It’s no secret that we are in a rent emergency. Surging evictions and astronomical rent increases aren’t news to the people who have experienced them firsthand for years. The rent has been too damn high for too long. As we enter another tech boom, the speculative frenzy will only accelerate. Landlords are already pushing out long-term, rent-controlled tenants so they can charge new tenants sky-high rents or convert multiple units into luxury homes. Private equity and landlord tech are behind it too, pushing AI property management systems that issue mass eviction notices and pile on new fees but can’t get a simple repair done. Without intervention, this boom will supercharge displacement, driving up the cost of housing even more in the process.
As frontline tenant rights counselors and educators, eviction defense attorneys, and organizers, we at the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition see this crisis unfolding up close, and know just how dire things are right now. Every day tenants are threatened and harassed, buildings are sold from one corporate slumlord to the next, loopholes are exploited, and rents continue to rise.
So long as the real estate industry’s business model is predicated on tenant displacement, landlords will find ways to charge us more and force us out.
We see the declaration of a rent emergency as the occasion to take meaningful action against speculative real estate practices and landlord greed—the true drivers of this crisis—and transform our housing system. But the package announced earlier this month falls far short of what’s needed because as a whole, it does not confront the root causes of this crisis.
We know from experience that what we need to meet this moment is tenant power to directly confront the landlords and real estate actors seeking to make a quick profit at the expense of each of us and the city as a whole. We also need to assert that collective power by demanding stronger and more meaningful tenant protections and real investment in housing that is permanently affordable and outside the speculative market. Here’s what must come next:
1. Stop evictions. Have you suffered harassment, surveillance, or threats of displacement by your landlord? We cannot let speculators cash in on this crisis and force our neighbors out of the city for good. We must protect tenants who have lived in their apartments for years and are afraid of being evicted so the landlord can raise the rent.
We can do this by (1) closing loopholes in tenant protections and repealing laws like the Ellis Act that help speculators get around all of the protections we’ve won, (2) passing an immediate Eviction Moratorium, and (3) investing resources in proactive enforcement, from the Department of Building Inspection holding slumlords accountable to the City Attorney going after landlords who make harassment their business model.
2. Lower the rent. Have you received an untenable rent increase or struggled to find an apartment you can afford? Both longtime rent-controlled tenants and those looking for their first apartment in the city are being squeezed by the same forces. We must expand rent control to all tenants and prevent landlords from raising the rent as much as they want after forcing a tenant out.
This means repealing Costa-Hawkins, lowering the state rent cap and making it permanent for all, and regulating predatory equity and the landlord tech that makes their predation possible.
3. Expand the toolkit. Put housing in community hands. Do you live in fear that your building will be sold? We must take our homes out of the hands of negligent landlords who won’t fix mold, maintain working elevators, or treat their tenants with respect. We can buy back buildings to protect tenants from speculators using the Ellis Act to flip their homes for quick sale.
We have the opportunity in November to make sure the money is there to fund permanently affordable, speculation-proof housing forever through Propositions B, C, and I.
Whether or not elected officials fully step up to meet this moment, tenants already are, and we know that a coordinated tenant movement is what it will take to ensure that there is a future for all of us here. Organized tenants can stop evictions. The rights we have are self-enforced, and when we stand side by side with our neighbors, we win things that the law can’t or won’t provide. Organized tenants can bring down the rents. The landlords raising the rent have the power to lower it, and tenant associations have won millions of dollars in rent reductions in recent years. Our collective refusal to move out can and does check wild speculation, bringing down costs for all of us for years to come.
But we must organize at a much larger scale to effectively confront the threats we currently face.
Our capacity to meet this emergency will define what tomorrow’s San Francisco looks like. Will it be a diverse, vibrant, creative city defined by those with long-term commitment to and affection for this place? Or will we sit by while San Francisco becomes whatever is left after the speculative smash and grab?
We are here to fight for the city we love. Join organized tenants from across the city on October 5th at noon at 907 Valencia to lift up our solutions and show our strength.
