Housing Advocates Suspend Campaign for Rent Control

Affordable housing advocates in Long Beach have suspended a signature campaign to place a measure on the ballot asking voters to establish rent control and just-cause eviction laws in the city, just weeks before a July 30 deadline to make the next citywide election in 2020.

Housing Long Beach, an affordable housing advocacy group proposing the initiative with senior-citizen advocacy group Long Beach Gray Panthers, announced in a social media post on July 10 that the #Rent Control Now Coalition has decided to suspend its current signature campaign after “careful consideration and multiple rounds of deliberations.”

Affordable housing advocates further stated, “At this point, the coalition faces some insurmountable obstacles and the number of signatures required is too great to continue to ask volunteers to carry on in the face of some absurd opposition – some of which has seen our volunteers harassed to the point of having the police called on them.”

Long Beach City Clerk Monique De La Garza confirmed that proponents of the initiative are required to submit at least 27,462 valid signatures (10 percent of registered voters) by July 30 for the initiative to make an election ballot in 2020 after failing to meet a June 1 deadline to qualify for the November ballot.

Affordable housing advocates are proposing the initiative in response to residents throughout the city recently experiencing rising rents along with low vacancy rates and a lack of affordable housing, which advocates said has been caused by “gentrification” that has contributed to evictions and homelessness.

“We took on the rent control fight because of the disturbing levels of displacement amid dramatically rising rents, the continued calls for action from our supporters and residents, and a concerted lack of action by City Hall,” Housing Long Beach officials stated. “So, we put forward a policy idea that is widely used in large renter majority cities, such as Long Beach. We wanted to stop the bleeding and we refused to turn our backs on the community and shy away from a tough fight.”

Opponents, including property owner groups such as Better Housing for Long Beach and the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities, Inc., have stated that rent control policies have failed in other cities, such as Santa Monica, West Hollywood, San Francisco and New York, where rents have remained the highest in the nation despite having such policies.

“Rent control sounds like an easy fix to rising housing costs, but this policy would have led to fewer rental units in Long Beach, deteriorating neighborhoods and less money for essential city services,” said Mike Murchison, a spokesperson for opponents of rent control, in response to the coalition’s announcement. “Renters would have actually seen higher costs thanks to the market-distorting effects of rent control. Rent control attempts to treat the symptoms of a housing shortage rather than the underlying cause – and in this case, the treatment would have made the problem worse.”

While the coalition’s signature campaign has been suspended for now, efforts to establish rent control, protect renters’ rights and prevent evictions will continue, according to Housing Long Beach officials.

“This does not mean we are ending our fight for rent control and eviction protections or the fight against displacement,” Housing Long Beach officials stated. “Rents have been dramatically rising for several years now, and, the real estate industry expects that to continue here in Long Beach.”

sean@beachcomber.news