San Jose city leaders have decided to extend a temporary ban on residential evictions until May 31 and forge ahead with a plan to temporarily prohibit landlords from increasing rent for tens of thousands of rental units across the city.

The proposed rent increase freeze is slated to become the newest layer of protection for San Jose tenants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. If passed by the council on April 21, San Jose will join just a handful of California cities, including Oakland and Los Angeles, that have already instituted similar measures.

“If we can protect a few renters from (potential rent increases) during this time of serious economic crisis, then certainly we should do so,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said during a council meeting Tuesday night.

“The reality is there’s very a-symmetric harm in this crisis. For tenants, the choice is quite often their tenancy or living on the street,” he added.

The proposed ordinance would cover about 39,000 apartments and more than 10,000 rent-controlled mobile homes that fall under the city’s rent stabilization program, according to city statistics. Landlords of units covered under the ordinance will be prohibited from increasing rents until December 31.

The city’s apartment rent ordinance typically allows owners of apartment buildings with three or more units that were built on or before September 1979 to increase rents by up to 5% every year. Owners of mobile home parks that were built on or before September 1979 are typically allowed to raise fees by up to 75% of the change in the region’s consumer price index — with a maximum of increase of 7% — every year.

Single-family home rentals and most newer apartments are not subject to rent control under state law and therefore will not be covered by the newly proposed emergency ordinance.

The council’s decision to move forward with the temporary freeze on rent increases has troubled some small ‘mom and pop’ landlords who say they may need rent increases to pay their mortgages, property taxes and other bills.

Roberta Moore, who owns a fourplex rental in San Jose, said small landlords such as herself feel “vulnerable, attacked and unappreciated for the services that we provide.”

Andrea Caldwell, a landlord of about 300 units in the city, urged the council to “do your homework and get more participation and interaction from all sides of the industry before you act.”

“If you think enacting more controls is going to balance the market place, there is ample evidence around the nation of this misguided approach,” Caldwell wrote in a letter to the council.

Some tenant advocates applauded the council’s action but pleaded with them to continue to look for ways to protect some of the most vulnerable residents in the city, including tenants, low-wage earners and undocumented people who are disproportionately renters.

“It’s imperative that we take every step we can for these families who rely disproportionately on rental homes to do what we can for them,” Jeffery Buchanan of the Working Partnerships USA said. “Certainly, these are some good first steps, but we need to do more.”

On March 17, San Jose adopted a temporary ban on evictions until the end of April for all renters in the city who are unable to pay rent because of the coronavirus pandemic– becoming one of the first city’s in the nation to do so. The move was then followed by similar eviction moratoriums implemented by cities and countries across the country and Bay Area, including Santa Clara County, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In the coming weeks, the council is expected to consider amending the eviction moratorium ordinance to give tenants until December 31 to pay back the rents they postponed during the moratorium.

San Jose has also adopted a ban on commercial evictions for businesses affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and implemented a temporary paid sick leave policy that guarantees any essential employee in the city will be paid if they are affected by the growing coronavirus crisis and unable to work.

Despite the many initiatives San Jose has taken to protect tenants and the city’s low-income residents during the uncertain times, the city council rejected a controversial proposal last week to suspend rent for three months for tenants who are unable to pay rent because of coronavirus, citing concerns that it would violate the constitution.