Tag: California Apartment Association (CAA)

Rent control and just cause eviction protections are the only fair and humane ways to slow down greedy landlords and profiteering realtors and developers from gouging renters with never ending rent increases and unjust evictions, displacing renters from their communities and adding to the already dire affordable housing crisis in California. During late April of 2018, the campaign to repeal Costa-Hawkins submitted over 565,000 signatures to place the Affordable Housing Act on the November 2018 ballot, which, if passed, would repeal the draconian Costa-Hawkins Act.

For years, tenants in cities throughout California have charged that the California Apartment Association’s signature gatherers used fraud, lies and deceit to collect signatures for petitions meant to defeat efforts to protect renters from greedy landlords. Reportedly, a Utah couple is expected to appear soon in the San Mateo County Superior Court for arraignment on charges of election fraud for faking signatures for a petition meant to block renter protections from taking effect in Pacifica during 2017.

Stephen D. Pahl of the Pahl & McCay law firm, who is also a founding organizer and vice chairman of Lighthouse Bank in Santa Cruz and an ex-officio member of the board of directors of the California Apartment Association (CAA), is directly involved in the assault against Richmond voters and the voters of Mountain View who voted to approve rent control and just cause eviction protections last November.

In a huge victory for the voters and renters of Richmond, earlier today Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Judith S. Craddick rejected a temporary restraining order (TRO), sought by the California Apartment Association (CAA) to block rent control and just cause eviction protections passed by the voters on Nov. 8, 2016. The City Attorney’s Office in Richmond mounted an effective defense against the TRO, and it was rejected at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan 6.

On March 3, the same day that Oakland tenant activists filed a ballot initiative to strengthen renter protections called the “Renters Upgrade,” the California Apartment Association (CAA) announced that they were keeping an eye on things and are coming up with their own plan to counter the tenant’s movement efforts somehow, including in Richmond and Alameda.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23, the Fair and Affordable Richmond Coalition, a group uniting renters, homeowners, organizations, local elected officials, local community activists and labor, filed a proposed ballot measure to protect Richmond’s tenants against unjust evictions and unfair rent increases. The Richmond City Clerk has 15 days to write a title and summary for the initiative. The coalition will have until June to gather 4,198 signatures to place the measure on the November ballot.