GUEST OPINION
Residents at a Pasadena City Council meeting (File Photo – Garrett Rowlan).
There is one word to describe housing in Pasadena: crisis.
By Liberty McCoy
The 62% of Pasadena households who rent their housing know it’s a crisis: They just have to look at their empty bank accounts. With 42% of those tenants rent-burdened—meaning they pay over 30% of their income in rent—and rents for new apartment listings up 20% this year, one has to wonder how long this can continue.
Rent control helps renters stay in their neighborhoods
The Pasadena For Rent Control does not believe this situation should continue for one more day. We collected over 20,000 signatures, 15,352 prevalidated, to put rent control and just cause eviction protections on the November 2022 ballot in Pasadena. PTJC was built by the Pasadena Tenants Union, a six year old group that has organized and advocated for tenants, including organizing for one of the strongest COVID-19 eviction moratoriums in the state.
Recent research from the Urban Displacement Project at UC Berkeley on our state housing crisis found that rent control helps renters stay in their neighborhoods, which stabilizes communities, and that just cause eviction protections reduce displacement for low-income residents.
The #1 cause of homelessness is eviction
Rent control and eviction protections are also homelessness prevention policies. The number one cause of homelessness in L.A. County is eviction, and the number one cause of eviction is rising rents, especially in the face of stagnant wages. Rent control is the solution to the supply side of homelessness.
Pasadena is a vibrant community that is always changing, but how will it change? A vote against this charter amendment will continue the crisis, ensuring that housing will remain out of reach or a challenge for many. A vote for this measure will ensure that Pasadena will remain a place for families to be able to raise children, young people to remain near their families, the elderly to be able to afford on their fixed incomes, and individuals to live within a stable community of neighbors.
Liberty McCoy is a member of the steering committee of the Pasadena Tenants Justice Coalition and a member of the Pasadena Tenants Union.
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Rent controls have reduced the housing stock, Every Single Time.
You’d think people would learn.
You want to see homelessness? Then by all means, implement rent control.
to say something is not to prove it. I am not aware of a reduction in housing in most of Europe, even with rent control. It would be good to point out that the homeless crisis occurs here in So Cal even without rent control. But to get to the gist of this argument, if you are good with people working in Pasadena but living in Moreno Valley or Lancaster due to housing costs or to people being evicted at a landlord’s whim, why are we discussing?