Category: News

[EVENT] Peninsula Health Care District Town Hall

What:
Peninsula Health Care District town hall on development plans for former Peninsula Hospital site
When:
6 P.M
November 18th
Where:
Recreation Center
850 Burlingame Ave.
This is the first town hall since the Peninsula Health Care District board was forced by the community to go back to the drawing board and revise their plans for putting primarily market-rate housing on public land. The early indications, however, are that the plans still do not go far enough in dedicating the land to affordable housing. Therefore, we, the community of people whose tax dollars pay for this land, need to continue to demonstrate to the PHCD board our overwhelming commitment to an affordable housing centered vision for this land.

[EVENT] San Mateo City Council Meeting on Emergency Ordinance to Protect Tenants

This Monday night, the San Mateo City Council will discuss an emergency ordinance very similar to the ones passed unanimously in Redwood City and Daly City. This emergency ordinance would make the provisions of AB 1482—the rent cap and ban on unjust evictions—effective immediately. This way landlords cannot continue to take advantage of the time between now and January 1st (when AB 1482 goes into effect throughout the state) to hit tenants will extreme rent increases and unjust evictions.

It’s very important that we show up Monday night to make sure that the Council does what is in their power to smooth the road forward for tenants.

October 3rd’s The Color of Law Event Showed Us What the True Character of a Community Should Look Like

Thank you to the approximately 400 people who came to October 3rd’s presentation by Professor Richard Rothstein. It was a truly powerful evening, one that we believe brought greater light to the minds of both the not yet informed and the already somewhat informed alike.

[EVENT] The Color of Law: The Hidden History Shaping Our Communities Today

Today, housing discrimination based on race or ethnicity is against the law. In recent history, it was required.

Please join us for a riveting presentation by Richard Rothstein—renowned author of The Color of Law and Thurgood Marshall Fellow of the NAACP—as he explores how federal, state, and local governments systematically and intentionally imposed residential segregation in American cities from Boston to San Francisco. The hidden history of this officially sanctioned and mandated discrimination in housing has direct implications for how we address the racial and other divisions pulling at our communities today.

Will California protect tenants?

A good read from Randy Shaw of the San Francisco Tenderloin Housing Clinic on the merits of AB 1482: “Will California protect tenants?”
In 2019, Oregon’s legislature reversed its rent control and just cause ban and passed a statewide rent cap and just cause eviction law. New York’s legislature greatly strengthened New York City’s rent control law and shifted control of the law from the state to the city.
California, the state with the worst affordability and the bluest state legislature, needs to follow this path. With a Democratic Governor backing AB 1482 and a Democratic super-majority in the Legislature, a California Democrat Party that walked the talk on economic fairness would pass the bill in a heartbeat.
But the California real estate industry has the same vice grip over California Democratic legislatures that the NRA has over GOP U.S. Senators. In both cases the actual merits of legislation are not important; instead, it’s all about sticking to the real estate/NRA line.