Bill would help tenants buy homes they rent
An Oakland councilwoman introduced legislation Thursday that she said would give landlords an incentive to offer their tenants first right of refusal when selling the property.
The proposal by Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas is still raw and doesn’t yet specify what the incentive would be.
But Fortunato Bas said her intention is to protect renters from losing their homes. She said she was inspired by a group of homeless mothers, known as Moms 4 Housing, who recently took over a vacant property in West Oakland for two months to highlight the area’s crises of affordable housing and homelessness.
“It will help reduce homelessness,” Fortunato Bas said of her “Moms 4 Housing Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act.” “When we look around in Oakland ... we see how more people are pushed onto the streets, more families are
living in their vehicles. This is going to make sure that we stem the displacement crisis.”
She expects the legislation to incentivize home sales to tenants, community land trusts, or nonprofit affordablehousing developers. If approved, it would be the first such tenant protection in California, the councilwoman said.
Washington, D.C., has had a similar law since 1980. There, landlords are required to notify their tenants if they plan to sell the home. Renters then have 30 days to tell the homeowner if they want to buy the property.
In November, a rotating group of at least three mothers moved into the vacant home at 2928 Magnolia St. with their children. The families lived there for nearly two months before sheriff ’s deputies evicted them, an act the mayor condemned. The group had repeatedly called on the property owners, Wedgewood, to negotiate with the Oakland Community Land Trust so the mothers could purchase the property through the nonprofit.
But the company said it would not negotiate as long as the women occupied its property. Wedgewood, a Southern Cali
“We are committed to ending homelessness, and this is the first step in the right direction for us.”
Dominique Walker, cofounder of Moms 4 Housing
fornia firm, is one of Oakland’s most prolific house flippers, rehabbing and selling 160 homes in nine years.
On Jan. 20, Mayor Libby Schaaf announced that Wedgewood agreed to negotiate the sale of the home with the Oakland Community Land Trust, which acquires land and property for affordable housing.
Schaaf helped arrange the deal that requires the threebedroom, onebath house to sell for no more than its appraised value. A formal appraisal will need to take place, but the home is listed at $631,201 on the realestate site Zillow.
Under the agreement, Wedgewood agreed to also negotiate a rightoffirstrefusal program for all of its Oakland properties, about 50, according to the company.
Dominique Walker, a cofounder of Moms 4 Housing, said the ordinance introduced Thursday would keep people off the streets. The 34yearold single mother of two young children works as an organizer for a tenantsrights group.
Walker said she has struggled to find housing in the Bay Area. Recently, she found a onebedroom cottage for $2,000 a month in San Leandro. But the landlord wanted her to pay $8,000 up front — a cost that she couldn’t afford.
“We are committed to ending homelessness, and this is the first step in the right direction for us,” Walker said.
The legislation will be heard Feb. 25 at the Community and Economic Development committee meeting before going to the full council.