There’s an anxious time each year when Vicki Sanford-Cobb is afraid to check the mail because it might hold a notice of an annual rent increase. Because Sanford-Cobb’s apartment building was built after 1979, it doesn’t fall under the city’s rent control, exposing her to higher increases than those protected under rent control. She’s seen it happen year after year.
“They upped the rent, then they upped the rent again,” Sanford-Cobb said. “So every year basically they start upping the rent.”
California cities including San Francisco aren’t allowed to expand rent control to newer apartment buildings or single family homes because of the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Act, a state law that prohibited cities from enacting their own rent control ordinances.
Renters like Sanford-Cobb are pinning hopes Proposition 33 on the November ballot, which would repeal Costa-Hawkins, and allow cities to broaden rent control protections.
“I know corporate want to make money,” Sanford-Cobb said. “But we also want to stay in the building and not end up in the streets.”
Those challenges are familiar to housing advocates who have seen the impact to the state’s renters.
“We see everywhere across the state people being priced out of their homes, priced out of their units,” said Daniel Anderson of the Yes On 33 Campaign. “People can’t afford to stay in the communities they grew up in.”
Tenant rights groups said the compounding of year-after-year rent increases of five or ten percent in non-rent controlled buildings across the state is driving more people out of their units.
Fred Sherburn-Zimmer, a tenant rights organizer with the San Francisco Housing Rights Committee stood on a corner in San Francisco’s Mission District and pointed out numerous modern buildings where tenants aren’t protected by rent control. She pointed out another large Mission Street building built in 1990 that also wasn’t protected.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
“Cities need to be able to protect their residents,” said Sherburn-Zimmer. “And if you don’t have rent control in a city like San Francisco the rent is just going to jump and jump.”
If passed, Prop 33 would not automatically impose rent control statewide. But it would give local jurisdictions the power to expand rent control to more modern buildings and single family homes.
San Francisco Board of Supervisor and mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin signaled the board was already looking to pass an expanded rent control ordinance if Prop 33 passes.
But apartment owner groups across the state are opposed to Prop 33, saying it would create another challenge for building owners who are already struggling to make profits due to a myriad of restrictions. San Jose apartment owner Gustavo Gonzalez said expanding rent control would pose a big hit to landlords like him.
“We’ve saved our money and we’ve invested in an apartment building with the hopes that one day we could retire and have some income from that property,” said Gonzalez. “That’s not the way it’s working with all of these rules and regulations that cities have mandated upon us.”
San José Mayor Matt Mahan is also opposed to Prop 33 because he believes it would dissuade construction of new apartment buildings.
“Study after study has shown that while rent control can stabilize the folks who are lucky enough to be covered by it,” Mahan said, “it decreases investment in new housing which is the single greatest need we have when it comes to affordability.”
Similar rent control ordinances have failed in the state in recent years, as apartment organizations dumped large amounts of money to defeat those measures.
But Sanford-Cobb is hoping this time Prop 33 will prevail and offer more protections to renters like her who have watched the rent go up each year.
“You take like one step up,” Sanford-Cobb said, “and then you take three steps back.”
