Three Moms 4 Housing activists get arrested
They refused to leave board of supervisors meeting Tuesday
Three tenant activists with Moms 4 Housing were arrested Tuesday night after shutting down an Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting in Oakland and refusing to leave the board chambers while demanding more protections for vulnerable renters.
Activists said they attended the meeting to pressure the board — and one supervisor in particular — to approve three new tenant protection laws as the county's ongoing pandemic eviction moratorium was set to come up for review. Though most other emergency eviction bans in the Bay Area have expired, local governments across the region have increasingly embraced stricter renter safeguards in recent years at the urging of advocates.
Alameda County supervisors had appeared poised to formally adopt the three proposed ordinances Tuesday after approving them in an initial vote in December. But the makeup of the board has changed since that first vote, with newly elected Supervisor Lena Tam taking her seat this year. Activists with Moms 4 Housing — a group of formerly homeless mothers that made headlines in 2020 for occupying a vacant home in Oakland — contend that has put the ordinances in jeopardy.
“Alameda County is already suffering from an overwhelming homelessness crisis, and if these tenant protections are not put in place before the COVID moratorium is lifted, that crisis is going to get exponentially worse,” Moms 4 Housing activist Dominique Walker said in a statement.
At Tuesday's meeting, supervisors also planned to have a discussion about eventually winding down or modifying the eviction moratorium. Officials said the ordinance could end as soon as April 30.
Before the two items could come before the board, a group of four Moms 4 Housing activists began rebuking supervisors for not doing enough to help renters and chanted “fight, fight, fight, housing is a human right.” In response, the board decided to put the planned vote and discussion on pause until a later meeting.
Activists followed by staging a sit-in in the chambers. They had planned to remain there for 60 hours “in recognition of the 60,000 renters in the unincorporated area” who activists said lack enough renter protections, but authorities cleared the county administrative building by around 7 p.m.
Two of the activists were cited for refusing to leave the building after public hours and were quickly released from custody, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. Walker was arrested on suspicion of the same charge and taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin because deputies initially could not identify her, the Sheriff's Office said.
The proposed ordinances, now set to come before the board Feb. 28, would prevent landlords from screening prospective tenants based on their criminal histories, create a registry of rental properties and establish new “just cause” eviction protections. The new safeguards would apply only to unincorporated parts of the county, including Sunol and Castro Valley. The local eviction moratorium, meanwhile, currently covers the entire county.
The cities of Oakland and Berkeley, both in Alameda County, already have prohibited renter criminal background checks, which advocates say landlords use to discriminate against the formerly incarcerated. San Francisco also has banned the practice.
Rental registries, which aim to track evictions and rent prices, among other rental information, are active in cities including Oakland and San Jose. Both cities also have adopted just cause ordinances, which restrict landlords to evicting tenants for specific reasons such as failing to pay rent or damaging property.
In news releases, Moms 4 Housing focused its ire on Supervisor Tam, who hasn't taken a position on the renter protection ordinances and whom activists accuse of being beholden to the real estate industry.
In an email, Tam said she planned to speak with “experts and advocates” and “read up on the law and how these policies have been implemented elsewhere.”
“In doing so, I aim to understand the full consequences of what I'm voting on and if any changes are needed,” she wrote. “I had planned on asking these questions at yesterday's board meeting before the item was continued.”
Walker of Moms 4 Housing, meanwhile, said she remained “undeterred” after being released from custody Tuesday night.
“I would do it again,” she said in a statement. “If this is what it takes for folks to stay housed, then this is what it takes.”