Oakland caps rent hikes during COVID-19 outbreak

With the first of the month only a few days away and many housebound Bay Area residents out of work, the city of Oakland will cap rent increases on all units, on top of adopting the most aggressive eviction moratorium in the Bay Area.

In a remote meeting, the Oakland City Council unanimously passed the new renter protections on Friday. Councilperson Nikkie Fortunato Bas, who authored the measure, said making sure tenants stay in their homes is “the most important thing we can do as a city” in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The suite of renter protections packs in a host of provisions, including:

• Landlords cannot raise rents more than 3.5 percent, a citywide rent cap that applies to all units until June 30 and amounts to a kind of short-term rent control.
• Under the terms of the newly adopted eviction ban, “It shall be an absolute defense to any unlawful detainer action [...] that the notice was served or expired, or that the complaint was filed or served” during the present emergency.
• Landlords may not charge late fees for rent payments missed during the outbreak if nonpayment is on account of the health crisis or related loss of work.
• Even after the eviction moratorium expires on May 31, landlords are indefinitely prohibited from removing tenants from homes “if you are unable to pay that rent due to financial hardship related to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• The moratorium also includes a bar on evictions for commercial renters as “an absolute defense” if missed rent payments are “the result of a substantial decrease in income [...] caused by the COVID-19 pandemic” or by mitigation orders from state, federal, or local government. This applies only to outlets classified as small businesses, and to nonprofits.
• Renters must still pay the full back rent to their landlords—there’s no rent freeze included—but no matter how long repayment takes, it can never be used as grounds to evict.

The meeting, held via teleconference, attracted many calls from Oakland residents supporting the new protections, although the council faced some criticisms. One woman, who called herself a “small landlord,” said she supports an eviction ban but demanded “there needs to be something in some of these ordinances to help landlords,” predicting that Oakland homes will go to seed if property owners can’t pay for upkeep.

Councilperson Sheng Thao noted before voting, “Many of our families were already living on the margins.” She lamented that the shelter-in-place order would be a death knell for small businesses without more intervention.

Councilperson Lynette Gibson McElhaney argued the vulnerability of black households during economic crises, saying, “When America gets a cold, black folks catch pneumonia.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide order delaying enforcement of evictions last week, but Oakland’s legislation provides many renter protections that the statewide order does not, such as the protections from eviction over debts on back rent.

San Francisco Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen are continuing their calls for a statewide freeze on rents, saying in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed that debts accrued by renters during eviction moratoriums will suffocate the Bay Area economy.