Correspondence - #07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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"Were they all talking about the same tenant?" Absolutely not. However, two of the attached sixty day notices below come from the same landlord who evicted an entire building of long term residents (mostly lower income, spanish speaking) just to paint the walls and rent out the units at double the rents - hardly "substantial repairs" at all. So while individuals affiliated with TUSA were absolutely NOT talking about the same tenant during public comments (which is completely separate from all the individual tenants who offered their own experiences and are now being targeted by their landlords), there are multiple landlords and entities who repeatedly destabilize our City with their intimidation, and outright ease of ability to simply displace long term residents in their pursuit of higher rents for the sake of short term profit above all else. "How were people able to be evicted when there has been a long standing moratorium on evictions? A landlord is not even allowed to go to court to get an eviction. How could they be evicting tenants?" The moratorium on evictions is and has only ever been applicable when the eviction is for non-payment of rent during the pandemic provided that the Tenant was experiencing COVID-19 related income loss. So that means all other evictions not related to non-payment of rent because of COVID were proceeding and have been proceeding in the city during the pandemic as well as in the courts during the pandemic. Additionally, evictions in courts where the landlord claimed that the tenant never provided a declaration of inability to pay rent because of COVID were still able to proceed. Where tenants had been earning income during the pandemic and didn't get sick, landlords still increased rents and then evicted those who couldn't pay the increased rent. The remainder of your comments were focused solely on rent payments but rent payments aren't the sole issue tenants face in Santa Ana. "smaller property owners tend to ... deal more with rental abuse and begin evictions at a higher rate than larger professional management companies. Perhaps these are the troubled tenants referred to by TUSA?" It's all across the board unfortunately. The ordinances aim to hold everyone to the same standards city wide. "Implementing rent control laws would make it impossible to justify investing in such problem properties in Santa Ana. With no financial incentive there is little hope that older apartment communities will be improved and blight will occur" If investments are based in models which depend upon lending agreements instead of cash for acquisitions, yes, it may become impossible. But even in the scenario of a cash acquisition, any projections and models should properly analyze risk and ultimately, any return is better than no return or a negative return. Investors thus have to continue to invest wisely. Additionally, even without rent control in Santa Ana for countless decades now, I can readily list various neighborhoods where blight is taking place while rents increased at unaffordable amounts year over year. I don't think any blight that arises will be due to rent stabilization or just cause. Blight may continue to occur because of the direct choice of the individual landlords improperly accounting for necessary maintenance during the course of their ownership of properties - but at least tenants will have the ability to hold such landlords accountable. "TUSA indicated that people could not pay their rent and therefore will lose their homes" Yes, and those testimonies also included recounting traumatic experiences where Landlords and building management company employees were harassing and bullying tenants - not just the ever increasing unaffordable rents. Many of the tenant residents who spoke (not necessarily affiliated with TUSA) are at their wits end. The most vocal were actually not affiliated with TUSA at all. They are residents whose landlords are increasing rents to the max ahead of these ordinances coming into effect. Those who are affiliated with TUSA spoke not just about rent payments, but the abuse and intimidations that tenants face from LLs and property managers apart from paying rent. To remedy any claims of unfair taking: Units subject to the rent stabilization ordinance will be able to request increases above the max increase amounts provided there's substance for such an increase and they will still enjoy at most returns of 3% upon rent increases coupled with any equity gains in the process. Not all units will be subject. Rents can be offered at market rate upon vacancy per Costa Hawkins. "Bad tenants" can still be evicted. Landlords will continue to earn a fair return on their investments in Santa Ana. Residents and communities will be stabilized creating a strong local economy for all in the City.