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Proposed rental ordinance heightens tension in Concord

Landlords, tenants and organizers fill the Concord City Council chamber's at Tuesday night's meeting
Wren Farrell
/
KALW
Landlords, tenants and organizers fill the Concord City Council chamber's at Tuesday night's meeting

Tensions were high at Concord City Hall on Tuesday night, as the city council debated a rent stabilization ordinance. One of those who gathered for Tuesday night’s meeting was Rhea Elina Laughlin. She’s the executive director of Rising Juntos, a racial, economic, and health justice organization in Contra Costa County.

“We've been here, fighting for tenant protection since 2016. Urging this council to take action and keep children and family housed.”

There are about 125,000 people living in Concord, with around 40 percent of them renting. Laughlin says the situation is dire for those renters.

“The housing affordability crisis has hit Concord really hard. 57 percent of renters are rent burdened. And the families that are most vulnerable to displacement and most at risk of homelessness are low income families, working families, immigrants, and families of color.”

Organizers say that a combination of weak laws and loopholes in those laws make it easy for landlords to raise rents and evict tenants. The proposed ordinance would cap rent increases at three percent, or 60 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. But landlords say these figures are extreme.

Blaine Carter owns a four-plex in Concord, and he’s against the ordinance.

“It may sound cold or calloused, but I didn't go into business to provide low income housing. That's not what my mission was, that was not my business plan.”

On top of capping rent increases, the ordinance would strengthen ‘just-cause’ eviction protections, expand the City’s rent registry, and require that landlords pay “relocation assistance” to the tenants they do evict – which includes a $3,000 moving stipend. Carter is especially opposed to the relocation assistance.

“Where do they get these numbers? How, how, how does it cost $3,000 in moving costs? I got divorced a couple years ago. I had to move. It was $29.99 for a 10 foot U-Haul, uh, a pizza from Costco for 10 bucks and a 12-pack of beer for my buddies to help me move. That's what it cost me to move, you know, where do you get $3,000? It doesn’t cost that.”

But tenants say these protections are desperately needed.

Betty Gabaldon is an organizer and long-time resident of Concord. She says in 2019, she started raising issues about the habitability of her building. She told KALW she was working to form a tenants union when her landlord, Marty Carbajal, gave her and everyone else in the building a 60-day eviction notice.

“We actually went to his office to ask him, like, why he was giving us a 60-day notice? And he, he told us, ‘Oh, well ,I don't have to give you a reason why. I could just give it to you. There is no just-cause in Concord, and I can just do that.'”

Sixty days weren’t enough for Gabaldon to find a place in Concord. She said her moving expenses were high, and she was forced to leave.

“It didn't hit me until like I closed the doors of the U-Haul truck and that's when I started bawling, like, I can't believe it. I'm losing my neighborhood, my friends, everything that I know. People don't realize how traumatizing that is, when you go through an eviction. Sorry, I'm gonna cry. It's just, it's very traumatizing.”

After almost five hours of public comment, the council voted to postpone the vote to February 13.

Wren Farrell (he/him) is a writer, producer and journalist living in San Francisco.