Tenant Law
Tenant Rights are Human Rights
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THE DREADFUL PROPOSITION 98, Part I -- Slashing Renter Protections StatewideWednesday, April 30, 2008
If Proposition 98 passes, rent control and all of the most essential tenant protections in cities across California will be no more! A landlord will no longer have to have a “just cause” or “good cause” to evict a tenant. Landlords will be able to serve any tenant with a 30 Day Notice and unless the Notice is served for a retaliatory or discriminatory purpose, the tenants will likely have no viable defense! Prop 98 is not even entitled as a measure to end Rent Control and Just Cause. It is billed as an “Eminent Domain” Initiative. This proposition is brought to you by the same people, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who were responsible for one of the worst propositions the State of California has ever seen, Prop 13, which decimated cities and counties throughout the state and led to California having the most atrocious public education system of any major state in the nation.
For the legal analysis of Prop 98's impact on the rental housing market, the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Sacramento has written an excellent report. The report was made available by the S.F. Tenants Union and can be downloaded (.pdf) at http://www.sftu.org/071220%20Western%20Center%20Memo.pdf. The language of Prop 98 will re-define parts of tenant laws we have taken for granted as an unconstitutional "taking" of private property. It is not only rent control and just cause provisions which will be outlawed, but condo conversion limits, 30 and 60 day notice requirements for rent increases & evictions, and limits on landlords' ability to keep security deposits. Passage of Prop 98 will mean landlords will evict tenants who currently live in rent control jurisdictions solely to increase their profits and get more rent for their rental units. So only people with a lot of money will be able to live in wide areas of San Francisco and other California cities. Senior citizens, students, lower income working class people, artists, many people of color and other diverse populations will be forced to leave. There will be a mass exodus of tenants from Los Angeles and the Bay Area -- most likely in the hundreds of thousands -- if this proposition passes. We don’t need cities like San Francisco to mostly be an enclave for the wealthy.
Prop 98 was put on the ballot for the June 3rd Election because of historically low turnout in mid-year elections. We are confident that if tenants turn out in mass throughout California that Prop 98 will lose. But people need to vote. You need to tell everyone you know to register (last day is May 19th) and to vote. Don’t take your tenant rights for granted. If you are a landlord or an owner of real property who is not a tenant, please consider the detrimental impact this initiative will have on the demographics of places like Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Berkeley.
All the major environmental groups have come out against Prop 98 because of the serious detrimental impacts it would have for California’s air, land, water, flora and fauna. Most notably, prohibitions on building in environmentally sensitive areas will be lifted and laws protecting wetlands or habitat preservation will be ended. Please read the next blog entry here to get an overview on some of the environmental consequences of Prop 98.
If Proposition 98 passes, rent control and all of the most essential tenant protections in cities across California will be no more! A landlord will no longer have to have a “just cause” or “good cause” to evict a tenant. Landlords will be able to serve any tenant with a 30 Day Notice and unless the Notice is served for a retaliatory or discriminatory purpose, the tenants will likely have no viable defense! Prop 98 is not even entitled as a measure to end Rent Control and Just Cause. It is billed as an “Eminent Domain” Initiative. This proposition is brought to you by the same people, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who were responsible for one of the worst propositions the State of California has ever seen, Prop 13, which decimated cities and counties throughout the state and led to California having the most atrocious public education system of any major state in the nation.
For the legal analysis of Prop 98's impact on the rental housing market, the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Sacramento has written an excellent report. The report was made available by the S.F. Tenants Union and can be downloaded (.pdf) at http://www.sftu.org/071220%20Western%20Center%20Memo.pdf. The language of Prop 98 will re-define parts of tenant laws we have taken for granted as an unconstitutional "taking" of private property. It is not only rent control and just cause provisions which will be outlawed, but condo conversion limits, 30 and 60 day notice requirements for rent increases & evictions, and limits on landlords' ability to keep security deposits. Passage of Prop 98 will mean landlords will evict tenants who currently live in rent control jurisdictions solely to increase their profits and get more rent for their rental units. So only people with a lot of money will be able to live in wide areas of San Francisco and other California cities. Senior citizens, students, lower income working class people, artists, many people of color and other diverse populations will be forced to leave. There will be a mass exodus of tenants from Los Angeles and the Bay Area -- most likely in the hundreds of thousands -- if this proposition passes. We don’t need cities like San Francisco to mostly be an enclave for the wealthy.
Prop 98 was put on the ballot for the June 3rd Election because of historically low turnout in mid-year elections. We are confident that if tenants turn out in mass throughout California that Prop 98 will lose. But people need to vote. You need to tell everyone you know to register (last day is May 19th) and to vote. Don’t take your tenant rights for granted. If you are a landlord or an owner of real property who is not a tenant, please consider the detrimental impact this initiative will have on the demographics of places like Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Berkeley.
All the major environmental groups have come out against Prop 98 because of the serious detrimental impacts it would have for California’s air, land, water, flora and fauna. Most notably, prohibitions on building in environmentally sensitive areas will be lifted and laws protecting wetlands or habitat preservation will be ended. Please read the next blog entry here to get an overview on some of the environmental consequences of Prop 98.
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