Downtown San Diego Sunset. (Photo: Dancestrokes/Shutterstock)
San Diego City Council Passes Resolution Declaring Housing a Human Right
Suppotrters hope resolution will lead to more affordable housing, rent control in San Diego
By Evan Symon, November 1, 2022 2:30 am
The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on a resolution on Monday that declares housing as a human right.
While the idea of such a resolution has been floated around many California cities since the affordable housing crisis began being more touted in the 2010s, a worsening homeless situation in San Diego, as well as a drastic drop in affordable housing permits in the city prompted Councilmembers to the resolution. The resolution itself states that “Housing is a human right and we must make this declaration to ensure we as elected leaders, and our whole community, own our responsibility to take the actions necessary to ensure every San Diegan has a real opportunity to have the decent and stable housing necessary for a dignified and healthy life.”
Before the vote on Monday, San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said that elected leaders and the community are responsible for helping ensure that every San Diego resident have housing, since it is a human right and need.
“Housing is a human right and we must make this declaration to ensure we as elected leaders and our whole community own our responsibility to take the actions necessary to ensure every San Diegan has a real opportunity to have the decent and stable housing necessary for a dignified and healthy life,” said Elo-Rivera on Monday. “This is the product of decisions that have been made over the years that have created the conditions we’re living in. Today’s action is an opportunity to boldly position ourselves and ask for accountability from our residents to ensure that everyone has access to this basic fundamental human right and human need.”
Elo-Rivera, as well as other Councilmembers, also hoped that the resolution would lead to policies that bring more affordable homes to the city and help mitigate the homeless problem by having them housed. In addition, they also hope that the resolution will lead to a ‘Tenant Protections Ordinance Workshop’, where tenants and others in the city can help build a future tenant protection ordinance that would make eviction and other means of removing tenants harder to do.
City Council passes resolution
Homeless and tenant advocate groups praised the resolution following it’s unanimous passage on Monday, which many said they hoped would build up to eventual larger-scale homeless housing and rent control in San Diego.
“We think that this is the first step in going to get stronger protections like the tenant protection ordinance, which is up for discussion today and eventually rent control,” said San Diego Tenants Union Director Rafael Bautista.
However, City Attorney Mara Elliott warned the Council before the vote on Monday that lawsuits could come as a result of the resolution, with many landlords and property renters noting that they aren’t receiving protections as a result.
“This is very worrying.” said San Diego attorney Marc Crawshay, who has represented landlords in the past, in a Globe interview on Monday. “They’re pushing for housing, tenants rights, cheaper housing which, on the surface, seems good. But you know who they are ignoring, and as a result, are not winning any favors from? Developers who can actually build cheaper housing. Landlords who can price units down. As we saw during the pandemic with landlords hung out to dry with evictions out the window for a long time, they don’t get protections. It’s great to say that housing is a human right and all, but the reality is that the Council itself has kind of set up the city where affordable housing is untenable.”
“People have been screaming for lower property taxes for a long time and other things that would incentivize developers to build cheaper housing or landlords to have cheaper rent. But the city refuses to do that or anything. This isn’t about greed, but rather doing the responsible thing, and the Council did not make that any easier with this resolution.”
Effects of the resolution are expected to be seen in the coming months.
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Government mandated and controlled housing – what could possibly go wrong? Think condos in North Korea. Or Chicago. Or Newark.
Intentional or not, this article is a warning to all potential San Diego rental property builders and investors that it would be utter folly to provide more rental housing in “America’s Finest City” with your investment dollars. This is becoming true in most big cities, as woke Democrats rule in these progressive urban centers.
Invest in apartments in smaller towns. But the best choices are outside barking mad California.
The Democrats took over complete control of San Diego city and county just a couple of years a go and already they have completely wrecked both places. Skyrocketing crime and homelessness amid endless proclamations to signal their Marxist virtues such as this one and others that include declaring that biological women don’t exist. Once again proving that as soon as the Democrats have complete control, everything goes downhill from there. Meanwhile, the people who are still living in San Diego will continue to flee the destruction that is being wrought in droves.
It’s easy for the Democrat controlled San Diego City Council to declare that every San Diego resident be housed as a human right since they know that they are not personally paying for that right? It’s sad to see how much the once beautiful City of San Diego has devolved ever since the Democrat cabal gained complete control of the city probably with the help of Democrat voter fraud and rigged voting machines?
Everyone complaining about political parties rather than focusing on how it’s going to be such a relief for struggling families should really rethink using their fingers. Just say you don’t believe housing is a basic human right and let people know you’re a tool loud and proud, no need to name parties.
Maybe those who believe that housing is a human right should invite some of the homeless into their homes instead of being a loud tool here and castigating others?
You have a right to own property, but its not a right to have it provided to you by someone else. You don’t have a right to the labor or efforts or property of other humans – that’s called slavery and stealing.
We need to make sure that we are committed to liberty and if that means we have to eradicate people advocating for slavery and theft then so be it.