Legislation to Cancel Rent Advances Nationally, and in Richmond, California

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM: Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE)

Media contact: Anya Svanoe, asvanoe [at] calorganize.org, 510-423-2452

Legislation to Cancel Rent Advances Nationally, and in Richmond, California

CALIFORNIA - In the midst of mounting pressure from communities across the country calling for rent forgiveness, two bills are being introduced to cancel rent payments during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is an emergency rent and mortgage cancellation bill that would forgive all payments through the pandemic. The second, being introduced by Richmond Councilmember Eduardo Martinez and supported by Councilmember Melvin Willis would direct staff to draft an emergency order that will suspend all residential and small business rents, and all mortgage payments of homeowners, small landlords and small businesses for the duration of the current shelter-in-place state of emergency.

Thousands of tenants across California have already pledged to go on rent strike if similar legislation is not passed by Governor Newsom statewide. 

Blanca Retano, a renter and member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) has pledged to go on rent strike May 1st if rent cancellation policies are not enacted at the local, state or federal level beforehand. “My husband worked in a restaurant and lost almost all his income due to COVID-19. I worked at a school and have now also lost my income. We had to borrow money from our daughter just to make April 1st rent. On May 1st, either we choose food or we pay rent. This is an international emergency - and our elected officials need to step up to cancel the rent to protect us,” she said. 

Sasha Graham, the State Board President ACCE praised Omar and Martinez for their leadership. “We may have made some progress on flattening the curve of the spread of the virus with bold orders to keep residents at home. Until today, we had not yet seen the kind of bold leadership we need to flatten the curve of the economic impact of the pandemic. It’s not enough to delay housing payments - that only kicks the severe harm of this crisis down the road. We need rent and mortgage payments to be actually cancelled. And if they aren’t by May 1st - thousands of Californians are ready to go on rent strike.”

A legal memo issued by the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, Public Council and the Public Interest Law Project to the San José City Council argues that Rent Suspension is a legally valid and critically needed emergency regulation. “As a temporary measure, the rent suspension merely impacts the timing, not the ability, of landlords to impose rent increases. This means it would not be preempted by the state Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act because the purpose of that law is only to preserve a landlord’s right to set the rent following a vacancy in particular kinds of properties. In the context of this international public health emergency, the delay in exercising the right to collect rent this regulation would impose is permissible under state law.”

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is a statewide multi-racial grassroots community organizing group that fights for economic and racial justice. Their 15,000 members are primarily poor, low income and working class, communities of color in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Contra Costa County and Sacramento.

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Anya Svanoe
Communications Director
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE)
510-423-2452
she/her/hers

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