We’ve seen a devastating year for the poor, renters and low-income families in California, and the highly negative trend among investor groups, corporations and other profit-driven entities snatching up buildings and emptying them, and even outbidding families trying to buy homes.

Dozens of poorly devised new California laws play directly into these troubling trends in California. So it is hopeful to see Assembly Bill 854, introduced early in 2021 and returning this week in Sacramento for consideration by state legislators.

Please join us on Wednesday Jan. 12 at 9:30 am to testify remotely in support of AB 854 at the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee. The Call-in number to testify will be posted on the Committee website on Wednesday morning: https://ahcd.assembly.ca.gov/hearings

AB 854’s author, state Assemblymember Alex Lee, says California’s longstanding law known as the Ellis Act has become so twisted by the courts that it has “resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of affordable rent control units” and displacement of tenants who tend to be “long-term, elderly, and disabled individuals — some of the most vulnerable tenants in California.”

In the past year, we’ve all heard from people in our communities, of rents gone sky-high and evictions of families who’d done nothing wrong — forced to search out housing as their world got hammered by COVID.

Livable California board member Carey White of San Francisco notes:

"There needs to be some balance between large corporations' freedom to buy and sell homes on a moment's notice, and renters' right to be free of being evicted through no fault of their own. Anti-flipping legislation helps California improve that balance. That's why we support this bill."

Livable California board member Keith Gurnee of San Luis Obispo notes:

"The large number of housing bills approved in recent years by the state legislature has unleashed a flurry of heavy speculative investment in purchasing houses and multifamily units occupied by renters, only to result in evicting and displacing those renters.

Gurnee, a respected planner, adds: “Such bills have incentivized flipping on an industrial scale in California, which will only serve to accelerate further evictions, displacement, and the loss of rental units in our communities. By prohibiting Ellis Act evictions within five years of a seller's ownership of such properties, AB 854 will provide a damper on this speculative trend while protecting the supply of rental housing in California's communities."

Please join us in standing up for the millions of renters who keep the lights on in California, grow our food and take care of our elderly. See you on Wednesday. The Call-in number to testify will be posted on the Committee website on Wednesday morning: https://ahcd.assembly.ca.gov/hearings