What We Can Do

Tenant Bill of Rights

Communities can adopt a Tenant Bill of Rights (TBR) to establish a standard that all residents have the right to clean, safe, well maintained and secure housing. The TBR can include an extension of tenant protections to subletters and family members, mechanisms to address severe habitability issues and market pressures, such as stronger protections for tenants from eviction if they deduct repairs from rent, and increased transparency/regulation around utility fees, such as ratio utility billing systems (RUBS). A TBR could also provide anti-retaliation protection for tenants that assert their rights

‍Tenant Commission / Rent Board

Land use policies and planning decisions have historically been made from the perspective of property owners, and tenants have lacked a voice in the planning process. A tenant commission or advisory committee may be a place to bring policy discussions that address the interests of tenants. Most tenant commissions or rent boards are in communities with rent stabilization ordinances and hear complaints or appeals from tenants or landlords, but such a body could also serve as a policy advisory committee or board for local communities.

Fair Housing Enforcement

The federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination on the basis of seven “protected classes”: race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin. Local agencies can pass laws to expand those protections to cover additional groups and can set up programs to proactively identify and investigate fair housing violations and/or to promote and educate landlords and tenants on existing fair housing laws.

Tenant Anti-Harassment/Retaliation Protections

Anti-harassment ordinances aim to protect tenants from harassment or retaliatory actions by landlords or property managers. State law already bars harassment of tenants, so the aim of local ordinances is typically to highlight, educate, and sometimes expand upon these protections. Some of the types of activities that may be prohibited in a local anti-harassment ordinance include: failing to perform repairs or maintenance, interfering with the tenant’s right to quiet use and enjoyment of the rental unit, refusing to accept or acknowledge receipt of lawful rent, removing tenant’s personal property from the rental unit, or influencing a tenant to vacate through fraud, intimidation or coercion. Tenants may sue landlords for violating these laws.

Right to Organize

Right to organize laws protect the right of tenants to communicate with and gather with other tenants in order to talk about issues at a property. They may also protect tenants from retaliation and protect the right of third-party organizers to assist tenants in organizing. Right to organize laws may also protect the right of tenants to form associations and further require landlords to “meet and confer” with these associations regarding rent and landlord policies. These laws can be particularly valuable in cases with severe habitability issues.

Fair Chance for Housing

Fair Chance for Housing ordinances aim to give formerly incarcerated people or people with criminal records the ability to find housing. Individuals with criminal records (which may be decades in the past) often experience challenges in securing housing, which can lead to prolonged episodes of homelessness. Fair Chance for Housing ordinances may ban criminal background checks or limit what landlords may review when considering renter applications.

Proactive Enhanced Code Enforcement

Many vulnerable and low-income residents tolerate living in substandard living conditions because they fear retaliation or displacement if they were to make a complaint about housing conditions. This may be especially true in communities where there are immigrant residents who fear deportation. Local agencies may move from a complaint-based inspection system to a proactive inspection program, where inspections are conducted on a periodic schedule and do not rely on tenants’ comfort in making a complaint.

Tenant Habitability Plans

Requirements for Tenant Habitability Plans are intended to ensure that tenants do not have to endure unsafe or disruptive living conditions while a building is undergoing renovations. These types of situations are currently arising more often in California due to the combination of increased curbs on evictions and greater renovation needs due to building age and seismic retrofit requirements. The requirement to submit a Tenant Habitability Plan to the local government means that a landlord must be transparent about the scope of work and how it will impact tenants’ ability to remain in place during a renovation and identify measures to mitigate those impacts.

Just Cause Eviction

Losing housing can push a family into poverty and homelessness, and just cause eviction laws aim to ensure greater stability for renter households. If a tenant is meeting the terms of their lease, just cause protections limit arbitrary and retaliatory evictions by specifying legitimate reasons that landlords can use to justify an eviction. This list of reasons usually includes: when a tenant has breached the lease, when the landlord or their direct family member wants to move into a unit, when a landlord is removing a property from the rental market, and when the landlord is demolishing or substantially renovating a unit.

‍Landlord and Tenant Dispute Resolution/Mediation

Local communities may require tenants and landlords to go through a mediation process under certain conditions, such as before a notice of eviction or if a rent increase exceeds a certain amount. Mediation does not bind the participants to follow the outcomes of the mediation – nevertheless this policy can help to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants without resorting to eviction. 

Tenant Right to Counsel

Nationwide, fewer than 10 percent of tenants are represented by attorneys in housing court, in stark contrast to the 80-90 percent of landlords who have legal representation. Right to counsel programs give residents a right to full-scope legal representation in civil cases, not just criminal ones (as provided by the public defender’s office). While many communities already support free or low-cost legal aid programs for tenants, the level of assistance may be limited, and full-scope representation may be limited to a smaller set of eligible residents. Communities with a right to counsel intend to broaden eligibility to be more universal and increase the level of assistance to include representation in court. Studies have shown that tenants with legal representation are more likely to remain in their homes, keep their eviction records clean, and avoid homelessness. 

Rental Assistance Program

Rental assistance programs can be structured in many ways – ranging from short-term or one-time emergency rental assistance payments to long-term Section 8/Housing Choice Vouchers that reduce residents’ rental payments to 30% of their income.

Tenant Legal Assistance

Many communities provide support to non-profit organizations that specialize in providing free or low-cost civil legal assistance to low-income residents. These fair housing or legal aid organizations may provide representation, counseling or advice to tenants facing discrimination or eviction.

Eviction Diversion

An eviction diversion program provides a centralized process for tenants and landlords to get the assistance needed to avoid evictions. Many communities have legal, social, financial, mediation, and other services that can help tenants get what they need to remain housed – an eviction diversion program coordinates those programs to provide the right service at the right time to shrink the number of cases that necessitate an eviction. Some eviction diversion programs provide or coordinate a broad array of services, and others have a more limited set of options, but they can be an effective way for tenants and landlords to resolve issues with less disruption for all.

Rent Stabilization

Rent stabilization laws, or rent control, prohibit landlords from raising the rent more than a certain amount in a certain time frame. In California, the Costa-Hawkins Act limits local rent stabilization laws in a few different ways. Under Costa-Hawkins, local jurisdictions cannot limit rents for certain buildings, including single-family homes, condominiums, and buildings constructed after February 1995 (or after any pre-existing local rent control ordinances were enacted). They are also barred from enacting “vacancy control,” which would limit landlords’ ability to reset the rents for new tenants. In 2019, the Tenant Protection Act (also known as AB 1482) created an “anti-gouging” rent cap statewide that limits rent increases to the lesser of 10% or 5% plus regional inflation. This law will expire January 1, 2030. Local communities can expand rent stabilization by lowering the rent cap in their community, enacting a local ordinance that does not expire in 2030, or making other changes that do not violate Costa-Hawkins.

Mobile Home Rent Stabilization

Mobile home owners are in a distinctly different situation than apartment tenants. They typically own their own home, but lease the land underneath from a mobile home park owner, so they have less housing mobility and choice than apartment tenants. Mobile home rent stabilization involves different legal considerations from apartment rent stabilization because it must comply with California Mobile Home Residency Law (MRL). 

Rental Registry

Rental registries can be created for multiple reasons, most often for effective code enforcement, rent stabilization and data on local housing conditions. Without a rental registry, it can be difficult for local governments to contact landlords when they receive housing quality complaints. Some communities have a rental registry or database associated with a local rent stabilization ordinance to track and enforce compliance. Rental registries can also be a tool in communities without rent stabilization to collect better data on changing rents and other household trends.

Tenant / Community Opportunity to Purchase

Opportunity to Purchase Act (OPA) policies give tenants (Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA) or specified community organizations (Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA) or government the first opportunity to acquire housing when an owner decides to sell a property. With a right of first offer, a seller must notify the tenants or specific entities of their intent to sell and give them the first chance to make an offer. With a right of first refusal, the potential buyers have the opportunity to match a market offer before the owners sell. When paired with sufficient funding, effective OPA policies can help preserve the affordability of rental housing, provide potential ownership opportunities to tenants and stabilize communities.

Community Land Trusts

Community land trusts (CLTs) are community-governed nonprofit organizations that own land and steward it for long-term community benefit. CLTs may develop, own and steward residential, commercial, agricultural and open space projects.

Preservation of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing

Older apartment buildings – often classified as “Class B” or “Class C” properties – play an important role in the housing market by offering housing that is affordable to the community without using government subsidy or restricting occupancy to certain households. When they are sold in today’s market, their affordability may be at risk, depending on the type of purchaser/investor. Preserving the affordability and habitability of this non-subsidized housing provides multiple benefits – enabling individual households to remain in their home and community and helping preserve existing affordable opportunities. Local governments may award funds to a nonprofit housing organization to purchase a property, or provide incentives to current property owners to maintain their property and keep rents affordable.

Mobile Home Preservation

Historically, mobile home parks have provided a more affordable route to homeownership for many households in California. Mobile home parks can also be a target for redevelopment into more intensive uses, threatening the stability of communities that are often occupied by lower-income families and seniors. Mobile home owners are also in the unique position of both being homeowners and renters, leasing their site from a mobile home park owner. Mobile home preservation laws can use zoning to protect existing mobile home park uses, establish processes that give the mobile home owners more time to figure out next steps, require relocation studies, and generally provide more protections to mobile home owners.

Condominium Conversion Restrictions

While condominiums can provide a route to more affordable homeownership in some markets, some jurisdictions may want to create restrictions on condominium conversions in order to protect current renters as well as the existing rental stock. Condominium conversion restrictions may take the form of limiting the number of conversions that can be approved per year, or prohibiting conversions depending on a vacancy metric, or laying out a set of steps that help to protect the existing renters and give them more time to relocate or figure out their plans.

Tenant Relocation Assistance

Under the Tenant Protection Act (2019) in California, some renters facing a “no-fault eviction” (when a tenant is evicted for a reason which is not their fault, such as a landlord move-in, conversion to ownership, or building demolition) are entitled to one month’s rent in financial assistance. A community could consider requiring landlords to provide larger relocation payments (such as two or three months’ rent) to certain populations or expanding eligibility for relocation payments to include renters of single-unit (single-family) homes. Communities can also require relocation assistance to cover the costs of moving and the differential between the tenant’s new housing costs and the old housing costs for a certain period of time.

Right to Return/Right to Purchase

Right of return policies can be applied in a range of situations. Tenants who are displaced by a no-fault eviction – such as an owner move-in or an Ellis Act eviction, where a landlord intends to permanently remove a rental unit from the market – may have the right to return if the unit later becomes available again. In other cases, when a residential building is slated for renovation, demolition or redevelopment, communities may require property owners to give existing tenants a right to return at their former rent (if the building remains a rental property after renovation or redevelopment) or a right to purchase (if the building is converted to a for-sale residential property). The Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (expiring January 1, 2030) requires low-income tenants in California to be offered a right to return to a unit in the redeveloped property at affordable rent or an affordable purchase price.

Local Tenant Preference/Anti-Displacement Tenant Preference

Since demand for affordable housing is greater than the supply, many communities offer “preferences” to give priority to certain groups, which can include people who already live or work in the community. These preferences can provide stabilizing opportunities for residents in communities that are rapidly changing, but they can also reinforce segregation in communities with historically exclusionary policies. Tenant preferences must be designed and implemented carefully to adhere to fair housing laws, and in many communities, a preference for current residents may not be possible given the demographics of the jurisdiction relative to the region. Some communities in the Bay Area have recently implemented an “anti-displacement” tenant preference, which could include people who have already been displaced. Given the demographics, Marin communities may have challenges meeting fair housing standards, and these policies could reinforce existing patterns of residential segregation.

Landlord/Tenant Education & Outreach

Landlord-tenant law in California is both complex and constantly changing. Both landlords and tenants struggle to understand their rights and responsibilities. Some nonprofit organizations and local governments provide education and outreach targeted at tenants, but landlords and property owners also struggle to keep up with the rules. Jurisdictions can build – or partner with community partners to build – robust education and outreach materials that are comprehensive, culturally competent, and available in many languages to inform tenants and landlords of their rights and responsibilities. 

Regulation of Utility Cost Pass-Throughs

Some landlords use ratio utility billing systems (RUBS) to pass through utility costs to tenants in buildings where the units are not individually metered. Installing submeters can be quite expensive, so private companies offer RUBS to methodically estimate each household’s share of water, gas, electric, trash, cable and other services based on unit size, bedroom count, household size and other factors (not actual usage). Unfortunately, many tenants have struggled with unexpected and widely fluctuating RUBS bills, and in some cases have been evicted over missed payments. In response, communities are regulating or banning the use of RUBS.

Aging in Place Policies

Communities with a population of aging homeowners may want to consider policies that support residents aging in place and making the best use of their properties. This could include home match programs that connect homeowners in larger homes with individuals interested in renting a room, programs that support the construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and junior accessory dwelling units (JADUs), programs that support conversion of homes to meet universal design and accessibility standards, and the subdivision of single-family lots and the sale of ADUs. These policies may be particularly applicable in some communities of Marin where older empty-nesters want to remain in their homes but don’t need the same amount of space they once did. Considering the existing demographics of older homeowners in Marin, fair housing and affirmative marketing may be required.

Short-Term Rental Regulations

In many communities that attract tourists, homeowners may rent out their homes or parts of their homes as short-term rentals (like the units listed on AirBnB or VRBO). While this can provide much-needed income to some owners, it can also result in many “housing” units being used as hotel rooms rather than as homes for permanent residents of the community. Restrictions may include capping the overall number of short-term rental permits issued, limiting the number of nights that a property can be used as a short-term rental, barring short-term rentals from multi-unit buildings or limiting short-term rentals only to a room within a home, rather than the whole home. These types of regulations can help ensure that most of the existing housing stock is used to house permanent residents rather than serve recreational and tourist uses.

Vacancy Tax

Communities may also use a vacancy tax to incentivize owners of residential properties to use the units as primary homes (for themselves or full-time renters) rather than as second homes or investment vehicles. This is important in areas that have little available housing stock.