, some property owners are claiming tenants are taking advantage of the situation. They are calling on the Board of Supervisors to put a stop to it.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Durante la pandemia, las protecciones para inquilinos temporales contribuyeron a reducir drásticamente el número de desalojos en el condado de Los Ángeles. Según Kyle Nelson, un compañero de posdoctorado de UCLA que hizo un seguimiento de los desalojos durante la pandemia, el número de demandas de desalojo se redujo a más de la mitad durante la etapa más grave de la pandemia, de unas 40,000 a 50,000 demandas a solo 13,000.

A nivel local, algunas de las nuevas protecciones de los inquilinos se han hecho permanentes y el condado de Los Ángeles ha ampliado sus protecciones hasta finales de marzo.

SACRAMENTO, CA - Sin techo y con goteras, es como un televidente ha vivido por casi dos meses, luego de que las tormentas dañaron su casa, esto debido a que no tiene respuesta de los propietarios, por lo que una abogada explica qué hacer en estos casos y qué ayudas existen en el estado.

SAN DIEGO, CA - The City of Chula Vista’s new Tenant Protection Ordinance goes into effect on March 1. It's intended to close no-fault eviction loopholes, but some say it may also have some unintended consequences for landlords.

Along with limiting no-fault evictions, the ordinance provides more tenant relocation assistance and protects tenants from landlord harassment and retaliation.

“It also sets a precedent for other cities," said Jose Lopez, director of the San Diego Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). “In San Diego County, we have probably the weakest tenant protection in the whole state. We’re the only major city who allows these types of evictions to continue to happen.”

RICHMOND, CA - Residentes de un complejo de apartamentos en Richmond denunciaron el jueves que viven en malas condiciones y ante la supuesta negativa de los propietarios de atender sus demandas realizaron lo que llamaron como el Tour de la Vergüenza.

Los afectados aseguran que llevan meses luchando para obtener los cambios que necesitan en sus viviendas.

"Cuando yo llegué al apartamento me dijo el dueño qué hay no se permitían mascotas entonces cuando yo entré ya estaban las mascotas incluidas porque había cucarachas, ratones arañas", aseguró uno de los inquilinos afectados.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Most people in Los Angeles are renters. But most of their political representatives are not. With voters feeling increasingly priced out of homeownership in L.A., that’s starting to change.

Candidates who rent won a number of significant local elections in November.

LOS ANGELES, CA - During the pandemic, temporary tenant protections were credited with drastically decreasing the number of evictions in Los Angeles county. According to Kyle Nelson, a UCLA postdoctoral fellow who tracked evictions during COVID, the number of eviction lawsuits went down by more than half at the height of the pandemic, from about 40,000 to 50,000 annual filings to just 13,000.

At the city level, a handful of new tenant protections have now been made permanent, and Los Angeles County has now extended its protections until the end of March. But nevertheless, eviction filings — which never fully stopped in LA — have already shot back up to pre-pandemic levels in recent months.

ANTIOCH, CA - Tenants who say they’ve reached the breaking point rallied on Thursday at Delta Pines Apartments in Antioch to demand the city pass tenant-rights measures to protect them and hold landlords accountable.

Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker and Councilwoman Monica Wilson proposed an anti-harassment ordinance, and another requiring landlords to prove just cause for evictions, in late 2021. But when the council approved a rent stabilization measure capping rent increases at 3% last year, it didn’t include clauses addressing either issue.

“This has got to be passed, it needs to be passed in all these cities to protect people, to protect these children,” tenant Kim Carlson said before the rally. “They don’t deserve to be harassed. I don’t pay this amount of rent to be constantly traumatized, constantly having to look out my windows.”

SACRAMENTO, CA - El señor Bernardo contactó a Univision 19 luego de recibir una orden de desalojo para presuntamente realizar reparaciones en su vivienda. El hombre teme que, si abandona la casa, el dueño de la vivienda no le permita volver una vez realizados los arreglos.

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.

SAN DIEGO - The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to declare housing as a human right, a rare move for a city with a lot of housing issues.

San Diego’s resolution states housing is a “fundamental human right and reaffirms its commitment to providing more housing and services geared toward putting a roof over the head of every San Diegan.” Madison, Wis., made a similar declaration in 2011 — making it likely San Diego is only the second, or at least part of a small minority of American cities, to put into writing that housing is a right.

LOS ANGELES, CA - This afternoon the L.A. City Council approved new protections for renters. The new tenant protections are anticipated to take effect by February 1, when temporary pandemic eviction restrictions are set to expire.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, one of the council’s most dedicated renter advocates in recent years and very much the main architect of today’s ordinance, termed today’s vote “the most significant since the institution of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.”

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.