In the San Francisco Bay Area it’s impossible to miss the graphic signs of an upheaval in the number of people who are able to live with a roof over their heads. The gap between those who can afford rental housing, let alone own a home, and those who cannot is widening daily. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, and more and more people are being thrown out of their apartments and homes, or unable to find them in the first place.
People are responding by resisting this situation. The San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition was successful in getting the Board of Supervisors to pass a measure that includes the following protections:
- Limits rent increases or evictions based solely on the addition of roommates
- Limits the ability of landlords to evict tenants for minor violations (no- and low-fault evictions) as well as limits landlords’ ability to raise the rent on units after securing a no-fault eviction
- Strengthens tenant notification requirements (requiring landlords to provide notifications in the tenants’ primary language)
- Requires landlords provide a written refusal with a “reasonable” explanation when denying tenants the ability to bring on a new roommate
In short, this is the strongest set of tenant protections that has been passed in San Francisco in a while and the impact on the lives of working-class people could be huge.