Rent increases

What is AB1482? California Legislature passed, and the governor is expected to sign, Ab1482. This bill will "cap" how much rent can be increased per year for covered rental units. Ab1482 also requires landlords to provide "cause" for eviction notices for covered units. Provisions for AB1482 are effective January 1st, 2020 and sunset on Janaury 1st, 2030. 
For more information read the attached Tenants Together AB1482 handout. 

Rents are likely to rise faster for older, class-B apartments in 2019 than for any other class of apartment property.

We expect Class-B to continue to have the strongest average rent growth, as it has through recent history,” says Andrew Rybczynski, senior consultant at research firm the CoStar Group.

Half of California’s renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing— housing experts call it “rent burdened.” A third of the state’s renters are considered “severely burdened” because they spend half of their paycheck on rent.

And rents in the state keep going up.

So, what rights do tenants have when the landlord asks for more?

KPBS’s Amita Sharma reached out to two experts for their perspective.

Hundreds of local renters are getting nervous after finding out their federal housing subsidies have expired in the wake of the government shutdown.

After three decades working as a legal secretary, Sandra Anderson retired but couldn't afford to live in San Diego. Fourteen years ago, she moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Columbia Tower downtown, which gets subsidies directly from the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD.

"I love it! I couldn't afford to live anywhere else," said Anderson.

The Committee to House the Bay Area (CASA) process has come to a close. The proposal will now move forward through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), and the state legislature. The policies that come out of this process will impact housing, development, and displacement in the whole Bay Area and perhaps even the state.

The City Council has backed off plans to reinstate a temporary law prohibiting landlords from evicting tenants without cause.

The proposed just-cause eviction moratorium was approved as a stop-gap measure in a 4-3 vote earlier this month, but failed to muster enough council support to earn a second and final vote Tuesday evening.

For Iván Contreras, it’s normal to hear complaints about sudden rent increases from his neighbors; usually a couple of new people each month will reach out. But so far in January, Contreras, a housing organizer in Queens with community group Woodside on the Move, said it’s closer to a couple per day, all coming to him with notices from the state that their landlords performed “Major Capital Improvements,” or MCIs, and now want to increase their rent.