“Three Questions” is a regular series in which award-winning advocacy journalist Patrick Range McDonald and other members of Housing Is A Human Right answer your questions, or questions we’ve heard in the past, about housing issues.
Why do we need to pass AB 246 in California?
AB 246 is a California bill, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, that stops rent gouging in Los Angeles County after the wildfires. Why do we need it? Reporters and activists, such as The Rent Brigade, found that many landlords have been wildly jacking up rents for prospective tenants who lost their homes and needed a place to live. It’s truly outrageous and wrong: landlords want to make huge money off the misery of others. But that wasn’t the only problem. Landlords have also been evicting current tenants so they could charge excessive rents for new tenants. And it hasn’t just been happening in areas devastated by the wildfires. Cities and neighborhoods all over L.A. County have been dealing with rent gouging and evictions connected to the wildfires.
On top of all that, the California Apartment Association, with no evidence, has been saying that rent gouging is merely the case of a few bad apples. News reports and studies have shown that’s flat out wrong. But the California Apartment Association, the front group for corporate landlords, has always had a problem with the truth. Just look at its misinformation campaigns to kill ballot measures that aimed to end statewide rent control restrictions in California.
It’s clear that the real estate industry isn’t going to do the right thing, so we need AB 246 to keep landlords honest – and to protect prospective and current tenants. Housing Is A Human Right has been calling on Californians to call their state assembly members and tell them to vote “yes” on AB 246.
– Patrick Range McDonald
Don’t homeless people come to California because of its good weather?
That’s a common myth: unhoused folks move to L.A. or San Francisco or San Diego or somewhere in California because the weather isn’t as harsh as other states and it’s easier to live outside. But a 2023 study by UC San Francisco demolished that myth. First, researchers found that people who are homeless in California are Californians. Second, they’re homeless because their rent was too high and they were forced into the streets.
Homelessness has become an increasingly lethal experience, with homeless deaths only rising in Los Angeles and other cities in California and across the country. We make that point because the real estate industry and YIMBYs push a trickle-down housing agenda that never works for lower-income people, it focuses on building luxury housing first, and it doesn’t directly and urgently address sky-high rents for the poor and middle and working class. So we need a better response.
It’s why Housing Is A Human Right has advocated for the “ 3 Ps”: protect tenants through rent regulations; preserve affordable housing, not demolish it make way for luxury housing; and produce new affordable and homeless housing through the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and other cost-effective construction methods, such as pre-fab homes. Whenever you talk with your elected officials, tell them to implement the 3 Ps.
– Patrick Range McDonald
Don’t most people oppose rent regulations?
That’s the spin of the real estate industry, including the California Apartment Association. In fact, Americans have supported rent control or rent stabilization for more than 100 years – since just after World War I, people have embraced rent regulations as a key way to have stable, affordable housing.
A recent survey in New York State only underlines that point. The Community Service Society talked with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats all over New York from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of age groups. All of them overwhelmingly backed rent regulations.
As we noted in a recent article (we always recommend reading our articles, which provide the kind of housing news that the mainstream media often fails to deliver), 88 percent of Democrats supported rent stabilization, 83 percent of Independents backed it, and 75 percent of Republicans supported it. Those are amazing numbers.
When we ran our pro-rent control campaigns in 2018, 2020, and 2024 to end statewide rent control restrictions in California, we found that a large majority of residents supported our measures. But then the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords rolled out multi-million-dollar misinformation campaigns that confused and tricked voters, and those initiatives weren’t passed.
In the end, people want rent regulations because they understand it’s the only tool to rein in predatory landlords. Nothing else can do it as effectively and urgently. And rent stabilization can be implemented in a way in which landlords still make a healthy return on investment. It’s actually the law that landlords must make a return on investment.
– Patrick Range McDonald
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