08 May Pittsburg Rent Control Initiative Could Appear on November Ballot

Members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action outside Pittsburg City Hall on Wednesday. The group worked to gather signatures to place a city rent control initiative on the November 2024 ballot. (Aly Brown / Bay City News)

By Aly Brown
Bay City News

Advocates of rent control in the city of Pittsburg gathered at the foot of City Hall on Wednesday to submit signatures that could potentially put a tenant protection initiative on the November ballot.

Members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action — a grassroots community group — said they had gathered 4,189 verified signatures.

The Pittsburg city clerk’s office confirmed that 4,008 signatures are required in accordance with election law based on the city’s voting population, but those submitted for the rent control legislation have not been counted yet. The elections division will have 30 days to verify the submitted signatures, according to the Contra Costa County Clerk Recorder’s official site.

Petition proponent and ACCE Action member Nicole Arrington highlighted a need for tenant protections to curb homelessness and keep families from being displaced. She pointed out that a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found a $100 increase in median monthly rent is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness.

“Because unfortunately, Pittsburg has no protections for the tenants, and there’s a lot of atrocities going on out here,” Arrington said. “There’s a lot of corporate slumlords that have bought buildings, and it’s just terrible what they’re doing to the tenants.”

The movement for renters’ rights has swept the Bay Area, with Contra Costa cities like Antioch, Richmond and Concord implementing rent control ordinances. ACCE members in San Pablo recently submitted signatures to place a similar rent control initiative on the ballot this November.

According to real estate search engine Zillow, the median monthly rental rate is $2,750 in Pittsburg, where U.S. Census data reports the median household income to be $88,842.

To live comfortably, a recent Nasdaq report recommended a “40x rent rule,” meaning a household’s annual salary is 40 times higher than a month’s rent. In the case of Pittsburg, those with an annual household salary of $88,842 should seek rent that’s closer to $2,221 per month — if such a rental exists.

Arrington said her group aims to follow Antioch’s lead with an ordinance that would prevent rent increases higher than 3% each year.

She noted the protection extends to all residents of Pittsburg, whether they’re paying rent or mortgage. As a former homeowner who lost her house after being diagnosed with cancer and needing to go on disability, Arrington said everyone is just one sickness, one job loss or catastrophe away from being out on the street.

“If you don’t outright own that home, you don’t have the deed to that home. And if you don’t own that land that that home is on and have the deed to that land and you miss mortgage payments or can’t pay property taxes, the house is gone,” she said.

Nancy Ybarra, who helped spearhead the effort to gain the required signatures, said it was difficult to find a location that would permit her to gather signatures before she was asked to leave. When she’d exhausted possible locations, she resorted to knocking on doors. But within the community, she found strong support from many who shared stories of recent evictions.

“A lot of people are getting displaced, and a lot of people grew up out here and lived here for 20, 30 years, but they’re just getting priced out,” Ybarra said, adding that she’s proud of her team’s work on rent control for the city of Pittsburg.

As someone who has been experiencing homelessness over the last three years, ACCE member Sharrie Lane joined the effort to establish rent control to protect families like hers. Before moving into the Bay Area Rescue Mission shelter in Richmond, Lane once called Pittsburg home. She believes the benefits that renters gain from tenant protections help to create a thriving rental market that can in turn benefit landlords.

“Living on the streets is something that is affecting us day to day,” Lane said. “And by having this rent control petition on the November ballot, it can benefit families like mine, families that maybe have only one source of income.”

Copyright © 2024 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.