Throughout the course of my life, housing insecurity as a renter has always been a real, creeping fear. As a kid growing up in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, it was all too common to come home from school with the lights shut off or for there to be no gas to cook a dinner. As a City College student, I experienced a mass eviction from Ivy Apartments on the lower Westside. In my last year of putting myself through college, I spent the majority of my fall quarter homeless, sleeping in cars and staying on friends’ couches all the while working 25 hours a week and taking a 20-credit courseload of upper division political science classes. It shouldn’t take the threat of homelessness to make one realize housing is a human right. That is why we need our local government to utilize the full scope of its power and expand relocation assistance for no-fault evictions.
Secure and stable rental housing has always been an uphill trudge for a vast segment of Santa Barbarans. As COVID-19 sends shocks through all segments of the economy, the immediate tremors and impact have been felt by those at the bottom. This is why we need our elected officials to act boldly and live up to the progressive values they ran on by expanding rental relocation assistance for no-fault evictions. If passed, the current rental assistance proposal would place Santa Barbara as one of the weakest local eviction laws in the State. The proposed assistance program only covers two times the average rental cost in Santa Barbara. Not only is this wholly inadequate to the cost of moving, temporary housing, and paying first and last months’ rent alongside a security deposit, but the proposed protection fails to live up to council members’ claims of being progressive politicians.
Some would argue that there is no need to expand relocation assistance services in Santa Barbara due to the previously established California AB 1482. However, the law still allows families to be evicted for no fault of their own if a landlord wants to renovate the building or replace a tenant with their own family member. If a landlord decides to evict renters for these reasons, there must be adequate and corresponding protections. Current tenants need protection ensuring them funds to pay for expensive temporary housing in addition to moving costs, security deposits and first and last month’s rent.