Since any meaningful protection for renters is guaranteed to die in Sacramento, we have no choice but to go back to the voters as many times as is necessary to get rent control.
We have succeeded for the third time to put rent control on the ballot in California, and Housing Is A Human Right and AIDS Healthcare Foundation will do everything in our power to assure the third time’s the charm. However, we are under no illusions about how difficult it will be to withstand $100 million in attacks against our ballot measure as well as lies and deceit from the California Apartment Association, corporate landlords, and Corporate Democrats.
A who’s who of advocates for renters’ and civil rights, including iconic labor leader Dolores Huerta, attended our qualification press conference during which we laid out our cause. As is so often the case, the press mostly was interested in the political horserace. How much money would we spend? Why did we think we could win this time? What would happen if we lost again? Our response: “We will never give up.”
Since any meaningful protection for renters is guaranteed to die in Sacramento, we have no choice but to go back to the voters as many times as is necessary to get rent control. This is the same as the constant struggles for universal healthcare, lower drug prices, climate activism, and human rights for all.
Why are we so stubborn about repealing the statewide ban on expanding rent control? Because it literally is matter of life and death for so many. Six homeless people die on the streets of Los Angeles daily. Tens of thousands more go without medical treatment because of homelessness. High rents are suffocating millions of tenants throughout the state, forcing people literally to choose between rent and food.
All the handwringing about the housing affordability crisis in California and all the money that has been thrown at the problem are useless if we do not address the root cause—the rent is too damn high.
Think of a puddle of water evaporating under the blistering sun—the pool of affordable housing keeps shrinking. When long-term tenants move out, the vacant apartment goes to market value. No apartments built after 1995 are protected under state law. We empty rental housing to make condos or hotels and displace lower-income people. While California has spent tens of billions of dollars, homelessness continues to increase, and more people are rent burdened now than ever before. Meanwhile, California’s population is shrinking as people flee to more affordable places. Nothing we’re currently doing is working.
California, with the fifth largest economy in the world, is running the risk of falling into a doom loop. More poor people need public assistance to afford a place to live. Corporate landlords pocket more money. More people leave the state, and revenues fall. We must break the cycle. The Yes on 33 Act, our 2024 statewide ballot measure, allows cities to pass their own rent regulations and will be essential to bending the curve.
Housing all Californians is not a hopeless situation. We simply have been unwilling to do what it takes to solve the crisis. Housing, at its core, is a matter of income inequality. Big Real Estate is pocketing too much money to the detriment of renters, who make up half the state’s population.
Voters now can make a choice: stick with the lousy status quo that ultra-greedy Big Real Estate dictates or allow cities to moderate renters’ hardships via rent control. We regulate the price of electricity because it is a necessity. Why not rent?
Eighty percent of all rental housing came under rent control during World War II. The nation was at war, and people had to make sacrifices. We should meet today’s humanitarian housing crisis with the same resolve if we truly want the California dream to survive.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.