We have active chapters in the 4th, 7th, 8th and 9th Districts in the city of San Diego, on the west side of Chula Vista, and in National City. We continue to organize in new areas of both San Diego and South County, such as Imperial Beach. Our new Blackstone Tenants Union is organizing and fighting for tenants in Blackstone-owned buildings across the county. In San Diego and South County cities, we’re busy organizing and building power to win housing for all, equitable investment in our neighborhoods, and ensuring civic engagement year round in this binational region.
569 Third Ave
Chula Vista, CA 91910
619-754-9407 ext. 307
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In the wake of a global pandemic in 2020, that saw millions of California renters lose jobs and income due to COVID-19, San Diego ACCE members helped win crucial statewide tenant protections, rent relief and an eviction moratorium. In May 2021, ACCE and allies won one of the strongest eviction moratoriums in the country when the San Diego Board of Supervisors banned most just-cause evictions and passed protections for tenants affected by the pandemic. This was followed a year later in May 2022 by the passage of a temporary no-fault eviction ban in the city of San Diego. ACCE members are leading the campaign to make this ban permanent. Also in 2022, ACCE leaders in Chula Vista successfully fought for permanent just cause and tenant anti-harassment protections, and residents of the Siesta RV Park in Imperial Beach won stronger protections for RV and mobile home park tenants. And recently, ACCE San Diego leaders spearheaded the creation of the Blackstone Tenants Union, aimed at organizing tenants living in buildings owned by notorious corporate landlord, Blackstone. They’ve held actions at Blackstone-affiliated companies and confronted the UC Regents over their investment in Blackstone’s real-estate fund. The San Diego chapter has been driving tenant education and organizing efforts that have led to preventing evictions and winning rental assistance. In collaboration with local legal resources and housing groups, San Diego ACCE is also driving efforts for more tenant counseling and free legal resources. To learn more or get information about our local tenants rights, go to HousingHelpSD.org.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, many hard working families were forced from home ownership to becoming permanent renters. Now, the same interests who profited from predatory lending are now predatory landlords. ACCE is leading the fight in San Diego against the corporate landlords and investors who are at the heart of the housing crisis in California. Through targeted, direct actions against landlords and management companies ACCE members are winning repairs to ill-maintained buildings, and stopping unfair evictions and arbitrary rent increases that affect the hard working families in the neighborhoods where we organize. The new Blackstone Tenants Union, started in 2021, is organizing tenants around San Diego County who live in buildings owned by Blackstone, the world’s largest corporate landlord and housing speculator notorious for hiking rents and evicting tenants. The BTU is fighting against Blackstone’s displacement of struggling families in our communities. ACCE is also fighting for long-term solutions to the housing crisis in San Diego by advocating for stronger tenant protections, anti-displacement measures, protections for immigrants and robust services and legal resources for all communities.
Too often, low-income communities are left without basic infrastructure and safety improvements like stop signs, lights, and sidewalks. ACCE members in all of our San Diego chapters have successfully fought and won improvements in their neighborhoods from community cleanups, to street resurfacing. With the passage of Prop P to improve infrastructure in Chula Vista, a citizens oversight committee was formed to ensure that infrastructure improvement projects are being done in the communities with the most need. In National City, ACCE members successfully fought for the city’s Shared Streets Pilot Program, which implemented traffic calming measures ensuring the community would have safe spaces to walk and play.
San Diego County is rated 9 out of 10 of the worst counties in the state when it comes to under- enrollment in vital services like CALfresh, CALworks and Medi-Cal. It is currently also sitting on almost $2 billion in reserves that could be invested in these vital services and programs, like housing, mental health, and rehabilitation that would help to advance the communities that need them. As a result, ACCE together with community, faith-based organizations and labor allies formed the Invest in San Diego Families Coalition to ensure the investment and prioritization within the county budget to improve the quality of life for residents in the region. This effort so far has yielded winning rental assistance funding, translation services, and $15 million in legal counseling and tenant services for San Diego families. As part of the Community Budget Alliance, ACCE is working with other local organizations committed to fighting for equitable public investment in the city of San Diego’s budget. With the CBA, we have helped create and push for the People’s Budget, which includes proposals to invest in alternatives to policing, non-emergency responses, and youth violence prevention programs. For FY2022, the CBA succeeded in including such initiatives as full funding for the Commission on Police Practices, funding for more park space in communities of color, and small business funding set aside for BIPOC-owned businesses and street vendors.
San Diego is the largest border city in the US and immigrants, both documented and undocumented, contribute greatly to the local economy and culture. Early in 2017, ACCE members and partners successfully pushed a “Welcoming City” resolution in Chula Vista and a “Compassionate City” resolution in National City (both approved unanimously) to ensure that local police departments are not sharing immigration status information of their residents with federal immigration agencies. And in November 2020, ACCE members spoke at the Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds (TRUTH) Act community forum to ensure the county Sheriff's Department is transparent in its dealings with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As part of the Invest in San Diego Families Coalition, ACCE San Diego helped win the creation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and an Immigrant Legal Defense Fund to provide representation for people facing deportation.
ACCE San Diego is at the forefront of growing our grassroots electoral power throughout San Diego County and beyond. Every election cycle, ACCE leaders have mobilized voters through massive door-knocking and phone call campaigns for our local and statewide progressive ACCE-endorsed candidates. Since 2016, San Diego County has increased its share of the Latino vote, as well as low-income voters and voters in the south county. These efforts at increased voter participation paid off in the 2020 November general election, when ACCE-endorsed candidates in San Diego and statewide won their positions with expressly progressive and people-centered platforms. In September 2021, ACCE San Diego members turned out voters countywide to help Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully beat back a recall funded by corporate and reactionary forces trying to undermine the progressive gains we fought so hard to achieve. And in November 2022, ACCE members helped propel then-Councilmember Paloma Aguirre to victory in the Imperial Beach mayor’s race. As Councilmember, Paloma proved herself a staunch ACCE ally and advocate for Imperial Beach tenants, and pledged her support for the residents of the Siesta RV Park. Now as Mayor, she is leading on the front lines with ACCE members as we continue the fight for stronger tenant protections in Imperial Beach. Finally, to ensure that we can elect more progressive candidates like Paloma Aguirre well into the future, ACCE San Diego has formed a PAC with the CA Working Families Party.