California voters will decide this November whether to repeal Costa Hawkins, a decision that would allow East Palo Alto to re-enact rent-control for single-family homes. Landlords oppose the move, as do organizations like the Bay Area Council, which argues stricter rent control actually reduces the supply of rental units in the long term.

“We’re an example in East Palo Alto of the suffering this law has inflicted on people all up and down the state,” Abrica said.

“People would not make a decision to become small landlords,” said Tom Bannon, chief executive officer of the California Apartment Association, “and I think that would only exacerbate the shortage of housing that exists today.”

The debate is becoming increasingly important in the Bay Area, where the share of single-family homes on the rental market is growing. In the San Francisco metro area, which includes East Palo Alto and the rest of San Mateo County, 19 percent of single-family homes were rentals in 2016 — up from 16 percent in 2006, according to web-based real estate platform Trulia. In the San Jose area, the share of single-family homes on the rental market jumped from 15 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2016, and in the Oakland metro area, the share increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. Experts credit the burst of the housing bubble in 2008, after which real estate investors bought scores of foreclosed homes at a discount and moved them onto the rental market.

Whatever happens in November with Costa Hawkins, it will be too late for the Fetu’us.

Rent is due on the fifth of each month, but the Fetu’us had until the eighth to pay without penalty — a grace period they usually needed, they said. In July, the eighth was on a Sunday, so Malina Fetu’u dropped off the rent check at Working Dirt’s Palo Alto office on the ninth. But because she’d gotten off work late that day, she didn’t deposit her paycheck into her account until the 10th, not thinking to warn the landlord of the late deposit. By that time, Working Dirt already had tried to cash the rent check, and it bounced. On July 16, Working Dirt filed an eviction lawsuit against the Fetu’u family.