Nonprofit Quarterly brings national attention to Richmond & San Mateo rent battles : Indybay

Nonprofit Quarterly brings national attention to Richmond & San Mateo rent battles

By Lynda Carson - September 19, 2015

Last week the nationally known publication Nonprofit Quarterly read by thousands all across the nation brought attention to the plight of renters in Richmond and San Mateo who are under attack by the Big Monied interests of the California Apartment Association (CAA), and their efforts to block renter protections in Richmond and San Mateo.

As was reported last week in the Nonprofit Quarterly: “As NPQ Newswire contributor Spencer Wells noted earlier this week, the California Apartment Association has been actively opposing renter protection proposals in the city of Richmond, California, population 107,000, located just north of Berkeley and Oakland in Contra Costa County. Wells described the CAA’s petition drive to halt the municipality’s tenant protection legislation as a new, somewhat grassroots tactic for a business group that typically exerts its influence through campaign contributions to local and state government candidates.”

In his blog on Nonprofit Quarterly last week, Spencer Wells also mentioned: “The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (a non-commercial, democratic collective) reports that CAA may have used misleading tactics in its fight against a “just cause” ordinance in the nearby city of San Mateo, California.”

Click on link below to Nonprofit Quarterly blog of Spencer Wells to read more…

http://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/09/14/landlords-organize-petition-campaign-against-rent-control/

Additionally, as the renters of Richmond and San Mateo have lobbied the City Council of each city respectively to pass renter protections into law that will help keep their families from being displaced, and ending up homeless in a shelter system that does not have enough beds to house the homeless, the Big Monied interests of the CAA and the San Mateo County Association of Realtors (SAMCOR) have brutally waged a campaign against the renter protections needed to keep families safely in their communities. The rent battles in Richmond and San Mateo have gotten national attention recently as a result of the reporting in the Nonprofit Quarterly.

In a September 18 blog of Nonprofit Quarterly, writer Rick Cohen pointed out how the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Nan Roman, declared that the dynamics of homelessness has changed in the last couple of decades. According to Nan Roman: “What has changed, most significantly, is that then people could earn enough money to keep a roof over their heads. Incomes were sufficient to pay for housing, and someone who lost their place to live could get back into an apartment right away. Today this is not the case, and some people who lose their housing become homeless, spending days, weeks or even years in shelter or on the street before they find a new place to live…The supply of affordable units has dwindled. While there was sufficient housing in the 1970s, today we have seven million fewer affordable housing units than we need. While federal rent assistance can make housing affordable, only one in four eligible people receive it due to insufficient funding.”

Click on link below for more by Rick Cohen of Nonprofit Quarterly…

http://tinyurl.com/olmx6gg

As Spencer Wells pointed out to me, it is important that the renters of Richmond and San Mateo must know that their voices are being heard all across the nation, in their quest to have renter protections to help keep their families safe in their communities.

Indeed, their voices have been heard all across the nation no matter how hard the BIG MONEY of CAA and SAMCOR tries to crush any proposed renter protections, including rent control or just cause eviction protections, that will assist the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, union members, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children being targeted by SAMCOR and the California Apartment Association (CAA), to remain safely in their housing and communities as long as they pay their rent, and are not in breach of their contracts, or just cause eviction protections.

Safe Harbor Shelter is a 90 bed emergency shelter in San Mateo County, and it does not have enough beds for the homeless in San Mateo County, especially when considering how fast the rents are increasing in San Mateo County because of the heartless greedy landlords and the members of the CAA, and SAMCOR, involved in the eviction-for profit-system.

As reported in The Daily Journal: Rent increased $227 during the 4th quarter in the past year, leaping to $2,572 (according to Real Answers, a group compiling apartment data). “During the fourth quarter in San Mateo, studio apartments increased by an average of $193 from last year, to $1,762 per month, marking a 12.3 percent increase. One-bedroom apartments with one bathroom increased by 10.3 percent on average to $2,332 per month, up $218 from 2013. And two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments increased $181 per month, to $2,593, a 7.5 percent increase from the previous year, according to the report.”

If that is not enough to make people scream, some renters faced rent increases of $600 during the past year, according to Josh Hugg, the program manager at the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, according to The Daily Journal.

San Mateo Needs Renter Protections Including Rent Control & Just Cause Eviction Protections

It has also been reported that housing/tenant activists declared that landlords who were not evicting renters for no reason shouldn’t be worried about a just cause eviction ordinance in San Mateo.

“We’re talking about good landlords who will not be punished, but there are bad landlords that should be controlled just as bad tenants should be controlled,” said Jennifer Martinez, executive director of Peninsula Interfaith Action. “We don’t have the same protection as renters that we should have because the market is screaming. And many, not the good landlords, but the bad landlords want to take advantage of that and hurt our families.”

Additionally, it was also reported that Daniel Saver, an attorney with Community Legal Aid Services, said: “Our organization has been contacted by 57 families that received no-cause evictions from their San Mateo homes in the last seven months alone. But we (the nonprofit) estimate the number of those evicted was much higher and it’s likely hundreds of people have been unjustly forced to leave their homes.”

The voices of those speaking up in support of renter protections in San Mateo are being heard loud and clear, and hopefully the City Council will support renter protections, including rent control and just cause eviction protections in San Mateo on September 21.

SAMCOR and the CAA is opposed to any efforts to protect the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children facing eviction, displacement and homelessness by wealthy greedy landlords involved in the eviction-for profit-system.

SAMCOR presently has a propaganda flier going around in an attempt to incite landlords into a state of panic with it’s lies and deceit. It begins: “ALERT! Property Owners In San Mateo. Next week, a public hearing will take place at San Mateo City Hall to address the “shortage of affordable housing” in San Mateo. Tenant advocacy groups have been showing up in large numbers at City Hall and pushing for measures that would result in a loss of property rights for homeowners, a downturn in property value, and may cause a decline in some neighborhoods.

Additionally, the CAA sent a notice out to it’s 13,000 members loaded with propaganda accusing renters in San Mateo of being dangerous, and calling them drug dealers, in the attempt to stop the council from adopting any humane renter protections, including rent control and just cause eviction protections that will make our communities safe from any greedy landlords involved in the eviction-for profit-system.

Just because renters have complained about their rents being jacked up an extra $600 during the past year, it does not mean that they are dangerous, or drug dealers.

Making our communities safer with renter protections for the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children, does not create a downturn in property values, or result in a loss of property rights for homeowners.

Renter protections create vibrant communities by allow the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children, to remain safely in their communities without fear of being displaced and made homeless, as long as they pay their rent, and are not in breach of their contracts.

Rent control allows landlords a fair return on their investment, and just cause eviction protections keep bad landlords from getting involved in the eviction-for profit-system. It is a fair deal for all parties involved.

On September 21, a special hearing will be held at San Mateo City Hall in an effort to discuss possible solutions to the loss of affordable housing, including rent control, and just cause eviction protections that may be beneficial to renters, and honest landlords not involved in the eviction-for profit-system.

There cannot be, and never will be a solution to ending the eviction-for-profit system in San Mateo without the council passing a renter protection ordinance, that includes rent control, and just cause eviction protections, unless the citizens unite against the greedy landlords, and use a initiative petition to create an ordinance of renter protections.

The only way to presently to save existing affordable housing from unreasonable rent increases, is by creating a humane system of renter protections, including rent control, and just cause eviction protections.

Presently, housing and tenant activists are urging everyone possible to appear at the September 21 meeting, and to contact the San Mateo City Council to propose a humane solution to the eviction-for profit-system by passing a renter protection ordinance that includes rent control, and just cause eviction protections.

As an example, in addition to going to the September 21 special hearing, everyone can also send a letter or email such as the one below, to the San Mateo City Council. Please feel free to add your own comments to the letter below.

Dear Mayor Freschet and City Council Members:

Please pass an emergency Just Cause Eviction Ordinance on September 21, including rent control, as a way to save affordable housing, and to end the eviction-for profit-system in San Mateo that is targeting the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, union workers, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children.

I encourage you to work with tenant advocates, the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, union members, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children being targeted by SAMCOR, and the California Apartment Association (CAA), and their eviction-for profit-system.

Please do not collaborate with SAMCOR or the CAA and it’s wealthy members involved in the eviction-for profit-system, an inhumane system.

Just Cause Eviction protections and rent control help to keep the working class, including school teachers, construction workers, store clerks, city workers, union members, veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children being targeted by SAMCOR and the California Apartment Association (CAA), safely in their communities as long as they pay their rent, and are not in breach of their contracts, or just cause eviction protections.

Please pass an emergency Just Cause Eviction Ordinance on September 21, including rent control, as a solution that works to save affordable housing and end the eviction-for profit-system in San Mateo. This is the only way to keep our communities safe from SAMCOR, the CAA, and greedy landlords that jeopardizes neighborhood safety and our communities, with the eviction-for profit-system.

Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
(YOUR NAME)

Activists are urging everyone to contact the council members before September 21, 2015.

mfreschet [at] cityofsanmateo.org, jmatthews [at] cityofsanmateo.org, rbonilla [at] cityofsanmateo.org, jgoethals [at] cityofsanmateo.org, dlim [at] cityofsanmateo.org

Call or send your email messages by September 21, 2015. The more emails
the better...

Mayor Maureen Freschet – 650.522.7522 ext. 6268 – mfreschet [at] cityofsanmateo.org
Deputy Mayor Jack Matthews – 650.522.7522 etx. 6266 –
jmatthews [at] cityofsanmateo.org
Council Member Rick Bonilla – 650.522.7522 etx. 6263 –
rbonilla [at] cityofsanmateo.org
Council Member Joe Goethals – 650.522.7522 etx. 6264 –
jgoethals [at] cityofsanmateo.org
Council Member David Lim – 650.522.7522 ext. 6267 – dlim [at] cityofsanmateo.org

Lynda Carson my be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

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Nonprofit Quarterly brings national attention to Richmond & San Mateo rent battles

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