127 SHARES Share

To update the old proverb, if the mountain won’t come to rent control, then the rent control must go to mountain—therefore, members of the Pasadena Tenants Union have filed a petition with the City of Pasadena to collect signatures. With enough autographs, the Union hopes to have a Fair and Equitable Housing Ordinance before the citizens of Pasadena by November of next year.

By Garrett Rowlan

The Union had hoped to release this information in two weeks, this being the amount of time needed for the Pasadena City Clerk’s office to release the ordinance’s official title and summary. However, the Union’s hand was forced when this filing was leaked to a Pasadena blog, thus necessitating the need to go public.

Nicole Marie Hodgson, one of the proponents of the initiative and a member of the Tenants Union, said:

Our goal is to be equitable with all the media within the City of Pasadena and L.A. County, but unfortunately we were unable to do that.

Regardless of the unusual means of rollout, the hoped-for ordinance would establish a Just Cause mandate that would be of benefit to both landlords and renters by establishing a Rent Control Board, consisting of five people appointed by the City Council. The Board would be able to track housing issues and housing trends, as in who is being pushed out and why. The number of people given the boot includes, as noted by Hodgson, mom-and-pop landlords who are in the sights of larger, corporate landowners. Currently, a renter can be asked—or commanded—to move out in 60 days, no reason need be given. Just Cause would provide an antidote to this Draconian practice. What the tenants’ Union is aiming at is a win-win solution, where both renters and landlords can reach a reasonable compromise. Hodgson doesn’t expect rents not to rise, but to do so in a fair and gradual manner.

A Just Cause

mandate

that benefits

landlords

and renters

The need for an ordinance addresses renters’ perilous conditions, where the monthly fare can skyrocket hundreds of dollars for the 56 percent of Pasadena citizens who rent. With the average bill for a one-bedroom unit in Pasadena rising by 51 percent in the last six years, renters often have no recourse except to economize further or pack their bags. Furthermore, with a less-than-encouraging response from members of City Council, it was decided to adopt a stronger method of moving the proverbial mountain.

The effort to collect the signatures will be a grassroots movement, involving door-to-door solicitations, supermarket bivouacs, and other strategies pursued by the Union’s near 200-strong members and supporters. The cutoff date to collect signatures needed is estimated to be in May in order to qualify for the November 6 ballot of 2018.