S.J. grapples with how to avoid residential displacement
Council concerned that gentrification is forcing people to leave their homes
With thousands of residents struggling to afford housing and fears that the Google campus slated for downtown could drive rents even higher, San Jose leaders, developers and affordable housing advocates are debating the best ways to prevent more people from being forced out of their homes.
During a meeting Tuesday that stretched beyond 10 p.m., the City Council heard a range of ideas, from enacting new fees to fund affordable housing to softening regulations, with stark divisions emerging between those who want to focus on making it easier for developers to build and those who want to enact stronger protections for renters at risk of losing their homes.
“Housing, housing and more housing,” said Jeff Zell of the property management company Zell Associates. “It’s super difficult to develop in this city.”
Eddie Truong, with the Silicon Valley Organization, a business advocacy group, agreed, suggesting that allowing developers to build more market-rate housing would reduce displacement.
But Anna Cash, program director for UC Berkeley’s Urban Displacement Project, pushed back at that notion, saying the city needs to be intentional about creating affordable housing.
Market-rate housing, Cash said, is “not going to solve the affordability crisis for low-income households.”
While city leaders disagree on the best way to move forward, the problem is undeniably pressing. About 40% of the city’s households are low income, but less than a quarter of San Jose’s homes are affordable or have restricted rent. Black, Latino and women headed households are disproportionately likely to struggle to find housing and thousands of families are at risk of being displaced.
Large pockets of downtown San Jose and other neighborhoods in the city are experiencing gentrification and displacement. The problem is often typically acute around transit centers, something that concerns critics of the massive new Google campus expected to rise near Diridon Station in the next decade.
“There is much work to be done and we know it is urgent,” said Jacky Morales Ferrand, the city’s housing director.
More than a dozen residents told the council how they have been personally affected by displacement.
“Once you’ve been displaced, that specter of displacement hangs over your head for the rest of your life,” Ramon Johnson said. “Every night I go to bed, I fear waking up and getting that 90day eviction notice saying I have to leave.”
Morales-Ferrand’s team is analyzing the results of a recent housing survey and will host a series of community meetings throughout the fall. In the winter, they’ll take possible recommendations to city commissions and then bring an anti-displacement strategy to the council in early 2020 for approval.
Gentrification and displacement affect more than just whether a family has a place to sleep, Cash said. They can increase segregation. Kids whose families are forced out of their homes are more likely to be absent from school. Adults, too, suffer mentally and physically, she said, and are often saddled with longer commutes or forced into neighborhoods with more poverty and crime.
Already, local school districts such as Alum Rock in East San Jose are seeing declining enrollment and various districts’ attempts to build teacher and staff housing — an idea lauded by Councilwoman Pam Foley — have faced challenges.
And many renters are afraid to report problems when they do have a place to live. A survey of Santa Clara County renters found that more than half didn’t feel comfortable approaching a landlord about repairs or problems with their housing and 45% expected to have to leave their home in the coming year.
In the coming months, the city will consider amending its Ellis Act Ordinance, which requires developers who tear down a rent-controlled apartment building and rebuild to put some new units back under rent control. Housing advocates are concerned that more people could be displaced and fall into homelessness if the city softens the ordinance. Like surrounding cities, San Jose has seen a sharp increase in the number of homeless residents: 42% in the last two years.
City staff members raised a number of potential options for addressing the housing crisis, from a regional transit-oriented development fund backed by philanthropic groups like in Denver to a strong right-to-counsel program like in New York City.
“We want to retain our existing residents even as we welcome new ones,” said Kim Walesh, the city’s economic development director. “Growth that is inclusive is actually more sustainable over time.”
Nadia Aziz, directing attorney with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, appreciates the sentiment but wants the city to do more to live up to the idea.
“We have to start with the value that everyone deserves to stay in San Jose,” Aziz said.
Victor Vasquez, with the community group Somos Mayfair, was even more blunt.
“You’ve got to back it up with your funding,” he said, pointing out that discriminatory lending practices for decades prevented people of color from buying homes. “This is a historical issue.”