3 new bills would give more rights to renters
Legislators seek to slow rate of evictions in state
SACRAMENTO — Landlords who evict tenants under the Ellis Act would have to give them a year’s notice — instead of four months — under one of three tenant-rights bills being introduced Thursday in the Legislature.
Another bill would require landlords to wait 10 days — instead of three — to begin eviction proceedings against tenants who haven’t paid their rent on time.
And a third bill would require landlords across the state to show “just cause” — a reasonable reason — before trying to force tenants out.
The bills by Assemblymen David Chiu, DSan Francisco; Rob Bonta, D-Alameda; and Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, are intended to slow evictions throughout the state as California grapples with a housing crisis.
“These will have an enormous impact on a tenant’s ability to fight an eviction,” Chiu said Wednesday.
AB2343 by Chiu would give tenants 10 days before a late rent payment can start the eviction process. Under the bill, tenants would have more time to respond to a landlord’s eviction court filing: instead of the current five days, they would have 14 days.
Bonta — whose bill does not yet have a bill number — plans to extend “just cause” eviction protections that San Francisco and other cities have to the entire state. Those protections limit the reasons landlords can evict someone.
“The principle behind it is pretty basic: You shouldn’t be kicked out of your home without a good reason,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, a co-author on Chiu’s and Bonta’s bills.
AB2364 by Bloom would extend the amount of notice a landlord has to give a tenant when evicting them under the Ellis Act from four months to one year. Currently, elderly and disabled tenants are given one year’s notice, while all other tenants are given 120 days during an eviction under the Ellis Act, a 1986 law that lets landlords who want to get out of the rental business evict tenants without cause.
Democratic lawmakers, including former Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, tried unsuccessfully for several years to reform the Ellis Act, which has been used by investors as a way to buy affordable properties, evict tenants and flip the rental for profit. Changes to the Ellis Act have been fought by the real estate industry, which also successfully thwarted an attempt last month to expand rent control.
That rent-control bill — authored by Chiu, Bonta and Bloom — would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a 1995 industry-backed law that limits the kind of rentcontrol rules cities and counties can impose. It died in its first committee hearing.
In its place, tenant rights groups are collecting signatures for a ballot measure to repeal Costa-Hawkins.
Brian Augusta, legislative advocate for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that works on tenant cases, said lawmakers are rightfully turning the focus on how to help tenants after taking steps last year to address the affordable housing crisis.
Lawmakers approved and Gov. Jerry Brown signed a sweeping package of housing bills last year, including a new real estate fee to pay for more housing and a $4 billion bond measure that will go before voters in November.
Also among them was SB167 by Skinner that makes it harder for local governments to deny housing projects and SB35 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which forces reluctant cities to build more lowto middle-income housing if they aren’t meeting certain targets. A report this month by the state Department of Housing and Community Development found nearly all — 97 percent — of cities in the state are not meeting their housing goals.
“The Legislature did quite a bit last year to address the affordable housing crisis,” Augusta said. “Increasingly, we are seeing tenants facing a number of problems that lead to displacement, rising homelessness and pushing people further from their homes.” Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez @sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez