
Editor’s Note- Vote Smart is an informational series focused on the upcoming November election, and it runs ahead of the Election Day column Mark Your Ballot. Everything on the ballot – propositions, measures and candidates – will be addressed here before being summarized on November 5, 2024.
Repealing Costa- Hawkins, California’s most central legislation on rent control, and allowing local entities to enact price caps; if you are pro or anti rent control, what this measure would do is still open to speculation. But it would take away the state’s power to prevent municipalities from making their own rules.
Anyone can tell you, particularly in Culver City, the rent is outrageous. Statistics from the Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University noted that in 2022, more than half the renters in California paid more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, a level traditionally considered the border of ‘burdensome.’ More than 25 % of tenants shelled out over half their income on housing.
This is another chapter in the ongoing saga of AIDS Healthcare Foundation versus the real estate industry. The Los Angeles based nonprofit has been very involved in housing issues; they are the group targeted by Prop 34. They were also the folks behind two previous statewide rent control initiatives that failed in 2020 and 2018. So the record of success is less than stellar.
It’s not a landlords versus tenants issue (although some might see it that way.) It’s a housing versus population loss/homelessness issue. Something has to be done, policies need to change. No matter how many temporary shelters or safe camping sites we have, it’s not housing. So perhaps if we move to a legal standard where people can pay rent and still afford to feed their children, it’s a huge societal benefit for everyone.
That’s a yes.
Judith Martin-Straw