In a win that will pave the way for expanding tenant protections in San Diego, the City Council approved a resolution on Jan. 24 officially declaring housing is a human right in San Diego. San Diego becomes the second city in the U.S., after Madison, Wis., to pass a housing is a human right resolution. Congratulations to the tenant leaders and organizers of ACCE-San Diego for your work toward making this victory possible!

In a huge victory for tenants across the city of Los Angeles, the City Council voted to dramatically expand permanent renter protections just in time before the city's eviction moratorium expired. The Keep LA Housed Coalition, which includes ACCE and dozens of housing justice allies, organized for months to finally win near-universal just cause protections and relocation assistance for LA tenants displaced by large rent increases. Thanks to this expansion, 600,000 more LA renters are now protected against eviction for no reason. Thirty-five ACCE-Los Angeles tenant leaders attended the City Council meeting and 20 leaders spoke at public comment in favor of expanding protections. In another win, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors extended the countywide eviction moratorium by two months to March 31, 2023. This now gives other incorporated cities in LA County more time to implement permanent protections.

ACCE tenant leaders in Chula Vista claimed victory in October after the Chula Vista City Council approved stronger protections against no-fault evictions. The new law goes beyond state law by making it harder for landlords in the city to pursue no-fault evictions, and by requiring tenants who do get evicted receive relocation assistance. The law also strengthens anti-harassment protections, by including prohibitions on verbal harassment, threats, coercion and refusal to take rent payments. The ordinance is slated to go into effect in March 2023.

After a months long campaign, the residents of the Siesta RV Park in Imperial Beach and ACCE San Diego leaders finally won strong city-wide renter protections- including an eviction ban, anti-harassment protections and a prohibition on rent increases of more than 5% annually. The Imperial Beach City Council ended a rule the park's owner, Miramar Imperial Beach LLC, was enforcing that required residents of mobile home and RV parks to sign six-month leases and vacate their spaces for 48 hours after those leases expired.

Los Angeles County tenants made new gains this month at both the county and city level, thanks to amazing organizing work by ACCE Los Angeles tenant leaders and our allies in the Keep LA Housed coalition. The Los Angeles City Council agreed to implement permanent just cause protections for all LA City tenants, and the County Board of Supervisors voted to strengthen renter protections and expand eviction defense services for all tenants in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles. The housing justice movement in Los Angeles is growing stronger and more powerful every day! 

After months of organizing and actions demanding stronger protections for Antioch tenants, the Antioch City Council passed a  rent control ordinance that would cap annual rent increases to 3% or 60% of CPI, whichever is lower. The vote reflects a shift in housing policy across the state with dozens of cities across CA working to pass stronger tenant protections!

Struggling tenants in the City of Pomona will see their rents capped for the next year, thanks to the City Council's passage of a rent stabilization ordinance in August 2022. The one-year rent stabilization ordinance caps rent increases at 4%, or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. This huge victory was made possible thanks to a five-year campaign led by local community groups like Pomona United for Stable Housing (PUSH) and tenant leaders like Los Angeles-ACCE member Yesenia Miranda Meza who organized outside of City Hall. 

Tenants living at the Porto Apartments in San Pablo that have been living under the threat of eviction for over a year now claim victory as the landlord has not only agreed to drop the eviction case, but has also agreed to wave some of the back rent that was owed and sign a "first right of refusal" with Richmond LAND to possibly sell the building to the land trust and make the home permanently affordable and in community control. 

After thousands of working-class and low-income homeowners - majority Latino and African American - in LA County were defrauded by the government-sponsored PACE program, many faced foreclosure. But after years of organizing and fighting back, in a significant victory for approximately one hundred homeowners defrauded by PACE, City Attorney Mike Feuer announced a $6 million settlement to be distributed to Los Angeles homeowners harmed by the unfair deceptive and unlawful practices by Eco Solar, a company connected to the PACE program. The court found that Eco Solar had unlawfully targeted Spanish-speaking homeowners and lured them into entering into "construction contracts and PACE loans for renovation work (Eco Solar) were never going to finish." There is much more to be done to right the injustices caused by those who defrauded under the PACE program, but the settlement is major step forward!

In early June 2022, ACCE-Los Angeles Education Chapter, United Teachers of Los Angeles, Trinity Elementary School staff and students celebrated the news that the community's beloved Trinity will stay open and become a Community School. Trinity's second grade students will also be allowed to remain. The coalition successfully fought off L.A. Unified School District plans to permanently close the 118-year old Trinity and hand the building over to Gabriella Charter School. ACCE Education Chapter members, some of whom are parents of Trinity students, worked tirelessly organizing rallies at the school and creating video testimonials telling LAUSD and Gabriella Charter board members not to displace Trinity students and harm the community.

After a two-year organizing campaign, the tenants of an apartment building on East 28th Street in south Los Angeles on Feb. 17 won fair rent! The tenants had suffered harassment and poor living conditions, and were hit with illegal rent increases of 200% and threatened with eviction. After meeting with ACCE starting in 2020, the tenants learned their rights, organized with ACCE, got legal help from our friends at the Eviction Defense Network, and eventually won their case. Their landlord agreed to make repairs on the apartments, charge a fair rent, no rent increases for a year after the pandemic has ended, and payment arrangements for tenants who can't pay all of their rent. When we organize, we win! 

Thanks to the efforts of Los Angeles ACCE members and coalition allies, the County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 25, 2022, voted to extend pandemic eviction protections for tenants in unincorporated county areas through the end of the year. L.A. members sent out 300 emails, contacted 3,000 new contacts in the county to call their Supervisor, and posted 27 video testimonies sharing what the protections mean to working-class families in L.A.

In a major victory in the fight for strong tenant protections, the Los Angeles City Council approved a tenant anti-harassment ordinance (TAHO) in June 2021! The law went into effect in August 2021. ACCE-Los Angeles tenant leaders, organizers and coalition allies worked for four years to get this law passed, which makes abusive and retaliatory behavior against tenants illegal. But ACCE isn't done yet. While TAHO is a good first step, ACCE-Los Angeles continues the fight to get the Council to adopt improvements to the law, including making it retroactive, placing the burden of proof on landlords, and requiring payment of attorney's fees and monetary damages to tenants who prevail in court. As part of its political education program, ACCE has created the informational booklet, "The Story of Ms. Dixon," which illustrates the TAHO campaign through one member's journey from harassed tenant to community activist in a movement. The booklet, in English and in Spanish, shows how ordinary people can work together and organize to make change. Illustrations are by Equipo Maíz.

Alongside the Refund Oakland coalition, Oakland ACCE ran a budget campaign that successfully moved about $50M into funding critical community services - including funding workforce development in flatland neighborhoods, investing in city services from litter abatement and park clean up, strengthening violence prevention programs, bolstering non-police mental health support programs, and increasing support for Meals on Wheels service for seniors.

In Richmond ACCE and our allies won a reallocation of more than $7M from the police department into 5 new public safety programs including expanding violence prevention and intervention efforts, bolstering investment into youth employment, increasing services for unhoused residents, creating a non-police mental health crisis response program and addressing racial equities plaguing traffic violations in our city!

SAN DIEGO - More San Diego tenants at risk of eviction will be able to access legal services and counseling thanks to $15 million in funding the Board of Supervisors approved in its budget in June. The funding is part of $650 million in federal stimulus money dedicated to helping San Diegans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

SAN DIEGO - The San Diego Eviction Prevention Collaborative, a coalition that includes ACCE-San Diego, launched a new outreach and education program designed to help renters at risk of eviction. Housing Help San Diego (HousingHelpSD.org) is a one-stop resource supporting San Diegans struggling to pay rent, stay housed, and understand their housing rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After ACCE members organizing and testified in support of a strong tenant anti-harassment policy - sharing their stories of harassment - the Richmond city council overwhelmingly passed the the tenant anti-harassment ordinance on Tuesday, June 29th, by 6-1! This victory comes out of a multi-year effort to win a progressive majority on the Richmond council and the growing tenants rights movement in Contra Costa! 

After over a year of grassroots organizing across the entire state of California to #CancelRent, on Monday, June 28th the California legislature passed AB 832, effectively allowing rent debt for most tenants and landlords to be paid off by the state. All of it. 

A year ago, this was unimaginable. A year ago, we were deep in the throws of a pandemic with no end in sight for an economic or public health recovery. We still have a long way to go, but today’s vote signals a huge victory for renters that have been waiting in fear of being hit with crushing rent debt!