By Curt Ries, Marin DSA Co-Chair
Published Sep 7, 2023 in the Marin Independent Journal
Marin is in the midst of a housing crisis, with tens of thousands of renters struggling to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads. Rent control and tenant protections are our best tools for keeping our neighbors in their homes.
More than one-third of all Marin County households are renters, approximately 37,000 families, or 87,000 people. More than half of those renters are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly a third are severely rent-burdened, paying more than 50% of their income on rent.
According to Zillow’s “observed rent” index, Marin County has the highest rents in the entire state of California and the third highest among all counties nationwide.
A renter in Marin needs to earn over $50 per hour to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2023 “out of reach” study. However, the average Marin renter earns just $30 an hour. California’s minimum wage is $15.50.
These renters — I am one of them — include some of the essential workers who make our communities such wonderful places to live. Some are our teachers, nurses, maintenance workers, grocery workers and restaurant workers. Many are retired seniors who are trying to age in place with dignity. They include young people trying to start families and put down roots.
With rents through the roof and absurdly expensive house prices making home ownership all but impossible, we are barely able to survive here in Marin. Countless renters are forced out each year by the relentlessly high housing costs, tearing families out of their communities, kids out of their schools, and seniors out of their support networks.
Rent control and tenant protections stop this from happening. They are designed to keep renters in their homes by doing three things: placing a reasonable cap on annual rent increases, prohibiting arbitrary evictions and ensuring tenants have support if they are evicted due to no fault of their own.
These laws provide basic, commonsense protections for huge swaths of our community. Without them, renters are left never knowing if and when an exorbitant rent increase will force them out of their homes.
Opponents of rent control and tenant protections will say that we already have rent control at the state level. They are referring to the 2019 Tenant Protection Act, which caps annual rent increases at 5% plus the change in the Consumer Price Index, up to 10% total. The historic average for CPI is about 3%, meaning state law typically limits annual rent increases at 8%, though recently it’s been at or close to 10% because of high inflation.
This extremely weak state rent cap — and the toothless tenant protections that accompany it — are almost meaningless. Virtually no tenant can afford 8% or 10% rent increases year after year. For perspective, a $3,000 rent payment would balloon to almost $3,800 after just three years of 8% rent increases. It would nearly double after nine years.
In California, passing local rent stabilization and “just cause” eviction ordinances is the only way to provide real housing security to the working families and seniors who live in our communities. These laws have existed for decades and have successfully kept hundreds of thousands of people in their homes in neighboring areas, from San Francisco and Berkeley to Mountain View and East Palo Alto.
Claims that these policies meaningfully lower housing supply or drive up rents have no empirical evidence to back them up. They are empty talking points endlessly repeated by well-funded landlord and real estate lobbies who have a vested financial interest in seeing rent control and tenant protections defeated.
At the end of the day, the debate over these policies largely boils down to a simple moral question. Do we as a community think it’s more important to ensure safe and secure housing to our friends, families and neighbors, or do we think it’s more important to maximize profits and control for a small number of landlords and real estate interests?
It’s time for Marin’s elected leaders to pass rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinances that put people before profits.
Curt Ries, of San Anselmo, is co-chair of the Marin County Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Marin DSA 