Latest news with #tenantadvocacy
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tenant advocates collect over 8,400 signatures to preserve renter protections in Salinas
More than 8,400 signatures have been collected by a grassroots campaign to preserve renter protections in Salinas. Protect Salinas Renters, a coalition of tenant advocates announced on Monday they have almost reached their goal of 10,000 signatures ahead of the July 3 deadline. "The count is increasing on an hourly, daily basis as dozens of volunteers are out knocking on doors and gathering signatures," said Matt Huerta, affordable housing advocate and Salinas resident. "We are just really excited as we set out on a pretty challenging venture to get 10,000 registered voters to sign the petition." The campaign began collecting signatures on June 3 in the wake of the Salinas City Council's final vote to repeal four city ordinances that established a series of tenant protections, including most notably a cap on rent increases. Their deadline is on the day the repeal becomes effective. More than 53% of households in Salinas are renters, according to city data. Over the last month, volunteers were busy collecting signatures outside local businesses and at community events. Huerta said fear in the community around ICE raids have made knocking on doors to confirm whether a resident was a registered voter challenging. "It couldn't be a worse time to be knocking on doors," Huerta said. "There are folks who said they would love to support it but didn't due to being part of a mixed status household." Huerta said this led the campaign to lean on folks who "are part of the community and who have earned the trust of other community members." When out walking the neighborhoods, volunteers have also come across door hangers with information on state tenant policies in both English and Spanish, and which directs people to report code violations to the City of Salinas, spurring some confusion amongst residents, Huerta said. "Putting out other information is confusing to people, who then tend to say no to everything," he added. Copy on the door hangers mirror that on the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce website, but when called, a staff member said the chamber was not behind the door hanger. A city official confirmed the door hangers are not a city of Salinas initiative. With 1,600 more signatures needed to meet the campaign's original goal and just 600 needed to be within a comfortable margin of error, should the signatures check-out, volunteers are calling on Salinas residents to sign the petition by end of day Tuesday, July 1. "The more signatures we have the more certainty we have that we will qualify," Huerta said. On Thursday, the coalition aims to deliver the signature packets to the city clerk for a raw count and an initial assessment. If the initial threshold is met, the petitions will be sent over to the county elections official for validation, which the department has 30 days to complete. The campaign needs roughly 7,000 valid signatures or 10% of Salinas registered voters who participated in last year's election. If successful, the city council is required to put the issue back on the agenda, and can vote to either "repeal the repeal," or to put a referendum on the ballot in a special election or the June 2, 2026, primary election and let Salinas voters decide. This article originally appeared on Salinas Californian: Salinas petition to keep rent stabilization collects 8,400 signatures
CTV News
05-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Motion to bring back Vancouver renter office defeated in tie vote
Vancouver City Hall is seen in Vancouver, on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck A Vancouver city councillor's push to restore the city's tenant advocacy office — and crack down on bad-faith landlords — was voted down by council Wednesday afternoon. Coun. Lucy Maloney, who was elected in April's byelection on a platform focused on housing rights, brought forward the motion, arguing the city must do more to support renters — particularly those displaced by redevelopment tied to the Broadway Plan. 'Renters don't feel like the city has their backs,' said Maloney. 'They don't feel like they're being listened to.' The tenant advocacy office was a city-run service that provided support and resources to renters. It was shut down in 2023 by the ABC-majority council. Coun. Peter Meiszner defended the decision to close the office, citing low usage. 'They were receiving less than one call a day,' he said. 'So what we decided to do at the time, was to transition the funding for that city renters office to a non-profit that can handle those inquiries more effectively.' Funding was redirected to the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, and Meiszner also pointed to the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch as the appropriate channel for dealing with landlord-tenant disputes. Maloney argued the city should provide additional protections beyond the province's scope, particularly in areas impacted by the Broadway Plan, where many renters are expected to be displaced through the city's Temporary Relocation and Protection Policy. 'We're going to have increasing volumes of people being moved out of their homes as the Broadway Plan progresses,' said Maloney. 'We need to make sure that we're focused, that we've got the resourcing and staff needed.' Meiszner responded that existing city staff are already working to support renters through these transitions. 'So we're building thousands of new rental units in the Broadway corridor, and there are some tenant relocations that need to happen,' he said. 'But we have staff already within the city working on that.' In addition to reinstating the advocacy office, Maloney's motion also called for exploring stronger penalties for landlords and developers who act in bad faith. Ultimately, the motion was narrowly defeated in a tie vote, with the four present ABC councillors voting against the motion. After the vote, Maloney said she will continue to fight for Vancouver renters, vowing to one day bring the tenant advocacy office back to city hall. A separate motion by Coun. Sean Orr — declaring housing as a human right — was passed unanimously.
