In the city of Alameda, rent increases and evictions remain unregulated. Landlords are pushing rents up sky high and/or evicting people out of homes they've been able to afford for decades. The Alameda City Council, which has known about the current rent crisis for at least a year, has refused to do anything about it.

On November 4, an estimated 200 Alameda renters went to their city council to demand an end to unfair rent hikes and displacement. Many renters were excluded from the hearing room. As landlords testified inside, a crowd of Alameda renters gathered and eventually began chanting “Let renters speak” in the hall outside the council chambers. City Official Bob Haun shoved with both hands a 68-year-old Alameda Rental Coalition leader and police tackled another protester to the ground where he lay bleeding while police restrained him. The police arrested both the Alameda Renters Coalition leader and the bloodied man in front of the crowd of renters that included families with young children.

After a hearing that lasted past 1am, the Alameda City Council voted unanimously for a temporary 65-day limit of 8% on rent increases and ban on no cause evictions. The statewide renters' rights organization Tenants Together called this a step forward, but says that the City needs to adopt a rent control ordinance that ties rent increases to the inflation rate and prohibits no cause evictions.

Read More | theAlamedaRentersCoalition.org | TenantsTogether.org