https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xST_4y3ILXk
Oakland News Now Presents:
Seems Oakland City Council Will “Accept Unlawful Evictions”, Dump Eviction Moratorium
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There are some in Oakland who are trying to convince the world that the Pandemic is over, when the truth is it’s still with us, and we have the prospect of reccesstion facing us, caused by crazy Fed Reserve Policy. But the Oakland City Council is ready to go along with other California cities that don’t have Oakland’s giant homeless problem, and dump its eviction moratorium. That even as it’s known that many Oakland landlords did get rental aide for their tenants units, and separate from the renters.
On Twitter, yesterday, newly elected Oakland District Four Councilmember Janani Ramachandran tweeted this:
“I’m proud to support Council President Bas’s amended legislation to wind down the eviction moratorium. The harsh reality is that no realistic proposal is going to avoid some amount of unjust evictions for vulnerable tenants, nor will make the many small landlords who were (1/3) unable to get financial relief for unpaid whole. I believe this compromise reflects thoughtful leadership despite the circumstances, and I hope to collaborate with my colleagues to prepare for the next phase of addressing our housing crisis. (2/3) Please feel free to contact me & my team directly if you have questions or feedback, I welcome civil discourse and constructive debate. (3/3).”
It seems that Councilmember Ramachandran did not stop to consider how the City could, itself, step in and make the tenants whole by making sure they weren’t dumped out on the street by landlords who got aide from Oakland or the State of California on the tenant’s units, and then sought to push out the tenants. There’s no rush to do that, and every reason to hurry up and get money to both landlords and tenants, because of the weak economy, the looming recession, and the fact that the inital renter aide programs were under-funded, to start with. Moreover, the Oakland City Council knew it. Take what Oakland District Three Councilmember Carroll Fife wrote last year:
Date: April 28, 2022
To:
Members of City Council and Members of the Public
From: Councilmember Fife and Vice Mayor Kaplan
Fulfillment of Outstanding Rental Assistance Applications
Re:
Dear Colleagues on the City Council and Members of the Public,
In 2020, the long-standing housing affordability crisis intensified when the COVID-19 pandemic sparked an economic and public health crisis that threatened the housing stability and lives of millions of renters in California. Throughout the past two years, low-income renters who struggled to pay rent before the COVID-19 pandemic were put in an even more precarious position to pay rent due to job loss and increased expenses. Currently, 730,000 California households are behind on rent, the total rent debt amounting to approximately $3.2 billion, based on analyses of rent relief distributions from the US Treasury Report and Census Household Pulse Survey Data through
March 2022. In response to the growing need to support renters who were and continue to be at risk of losing their housing, the Federal government and States allocated funding to local jurisdictions to establish rental assistance programs. However, many tenants have struggled to receive assistance because of oversubscription and administrative issues with the programs. This resolution,
therefore, calls upon the State of California to fulfill all outstanding rental applications that meet the eligibility requirements, and clarifies that the City of Oakland did not, and does not, opt out of the State’s announced March 31, 2022 Safe Harbor Program for applicants.”
In other words, the Oakland City Council did know there was a problem where rental aide was underfunded, yet even with legal tools like tax increment financing, the City of Oakland did nothing to create a funding war chest for landlords and tenants.
Now, we have a situation where Oakland’s City Council wants to dump its eviction moratorium even as we’re in the Pandemic and facing a recession, and it’s clear that some Oakland landlords got aide and are now trying to kick tenants out.
This is making a City of Oakland Government actually look like it doesn’t care to do any truly meaningful policy work, let alone file a lawsuit against the State of California to get the help tenants and landlords need.
Stay tuned.
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