732,000 Letters Favoring Ballot Initiative to Increase Rent Control

A group of California housing advocates, renters, lawmakers, and social justice organizations announced on Tuesday that they will be sending more than 732,000 letters to Governor Gavin Newsom to help convince him to support the upcoming 2024 statewide rent control expansion proposition.

Throughout the first half of 2023, rent control supporters began collecting signatures for a proposed rent control expansion proposition. The rent control proposition, which currently does not have a number assigned to it, will specifically repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. In addition, the proposition will clarify that the state may not limit the right of cities and counties to maintain, enact, or expand rent control. However, the state would still keep statewide measures in place.

By the May signature deadline, more than 800,000 signatures had been collected of the 546,651 needed to go on the November 2024 ballot. This proved to be enough, as California Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced two months later in July that enough signatures had been verified and the proposition was heading to the ballot.

Despite this, support for the proposition has been slow going. Previous propositions for greater rent control in the state have failed miserably, with Prop 10 failing 40%-60% in 2018 and Prop 21 failing by a similar percentage in 2020. In the latter year, COVID-19 pandemic sympathies for helping keep people housed during the crisis had barely increased support for such a proposition.

Three years later, every indication shows that the new proposition will likely fail yet again by a wide margin. Opposition from previous campaigns pointing out how increased rent control would cost cities tens of millions of dollars and an overall reduction of rental units if passed have remained relevant to the new proposition. Experts have also said that more affordable housing being built is a better option as opposed to rent control.

Support for increased rent control continues to fall short

Needing increased support the third time around in six years, supporters of the “Justice for Renters Act” announced on Tuesday that they will be having a press conference on Wednesday at Noon at the State Capitol Building to present 732,000 letters from Californian residents in favor of the proposition to Governor Gavin Newsom. Since Gov. Newsom is currently in China, the group, who is being led at the rally by Senator Ben Allen (D-Malibu), will instead deliver the 250 boxes of letters to Newsom’s office. According to the coalition of groups, they want Newsom to support or not oppose the rent control proposition next year.

Political experts noted that if the groups want the proposition to pass next year, they would need far more than Newsom’s support, as the vast majority of California voters still oppose statewide rent control past the current ‘built after 1995’ unit exemption.

“That’s the thing supporters of this proposition still don’t get,” said political advertising consultant Jayson Hibbert to the Globe. “There is rent control in California, and that is focused on older units. But having way more fall under that banner would just wreck havoc. New construction with the focused inclusion of affordable units has been largely favored, but advocates just want short-term lower rents while dooming the market long-term.

“Luckily most Californians get this. There’s a lot of renters in California, and they know this. A better angle would be to lessen gentrification and increase the required number of affordable units in each new apartment construction, as you would catch a lot more voters that way, but they don’t. They keep trying for the same thing. This time around they want Newsom firmly on board, but he doesn’t exactly get people out to vote on this sort of thing. They also hope that more voters coming out for the 2024 election will help, but 2020 proved that wrong.

“They need a better idea than getting the Governor’s support on this. The rally on Wednesday will be sizeable most likely, but it just won’t have that needed impact.”

More on the 2024 rent control proposition is likely to come out soon.