To get people represented, but nonetheless, hundreds fall through the cracks that they're simply not the human resources to deal with.

There is a private bar, there is movement legal, about which I hope we will hear from Leah, and the fabulous work that they do there.

And there are other organizations that mostly represent tenants in affirmative lawsuits when tenants are not defendants and defending lawsuits, but are plaintiffs in suing housing providers when, as I like to say, when they need to be sued.

Don't get me wrong.

Housing providers where would we be without them?

And of course, I only see, we only see uh the worst cases, and I know from decades of experience that the overwhelming majority of housing providers do a really good job and uh in sometimes difficult circumstances with all the economics involved.

So there are two sides.

There are the eviction defense sides of the resources that I just mentioned.

Legal assistance for seniors is one that I did not mention.

Each of these organizations has their niche.

Some are generalists like us, and like Bay Community Law Center, and uh Eventually Defense Center, uh, that take a huge variety.

Um, others have their specialties, Bay Area Legal Aid, they do mostly subsidized housing, eviction defense, um, and eviction uh legal citizens for seniors represents as the name might imply seniors.

But I'm here to tell you it's not enough.

And that's why programs like the City of Alameda operates and like this program for education are so important.

I would refer you to the resource sheet that is out in the in the lobby and handouts from our office, um, which has a wide variety of resources on it from local house city housing um inspection departments, which are very, very important, and I would say generally underfunded, generally do not meet the needs of our clients that I see.

But so that's a public policy issue in re expenditures of resources that I would I would urge everyone in attendance with some influence in that area to fund because that prevents larger larger problems in the future.

But there's a wide variety of resources available on this two-page sheet.

And I would urge you all, regardless of what side of the equation you're on, to take it and hold it close and distribute it widely.

Just summarize the uh the areas that the East Bay Community Law Center uh works in because it's not only housing.

Uh we do immigration, immigrants' rights, the full panoply of of uh rights related to immigrants and services to the immigrant community.

Um in our practice area of housing, we also do um homeless advocacy.

We we've done huge work in the um in the homeless encampments and uh working trying to make that a uh more humane circumstance uh for everyone.

We have a youth defense program which uh steps in to try to assist young people who are either in trouble with the law, which spills over into schools, or they have a problem in schools, which spills over into a law enforcement issue.

Um the school to pipeline, uh the school the prison pipeline uh interruption is what that program is about.

It it's amazing the the kinds of uh circumstances that they intervene in with often great outcomes.

We have a social work component, which is relatively new, which is actually one of our most valuable, because you know what all of us do, we were all engaged in a lot of social work.

Uh and so we are very, very fortunate to have uh just a few social workers on our team, and they work in all of our areas, and they their social worker skills and knowledge that they bring to the table are invaluable to help resolve our our sometimes very intractable, really, really difficult situations.

And then we have a our health and economic security um unit at East Bay Community Law Center, which which provides a variety of services hooking people up with their with their public benefits if they're not already on them.

A lot of people come to us, they don't they don't have public benefits, they don't realize that they're qualified for public benefits, and as long as in this country we still have a few of them, we might as well grab them uh if we are eligible.

So those are some of the uh programs we offer.

As I said, all of our sister agencies do different things, but they're all on the resource sheet.

I repeat that we are lucky that in this part of the world where we have these resources, but they're not enough.

And on that cheerful note, I thank you very, very much for being present.

Thank you so much, Mark.

And um, as he says, there are there are a lot of resources and organizations in the Bay for people who need help, and it can get confusing.

It gets confusing to us sometimes.

But we want to encourage folks to call RICO at City Hall or get in touch by email if you're wondering how to how to resolve your issue, because one of the services we provide is to guide people to the right agency, um, hopefully to meet their needs.

And that includes legal aid, because there are a number of those offices.

Our next speaker is Gary Rhodes.

He's a renowned fair housing attorney, um, long time practicing in California.

Um Gary is a civil rights attorney and also a writer.

He was a Santa Monica Deputy City Attorney for 16 years, working on cases of housing discrimination and consumer fraud.

He has successfully litigated over 100 fair housing and consumer protection cases and has published numeral numerous articles and two manuals on housing discrimination and related issues.

Gary's past honors include Fair Housing for Our Futures 2024 Fair Housing Hero Award, California Lawyer Magazine's award as California Lawyer of the Year, and UC Davis School of Laws, Martin Luther King Jr.

Public Service Award.

And Gary's going to update us on what the hell is going on in the world of fair housing today.

Please welcome Gary.

Thanks, Adam.

Um I want to add on on the issue of the importance of cities uh in their uh their resources and enforcement work.

Um my wife and I moved to Kansas City, Missouri, which is actually my uh true hometown after I retired from the city attorney's office.

We moved there back in 2023.

And just following the the great example of this city and the the city of Santa Monica where Adam and I worked for a long time and and cities like Berkeley I knew it was important to get involved with the city and and last month Mayor Quentin Lucas named me to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board of that city.

So I'm I'm I'm still inspired by the example of the importance of municipal work in this in this field.

I am also inspired by this by this group I've I think I've come back here now this is my fourth year and I I just think there's something really special about tenants and landlords and advocates and property managers and attorneys coming together to learn about these fair housing laws.

I think on in my handout you saw some of the history of the Fair Housing Act we we have these Alameda host this in April because it's National Fair Housing Month it's the month that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed and largely do the work of Dr.

King and other civil rights advocates of that time and also President Lyndon Johnson those people and Dr.

King would be amazed I think to see this happening that you know landlords and tenants coming together to learn about these laws in these forums so I think and especially these days where uh in my red state of Missouri uh where there's virtually no fair housing enforcement uh or gatherings like this you all are are uh right now in this storm a keeper of the flame a keeper of the fair housing flame so uh I my my hat is off to the city and for you all to come together like this so uh last week uh my wife and I attended a housing rights organiz uh housing rights event in Kansas City uh called the rent is too damn high and uh the speakers were uh tenants organizers uh uh scholars and there was even a very famous uh sociologist uh there live that night but uh the the person I want to talk about was a speaker uh uh uh a speaker named uh tenant named Diane and she actually what she had to say inspired me to write a whole new presentation uh which I did on the plane right here last night and then early this morning so bear with me uh you know I've got I'm gonna be reading from my from my notes here uh quite a bit um but I want to tell you what's happening in Kansas City Missouri uh as the new federal actions of the past couple years start to hit and I'm gonna compare that and contrast that with what you have here in in California to kind of give you to guide kind of give us a bird's eye view of of these uh federal actions so uh Diane is a working mother she is a tenant and she's a black tenant in a town that has historically subjected its black tenants to some of the worst segregation and discrimination in the country.

In fact Kansas City was one of the exhibites for the for Congress and President Johnson back in 1968 when they passed the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 58 years later that starts quietly with repairs not being made in her apartment building that's owned by a corporate landlord and it ended in a storm more rent increases more repair issues and families getting pushed out of their homes once you're pushed out Diane points out the next place that will accept you is always worse because you have less money fewer options and fewer landlords willing to take a chance on you.

I'm gonna be talking a little bit about uh the use of algorithmic tenant screening uh programs where uh a an algorithm or an AI generated program sees you know what neighborhood you just came from and that you've left suddenly and you're gonna get a lower score because of of uh what just happened that was you know uh unfairly done to you in the in the in the uh your living situation before now I want to say uh something here because there's landlords and tenants in this room most landlords are not trying to discriminate and and certainly those of you that are here today here to learn more about your fair housing obligations and your and your tenants' fair housing rights uh you're not you're not part of this problem uh landlords are landlords are trying to manage risk follow the law and keep their properties running the problem is that some of the tools and policies being used today especially at scale by the landlords the the corporate landlords that now own more and more of the rental units uh can either intentionally or unintentionally uh produce discriminatory outcomes as this is happening our fair housing enforcement is disappearing in America especially in states like Missouri important housing fair housing tools like the disparate

The problem is that some of the tools and policies being used today, especially at scale by the landlords, the the corporate landlords that now own more and more of the rental units uh can either intentionally or unintentionally uh produce discriminatory outcomes.

As this is happening, our fair housing enforcement is disappearing in America, especially in states like Missouri.

Um important housing, fair housing tools like the disparate impact rule uh that I think uh uh the attorney general was alluding to in his list this morning.

Uh that tool's been being confiscated by the federal government.

And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about why it's so important.

Uh the use of algorithms is on the rise, and all the guardrails on it is being they're being removed.

Uh along with that, you've got this unprecedented barrage of of hostile actions against uh protected classes like immigrant tenants and LGBTQ uh classes that uh and I I know uh Leah's gonna talk about uh her organization's great work with immigrant tenants, so I I am uh I I won't uh uh uh overlap with that.

But uh that combine those, you know, with the evictions and the uh the loss of uh uh income, we have a situation where uh uh evictions and uh homelessness uh they're they're not they're not uh uh reflection of of poverty, they're they're causing the poverty.

Uh and Diane's example is a good uh a good example of that.

Let's go back to the first building uh that she was at, because what happened to Diane was she uh when when they had that storm of um of uh rent increases and and repair issues and fights with their corporate landlord and they lost that housing and then they tried to find new housing, and each each one got worse and worse.

Uh uh, what if we could go back to the very beginning and look at what was happening with that first landlord?

And what if there was an evidence or concern that a corporate landlord was targeting only the black and Latino tenants in that building, or that uh that corporate landlord had uh buildings in uh other neighborhoods, white neighborhoods of Kansas City that were being kept uh in pristine condition.

If in other words, what if Diane and her friends wanted and her family and her neighbors wanted to file a fair housing complaint?

Well, in at the federal level in Missouri, that's much harder now.

The infrastructure that enforces fair housing laws has been hollowed out by the Senkett Trump administration in an unprecedented way.

Um staffing cuts, funding reductions, and shifting enforcement priorities at the U.S.

Department of HUD and Urban Development, HUD, uh and the Department of Justice have slowed investigations and reduced the number of systemic discrimination cases drastically.

The KC HUD office has been hit as hard as anyone.

So it's not a real option, and there isn't there are no uh counterpart options uh at the state agency level in in Missouri.

In California, we have a similar problem with with HUD and its cuts and staffing reductions.

Um I was at a fair housing conference in San Diego last February when uh HUD in the middle of the conference was sending people, including people at that conference that had uh grants from HUD, investigation grants, they had they were announcing that they were going to uh uh uh uh claw back the grant, the current grant that they were on and layoffs had to happen immediately.

So that that almost devastated the uh the fair housing groups just here in California.

Luckily, some litigation uh has at least temporarily straightened that stuff out.

They've got they got that money back, the current money, but now they're fighting for the next year's grant to keep investigations going.

Um if you want to hear a little bit more about that, uh uh I do uh I moderate a video series for the American Bar Association called How Things Work.

And one of those, in one of those interviews, I interview the the attorney uh from the Realman Law firm that represented all the fair housing agencies in that case against the Trump administration.

And he goes into great detail about the impact of those of what happens when uh HUD money gets cut and HUD staff gets uh laid off or fired.

It's called dismantling HUD.

So if she doesn't get to file, Diane didn't get to file a complaint.

In fact, she did not file any complaints in Missouri.

So she started looking for new housing.

Today many of the landlords in Kansas City, especially the large ones, use screening products that rely on either basic algorithms or the fancier stuff, the generative AI programs.

And that the they decide who gets housing.

Now these systems are riddled with errors, and they rely on past data.

And in a country with a long history of discrimination, and in a city like Kansas City, where you have uh whole zip codes that were uh redlined and and uh where there were really strict uh rules in place to keep uh white tenants in one place and black tenants in another place.

That data gets observed by these algorithms or this uh these AI programs, and they note it, and it it becomes uh an issue in the scoring that that is going to produce for for the tenant.

So the software reproduces old bias quietly, automatically, and without explanation.

And Diane gets a rejection letter that doesn't that gives her no notice about what uh went into the making of that decision.

Um there's another type of discrimination that is in play when a especially when a screening product uh screening product does this uh on a systemic basis uh and it's it's called the disparate impact rule.

In in uh at the federal level, and especially in California, we've always had at least two basic ways to show uh uh a fair housing violation.

One is just through direct evidence that a that a landlord is is discriminating based on a protected class.

They might have said something uh uh that made it that made that clear.

Um or they have a policy that looks neutral but actually has a discriminatory effect on a protected class.

And a couple of examples would be uh if they had a policy uh to use uh arrests, past arrests in their in their scoring system or in their decision to uh bring on a tenant.

Uh it is you know through studies and statistics that's been proven that uh black males uh are arrested at a far greater uh rate than white males and without the corresponding convictions.

So if you have a policy that's based on arrests, that's gonna have a discriminatory impact that you can show through statistics uh uh that's based on race.

Another example is uh looking at evictions for uh black females and in families with children.

They have uh a uh uh a rate that is far higher than uh their white uh counterparts or family or or folks without children.

So that's an unfair use of uh of that of that category.

Um that's what disparate impact is designed to catch.

And right now that tool is under threat.

In fact, uh the the very one of the very first things that Donald Trump did was write an executive order that said we're getting all disparate impact rule work uh you know at the federal level.

Even though there's a Supreme Court case from just 10 years ago that states that the disparate impact analysis uh is okay in fair housing cases.

It was that specific, and he and the Trump administration is basically ignoring that that court precedent and they're going after this work by not making it have not doing it in the very agency that's been really leading uh in that area for for many years.

Um right now they're they've already proposed a regulation uh that will gut the rule for any fair housing work that HUD does.

And we all made comments on it, and that comment period is ended, and we're we're we're waiting to see if it becomes uh a final rule in the next probably the next uh month.

Um here in uh comparing that to California, uh you're very fortunate in California in that uh there is a disparate impact rule written into the fair housing laws, and you have a you have a civil rights agency at the state level that is definitely going to keep working on those cases uh and you have that happening at at several um uh cities and counties.

Uh I filed uh a case um earlier this year that I'm co-counseling with the Southern California for Southern California Fair Housing Center.

Uh it's an immigration status case.

And in that case, we had a county rule, uh a city law, and a uh and the state law to cite as claims in our in our brief.

Uh we wouldn't have any of those in in the state of Missouri or or in Kansas City.

Um there's another layer to uh besides disparate impact and uh AI uh and the lack of enforcement.

I think the the last layer I want to talk about uh is uh what happens next if if there's no if there's no protections here.

Now the the famous sociologist that I mentioned that was there that night last week, uh his name is Matthew Desman, and uh he is the author of Evicted, which won uh the Pulitzer a few years ago.

Uh Matthew uh lived in a mobile home park uh for I believe it like a year and a half um and uh was studying the issue of evictions and the effect of evictions in in Milwaukee on an up close basis.

And uh he concluded that eviction evictions are what push working families into worse housing, worse schools, and fewer opportunities.

He also had these numbers about the fair housing uh aspects of this.

Uh black renters uh are just about 18 to 19 percent of renters there, but over they represented over 50 percent of the eviction filings, and they made up almost half of those that were actually evicted.

So by the time a discrimination case could be filed, and they're they're not being filed in in a lot of areas like like Missouri, uh the damage is already done.

But these are these are the broader pressures on on fair housing protections.

So I come to you uh, you know, from what it feels like in fair housing terms, uh uh another planet uh now, the the red planet of of Missouri.

And uh and and like I said, places like this, California, uh you're the keepers of the fair housing flame, uh because in the end it's it's not just about the laws that we have, it's it's the enforcement uh and it's the education.

And um it's also about whether we recognize that the storm that Diane described uh doesn't just start with one decision.

It's a series of decisions, policies, tools, and practices that uh can either expand opportunity or quietly close the door and push someone into poverty.

And whether or not that happens is is up to us.

Thanks.

Thanks so much, Gary.

Our next speaker, we welcome back Leah Simon Weisberg.

Uh she's gonna be talking about uh one of the most pressing issues in our society today, and certainly in the fair housing area, which is immigration and tenants' rights.

Leah has devoted her legal career to fighting for tenants in California and ending the housing affordability crisis.

She is founding executive director for California Center for Movement Legal Services.

During the pandemic, Leah developed the eviction moratoriums in Berkeley and Oakland, which led to the state of California passing similar protections.

Leah was chair of the elected Berkeley Rent Board and is an adjunct professor at University of California.

It has a new name now, College of Law, San Francisco.

Please welcome Leah.

Thank you so much.

It's really uh kind of one of my favorite uh you know events all year.

And and much of it is because the folks that have been brought together, and I always leave here, you know, with my mind um, you know, really kind of feeling creative and what can we do do next.

So I really want to thank um the city attorney's office uh for you know putting this together with such intention and and thoughtfulness.

Um it's also great to to share this dais with all these great um attorneys.

And um I think Mark's heard me tell the story more than once.

But you know, really the first time I thought, oh, I could be a tenant attorney was because I was translating uh for Mark at a um a clinic that was being that was hosted at the library in San Francisco.

Um and I still, you know, that was I was like, oh, okay.

Um so uh, you know, anybody who's not happy about my doing this work, you know, really can blame uh Mark.

Um it is um it is important to remember um, you know what it could be like to be in other states, and it doesn't mean that we hold on to what we have, but it's that we have to continue to push forward.

And I think that you know, we learned a lot in the first Trump administration, and we put into um into law a lot of protections that we actually didn't end up needing to use.

But unfortunately, um many of the people in the Trump administration spent four years preparing for the second um Trump administration.

So I'm glad that people reacted very quickly in the first administration because we've had to use a lot of the protections.

Um I am feeling um hopeful because um apparently it was the uh Hungarian prime minister who just got voted out that uh helped sponsor um Project 2025.

And you know, when you look in my law school class last year, um I had my students read Chapter 15, which is the one that basically dismantles um the Fair Housing Act and all of the housing protections.

And the students were supposed to, they they read um a great book that I recommend that everybody reads, which is the color of law, which basically describes everything the government did to create the lack of fair housing that the United States found itself in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and today.

Um it felt like they'd read that book, saw all the change, all everything that had been done, and then all of the things we have done to undo the racism in our housing, and they were putting it back.

Um the students kept saying, well, no one can do it this easily, this is regulations, you have to go through these things.

Um but unfortunately this administration has a different interpretation of our constitution, of our laws.

Any event, we live in California, um, and we still have a lot of um strong protections.

Um if we can go to the next slide.

So I think that um both in that it's really important to remember that fair housing um isn't just like one sentence, you know, be fair.

Um it it has a lot of pieces to it.

But I think that one of the things um we've learned so many generations after uh the law was initially uh passed is that just cause, not being evicted for no reason, I mean, all of these different protections that I'll um cover in a minute are also part of the fabric and the ecosystem of ensuring that uh we have fair housing.

So if you are ensuring that you're not getting an illegal rent increase, if you are um, you know, I mean, I I think that because um we're smarter and folks who are trying to cheat the system are also unfortunately more experienced.

We know that it's not enough.

People aren't just overtly saying I'm not gonna rent to you because you're too short.

They're going to not rent to you for unsaid reasons that they can use an I, you know, AI or they can use an algorithm to evade.

And that's why these more affirmative protections are so important.

Um but from a looking at a tenant's perspective, and one of the things I also wanted to kind of bring up today was that you know, we um I think embraced a lot of different other um pieces of equity by beginning to say to to say your your, you know, what your your chosen your gender is.

Um I think it's also important for us to also acknowledge that all of us are immigrants.

Um I'm first generation um to be born in the United States in my family, and um I'm very proud of that.

And I think we all need to embrace that that we are all of us, with very few people who um are Native American, you know, are all immigrants, and so these are all of our rights, and we need to protect our community in that same vein.

Um that when it comes to housing, you can that all tenants, regardless of your immigration status, regardless of what generation you are living in the United States, we all have the same protections.

And that can't be said with um every you know field of law, but with tenant rights, we all have the same protections.

So I consider all tenant protections part of protecting our immigrant community.

So if we can uh go to the next slide.

Today I'm just gonna talk about, you know, I'm not gonna say I can't go through every single what are all of your tenant rights, but I'm gonna just touch upon ones to remind you all the different pieces that people have access to.

I am gonna talk specifically about the protections that California passed in the last administration last Trump administration that we are able to use now.

Um and then just remind us uh who helps enforce and then how do you get help if you feel like you've faced you know abuse because of your status or your neighbor.

Okay, next.

Next slide.

Okay.

So as I was kind of just saying and describing that all of these protections that we have for tenants are also protections that you know ensure fair housing and especially based on uh immigration status.

So if there are set rules about how you can raise your rent and what the amount is for everybody, that will protect and prevent landlords, you know, from raising the rents higher on people because of their immigration status.

Just cause for eviction is another important protection because it prevents discriminatory reasons for evicting people.

Um, you know, before cities adopted just cause ordinances, landlords could evict you for no reason.

Just arbitrarily.

Here's a 60-day notice, bye-bye.

Now, you could raise defenses like you're doing it because I am African American.

You're doing it because I am Jewish.

But that's so difficult to pass.

And so this model of saying, you know what, we're not gonna try and get into what is in your mind.

We're gonna say here are some fair rules for when it is okay to evict people, and every we're going to treat everybody that with that same standard and rule.

Um, anti-harassment ordinances, again, um another really important tool that everybody can, that everyone benefits from.

It provides clarity on what things you cannot do.

Um, it also acknowledges that it is not enough to just have shelter.

We need to have shelter in a way that we can thrive.

And that's everything from you know getting your repairs made properly, right?

It's not fair that because you are of your immigration status or some other discriminatory reason that you don't get your repairs done properly.

And again, it is very difficult, as we know, to get in somebody's head and prove what's in somebody's head.

So it's much easier to just say this is the way we do it.

You have to make the repairs.

And if not, there are consequences.

Um I think we've been talking about discrimination laws all day, so I won't address that.

But in California, we are still protected based on our uh immigration status.

Um then again, the right to safe and healthy housing.

Everybody has the right to safe and healthy housing.

And you know, we've done a lot of good work, particularly in the East Bay around improving our rent control ordinances, our just cause ordinance, all of these things.

But we're still struggling with code enforcement and making sure that we're doing regular inspections and that everybody is ensuring that we're living that everyone is living in safe housing.

And you know, there are huge consequences, whether it's um, you know, having lead exposure to children that can have permanent consequences for the rest of their lives to the inside of homes having worse air quality than outside of homes.

And a lot of that is coming from gas stoves, which I talked a lot about last year.

Um, you know, it's really, really important for us to remember that we all have, you know, the laws are written that we all have the right to these same standards.

And so when you don't do it because a person doesn't speak um, you know, English as their first language, or you don't do it because the person you know was not born here, uh, that is discriminatory and not lawful in California.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So what did pass in California is things that you know, I I kind of feel like I want to call them the really you're doing that?

Like you thought it was okay.

Um but we do know that under that the environment has changed in our society, and when the leader, alleged leader of the United States is behaving so badly and treating people so poorly through social media, um, it allows a lot of folks to behave poorly as well.

And so we had to remind folks that you can't do this and keep and um make consequences.

You hope that we don't have to pass laws for these things, but um I think it's important we did because unfortunately we are seeing um, you know, particularly right after the election, you know, I think all the legal services folks started hearing from clients um about threats that their landlords were making because people felt like either that there weren't going to be consequences or that it was okay now, that our society has somehow uh gone backwards.

Um so one I think in um, you know, essentially these are all the things that state law clarified that are illegal, that um landlords can be sued for um as well as attorneys.

Um so obviously, I guess to me, these seem obviously these would be illegal, but you cannot ask a tenant to provide information on their immigration status.

Just like you can't ask them what their sexual orientation is.

Now, if you live in if you're applying for basically public housing or the federal government is the owner, there is an exception with that.

But otherwise you cannot, and it is illegal.

Um it's illegal for a landlord to disclose information about a tenant's immigration status.

Now, I don't know about my my colleagues, but for you know, I've been practicing for 26 years as a tenant attorney.

And until this admin, until the well, really the last administration, um, when landlords, when tenants would say, my landlord said he's gonna call immigration, I would say, well, I it that really isn't gonna result in anything.

There are only 5,000 um, you know, ICE agents in the entire country, they don't have the capacity to follow up on one call from a landlord saying, I think my uh tenant is um not documented.

That just wasn't gonna happen.

It didn't make any sense.

How would you do that when you've got people who've committed crimes or people at what have you?

Um we now know that the largest part of our budget is for um for ice, or not they don't, I guess have any budget right now, but um so I think that that's really changed.

So it was really important to say you are not allowed to do that in California.

So if a land a landlord cannot call ICE and report that they think they're um the the tenant is you know, giving information about their immigration status, it's not their job, it's not um it does there's no evidence that that makes housing safer, um, and it's illegal and it's considered um, you know, if you do it in order to harass, intimidate, retaliate, or influence the tenant to move out.

All of these things are illegal because if you're doing it for the purpose of doing these things.

Um to make threats to disclose a tenant's immigration status.

If you if a landlord says, I'm going if you do not move out, I'm going to call ice.

Or I'm gonna call ice on one on your parent who visits you a lot.

Um it the other is they can't enter your apartment.

They can't come with ice to enter your apartment.

Um, you know, if the government the ice is only allowed to come into a unit if they have a judicial warrant.

And a landlord is not allowed to go into your unit unless they have a 24-hour notice and a re lawful reason to come in.

And allowing ice to come into your unit is not a lawful reason.

Um I think I went through both.

You want to go to the next piece.

The other important thing is an attorney cannot do any of these things.

And there's a history of attorneys from California being caught up in dramatic situations.

Um I don't know if folks remember why Nixon had to resign, but a lot of California lawyers were involved in that.

And I'm not um, and I think that there is a lot of bad behavior um by some of the landlord bar that represents landlords, particularly in eviction cases.

And I think that this was one of the pieces we had to advocate for because what we saw is that a lot of this abuse would go through the attorneys.

So most importantly, if you know, I think that everyone has a a flyer like this, it's in English and in Spanish, um, there's a QR code that links to a Google Doc that our organization um has on our website that will people can fill out if they're um they've experienced themselves or they have a family member or friend or neighbor that has experienced it, and we will um follow up.

Unfortunately, we um, you know, we kind of hoped, well, if we put this out there at the beginning, I mean, I think it was like the very next day after Trump was sworn in, um, you know, but we have gotten a lot of people reaching out.

Um if we can go to the next slide.

So who can you contact?

So you know, district attorney, city attorney have the power to enforce these, obviously, attorney general and um Alameda does have a special relationship with our wonderful attorney general.

Um then obviously nonprofit legal service organizations, um California Center for Movement uh legal services.

We don't do as much direct services as East Bay Community Law Center.

We do more affirmative lawsuits where we you know we're trying to enforce the laws that we've helped pass.

Um these are the kind of cases that we do do.

And obviously we we work across the state, um, but you know, we one of our main offices is in Oakland, and so obviously the East Bay is really uh an important um community for us.

And then we also um we have not only a robust city um you know attorney general that enforces our housing laws, but we also have a Department of Civil Rights.

Um that has been so important to have two State Departments who see its task at focusing on these fair housing and abusive behavior towards tenants.

So all of these can accept these um different uh issues.

So if you can go next.

So are you able to click on the where it says case filed in Oakland?

Or is that a I'm just wondering if I think I did this last oh does it open up?

Maybe.

Okay, well, I'm gonna keep talking.

That clicks on to um we filed a lawsuit, unfortunately, very soon after, about uh the third or fourth month after the new administration was in place, we did start hearing um examples.

And um we ended up having to file because the landlord just would not stop their behavior or wouldn't um stop harassing the tenants.

But when one of the things that you know happened, which I I frankly don't believe would have happened in the past, is that they were texting.

You know, we we did receive a lot of calls from folks whose landlords verbally said things.

And obviously it's you know, it's much more difficult to do that.

And I think, you know, one of the big changes that I would love to see in California is that we have a law that says you cannot record unless both parties agree, which I generally think is a good idea.

But I think that there should be some exceptions, and New York has made an exception in their law, which I really think California needs to do, which is there should be an exception for enforcing fair housing laws.

So, you know, a big part of ensuring that people are following the fair housing laws is that we do testing, right?

We we send you know people to you know who are similar profiles to apply for the same apartment and see what the response is.

And I think that that has played a really important role that I think everyone feels like, okay, this person may be a tester or it may be a real um you know potential tenant, and then that has improved um, you know, the way in which you know, kind of the ecosystem of you know, fair applications.

But if people know this, um, you know, there's a lot of verbal examples of these things and particularly uh threats around immigration status will be verbal.

And it's difficult to document it if you're not allowed to record.

Now, the exception of that is if the person did not have an expectation of privacy.

So if the your landlord comes into your unit, or if you know, and they are saying in your unit, you can record in your home.

Nobody has an expectation of privacy in your home.

Um common areas, there's no expectation of privacy.

But if in your in their office, um they can there is an expectation of privacy.

But in this situation, the landlord just had no problem making the threats on text.

And so uh this was one of the first ones that they sent where they were so um a landlord, and this is this person is just um, you know, the poster child for for bad guy, and you know, and I I really um affirm what Mark said that you know, you 99% of people who provide housing are uh fantastic, and those of us who do this work, we don't have tenants coming in for an appointment to say, hi, I'm here just to tell you how great my landlord is.

Um so you know, the stories we have are really the exception, and um, but anyway, I'm gonna share one of the um stories that just it like the more I would hear about this person, I just couldn't believe it.

So this is a person who spent time in federal prison because they embezzled foreclosure relief funds from a city in Northern California.

While they were in federal prison serving their term, they renewed their real estate license and lied about whether they had ever been convicted of a felony.

Now, you would think that that person would have lost their license, but instead it was only temporary.

Um eventually they did lose their real estate license.

He then proceeded to, but and I think this is one of my concerns is that they're really, you know, this person continues to be able to buy.

There's no you can commit all kinds of crimes, and you're still allowed to be a landlord, even though it's such an important role.

Uh continues to purchase land purchase properties in San Francisco, purchase properties in the East Bay, and purchase properties in Vallejo.

Um he's now presently being sued both over bad behavior in San Francisco as well as bad behavior in Oakland.

So in Oakland, he bought a four-plex, again, one of these lovely communities where, oh, this is the case, but that's fine.

We'll just keep moving out.

Thank you though.

Um anyway, in this case, he uh bought this four plux.

The all the four family members had been living there.

Um they weren't family members of each other, but all the families had been living there for over, you know, 20 years, really tight community, in a really um, you know, and it just the community uh roles, people who are getting health care close by, like huge big deal to have to move.

And uh he immediately, like almost day one says, Oh, I'm I'm moving into all the units.

I'm doing an owner move in all the units.

You know, that luckily these tenants got help and we're working with the Alliance of Californians for community empowerment, and we're quickly informed that you can't really one person move into all four units.

It's a little odd since you own all these other things.

In any event, they said, well, you know, why don't because he told them that verbally.

They said, well, you may need to just service a notice because we're not moving.

Um anyway, then starts texting with folks.

All four families were um let's you know.

And you know, so are you legal?

My my staff was asking.

Um, you know, and this is one of the the adult children in the the family.

Um there was later another one to the 96-year-old grandmother who lived in one of the units, um, 96, and asked um, you know, my my attorney wants to know what your immigration status is.

Not I did say immigration status, are you legal?

And I mean a 96-year-old woman, who does that, right?

I mean, I think a lot of this is I I kind of I feel like if I was on a Saturday live episode, it would be like, who does this?

Um yeah, too many of our folks.

So in any event, um we did uh file a lawsuit in doing so found out that there was another lawsuit in San Francisco against the same landlord.

Um the city attorney of Oakland is also doing a parallel um uh enforcement action, which is really important.

Um but you know, these cases take a lot and there are a lot.

So we do, you know, I think it's important for folks to know it's not okay, ideally through education, um, kind of reasserting that it is not acceptable to do this in our community.

Um, you know, in some ways is the most powerful tool.

That is why things evolve is that we all as a community are like, this is not okay in our community.

Um, you know, so please spread the word, it's not legal.

So at least the folks who need to know they'll get in trouble.

Um maybe they won't do it either.

Um next slide.

So yeah, this is essentially what I'm saying.

Um it's important for you to know your rights, so thank you so much for being here.

Um speak up for yourself and for your neighbors.

Um, you know, I think that one of the huge lessons learned both in Los Angeles and in Minnesota was how important the community support was and how that really helped the community survive what was happening.

And I think that the same is is true here.

Um and then of course, let your uh electeds know that enforcement's important and that you know that that is an important place to put um funding around housing rights.

And obviously, this um city council has done that by ensuring you have such strong resources in both your rent program and your city attorney.

Um, you know, just you know, regularly the city attorney of Alameda is always is pointed to as such a great model in how you are enforcing your rights.

And really, um, I got to watch the argument um in front of the um appeals court, and it was yeah, uh, you should be very proud.

Your city attorney did an amazing job.

Um, and that's why you won.

Um, I think that's that's what I've got for today.

Um, so thank you so much, and so honored to be on this panel with everybody.

Thank you so much, Leah.

We're gonna take a very short break right now.

Very important, we have amazing baked goods and coffee in back, so please help yourselves.

We're gonna have a couple more great presentations, and then the question and answer session, which is always a favorite.

Um, I think the clicker we want to use through the movement notice.

She's protected, we say can't do that.

Um just moving upstairs.

Whenever you want me to.

Good morning again, welcome back.

Um, before we return to our regular programming, I want to introduce to you another special guest here.

This is another example of the city attorney's office looking for opportunities to provide services to the community and to do so with as little cost to the community as possible.

And so this is an incredible opportunity for us to catch people in the safety net before they fall through and need additional costly services.

We're even more appreciative that we won't have to use most of that funding now with the uh the grant funding we receive from the state.

And so with that, I want to introduce to you our very first victim services advocate, Val Findel.

Thank you, even hi, I'm Val Sindal.

I'm a victim advocate.

My background, um, I've been an advocate for over 18 years.

I've worked mainly with district attorney's offices.

So I am really happy to be a part of Alameda City.

Um we have my uh role is that I work with victims of crimes.

I also help others, like we had some victims with the rental program that Bill and I work together with as well.

Um so uh my role is to go to court with victims, explain the criminal justice system.

Um a lot of them have, you know, this is all new to them, as well as help them with restraining orders, criminal protection orders, explain all the different orders that we have, and um help with resources, housing, Cal V C V explain the victim compensation program.

Um so my goal is to connect with law enforcement as well as um other agencies to be able to better help victims of violent crimes and make Alameda a safer place for everybody.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, our next speaker is from the city's rent program.

Uh and uh Ryan's gonna talk about utility billing, which is one of the cutting edge issues right now in consumer law in California as well as tenant protection law.

Um is it anyone know what the acronym Rubs stands for?

Anybody.

That does make it a lot easier, doesn't it?

But now you know.

Um but I'd like you to welcome Ryan Halpern.

Ryan is a management analyst with the city's rent program and has been with the division since 2020.

He has a background in rent subsidized housing with public agencies in Alameda, San Francisco, and community develop community development in the nonprofit realm.

Please welcome Ryan.

Uh testing, everybody hear me all right?

All right.

Uh thank you, Adam.

Uh yes, uh, so uh this is a hot topic in uh rent stabilization.

Um the rent program with the city attorney's office has been looking into this.

Uh you know, we've received an uptick in complaints from tenants.

Uh we've noticed there's been some regulatory trends, different jurisdictions around California have uh adopted new policies to regulate uh RUBS.

So um just gonna give a short presentation today what we've been looking at, you know, what is rubs and some potential policy ideas that we might be recommending to council in the near future.

Let's see if this works.

So uh yes, we know the acronym now.

Um essentially what it is, uh rubs is a way for a housing provider to divide one shared utility bill, uh typically water, sewer, trash, uh, amongst all the tenants in the building.

Um instead of each unit uh having its own meter, the whole property gets one master bill.

The landlord uses the formula if they have a formula to split the cost.

The formulas can be quite simple or uh it can also range to being very complicated based on the size of the unit, you know, square footage, the number of people living there, the number of bedrooms.

Um the most important thing to understand from the start is the tenants are not necessarily paying for what they're actually using, but paying a calculated share of the total.

Uh so why would a property owner or housing provider use rubs?

Um practical reasons.

Uh you know, installing uh individual meters is uh quite costly, um, especially in older buildings where the plumbing or wireling just wasn't designed for it.

Uh, you know, rubs give property owners a way to recover utility costs without that uh having to make that significant infrastructure investment.

Um it's some would argue it's generally fairer than the alternative of just baking utilities into rent as a flat fee.

Um, you know, tenants have to at least consider their usage a little bit.

If everybody pays the same utility charge regardless of a unit size or household size, that's not really equitable either.

Um's at least tries to account for those differences with certain formulas.

You know, and then also uh, you know, especially for larger properties, the third-party billing services uh, you know, do take a lot of that uh administrative burden off of uh, you know, property managers and landlords.

Uh however, uh the uh you know, from the renter, the tenant's perspective, uh a lot of the uh you know common complaints uh uh uh that we see are just that uh the uh you know there's no link to the actual usage.

Uh you know, the fundamental issues that there's no connection between what the tenant is using uh, you know, how much water they're using and how much they're paying each month.

Uh tenants often have no idea how their bill is calculated, they might not understand or have a have that methodology of the formula explained in their bill.

Uh some billing companies tack on administrative fees or apply formulas incorrectly without oversight, tenants would have no way of knowing.

Uh you know, in some situations there are fairness gaps, like uh if a formula is based purely on square footage, a single person in a large unit might end up subsidizing a family of five in a smaller unit.

Um, there's delayed billings typically, uh, especially some of the larger properties, uh, you know, you might receive your bill in January that was actually for the utility, massive utility bills in November, making it more difficult to budget or you know, or dispute a charge.

Um what uh what is currently allowed in Alameda under the current rent ordinance?

Um so rubs is permitted currently under the under the rent ordinance, uh, but only key the key part here, only if it was part of the original rental agreement.

So we want to make sure that that was agreed to at the original rental agreement.

Uh if a tenant signed a lease then included a rubs provision, that arrangement is valid and enforceable under the current uh rent ordinance.

What is not allowed uh by the current version of our rent ordinance is unbundling that's the term of uh when a landlord tries to separate utilities from rent after the tenancy has already begun.

Um even if the utility costs have gone up significantly, a landlord cannot simply introduce rubs charge, mid-tenancy, that would be a violation of the rent ordinance.

So if the tenant agreed uh if the if the initial rental agreement, the tenant obligation was they only pay for water, uh the landlord cannot then charge them, start charging them for water and trash separately if that's what was the obligations agreed to in the initial rental agreement.

Um existing uh pathways, right, and under our current system.

You know, landlords who are facing absorbing uh rising utility costs and don't have a rub system, uh, they can file what's called a fair return petition, um, which would be uh seeking a rent increase based on documented increases and operating expenses.

So there is a pathway there.

Tenants uh who suspect um that uh they might be being charged utility fees um uh uh in uh violation of their rental agreement can uh file a review with the rent program.

And uh you know what brings us here today is we've started to notice an uptick, uptick in these type of uh requests.

Um we have been um taking a look around the regulatory landscape uh and what's been going on in California.

And um we've held uh a few different stakeholder meetings in the last month.

Uh we recently just um sent out a survey.

Um so we've kind of come up with a uh a menu here of uh three policy options for consideration.

Uh think of it as a spectrum.

Uh you know, from reforming the current rub system uh all the way up to an outright ban for fully regulated units.

Um option one as a policy would be to uh keep allowing rubs on all units, but uh wrapping it with much struct stronger rules.

Landlords would be required to disclose their billing methodology in writing, uh provide itemized monthly bills upon request.

Uh there'd be a potentially a cap on administrative fees each month uh that the third-party billing agencies charge.

Uh properties uh may be required to file a rubs methodology statement with the rent program.

And we would uh establish like a formal dispute process in which uh uh tenants or landlords could file.

Uh the second option would be a partial ban of rubs.

And what this would be uh it's we'd be drawing a line in the sand saying is it is existing tenants uh that already had this agreement uh this arrangement in the rental agreement would keep it.

Um but that uh once we once we draw that line in the sand, we'd have a cutoff date, all new tenancies starting then would not be able to have a rub system.

All new tenancies starting then would not be able to have a rub system.

The rent the utility uh billing would have to be included in the rent.

Now, if we do option three, that would prohibit rubs entirely.

Uh this would be a situation where uh properties that are fully regulated, again, the multi-unit uh structures built after 1990 before 1995.

Um the fully regulated under local rent control units uh that we would ban uh rubs entirely and that landlords would have to fold utilities into rent and do uh what's called a utility adjustment petition.

Um under that system, maybe we would look at the 12-month average of utility bills per unit.

Um we could potentially look at uh uh utility allowances that are produced well, at least as of now are still produced by public how uh public housing agencies.

Um it's similar to a model of what uh you know Mountain View City of Mountain View has recently enact enacted and uh is under proposal in the city of Los Angeles, uh, which would be this kind of this full outright ban of the rub system and then having a utility adjustment period petition process.

Um those three options we've been looking at.

Um the fourth option is uh you know we don't make any changes, but uh we we feel pretty strongly that we're going to be make taking some action.

Um there might be a a QR codes uh floating around that has a link to our survey.

Um so we've been asking uh you know our our tenant landlord property manager community to give us some feedback um which policy option they prefer um and uh you know anything else that we haven't considered.

This is again just like the Cliff Notes version.

We have a little bit more detail online and especially on that survey.

Um but our hope is that uh uh within uh potentially before the summer um that we could be bringing something to city council.

Um yeah, we're we're gonna start uh you know, we're still in the public review comment period.

We've had a couple uh stakeholder meetings, um we have a community survey that we've sent out to all of our rent program newsletter subscribers.

Um we're getting closer once we have time to uh in the next week or two synthesize uh all of the in the information and data that we get from that survey is the start to draft some uh ordinance language, and if the timeline allows, potentially bring that to council for consideration before the summer.

Um so then you know if a new policy does get adopted, uh the work doesn't stop there.

Of course, the final phase is implementation and education.

Um we always want to make sure that that's meaningful and not just notice in the mail.

Uh it would likely include combination of in-person and online workshops where staff would be available to meet uh uh would be available to meet with landlords, tenants, and property managers uh to go over the new requirements and answer questions and help people understand their rights and responsibilities under uh these potentially updated rules.

And uh yep, that this is uh the Cliff Notes version.

We have a a longer 30-minute version of our presentation uh available on the website.

And if anybody anybody's interested or has some more questions about our UBS rubs, uh definitely send us an email, give us a phone call.

Uh and I encourage anyone who is interested.

Uh we do have there's probably some uh QR codes floating around that has a link to that survey.

We would appreciate it if anybody uh who is interested in uh maybe impacted would uh complete that survey for us.

It would mean a lot.

Um I think that's all I have.

Thanks, Ryan.

And yeah, the I I think it's on the one sheet uh that the rent program has out right out on the table there, the QR code.

Please grab those.

I mean, you guys are the cutting edge of the informed uh community here, and and we really do want your input on this issue.

It's very much in the legislative phase right now.

So last but certainly not least, we have Bill Chapin, the director of the City of Alameda's rent program.

Uh Bill previously worked as a management analyst with the city's housing authority.

Bill is a key player in administering the rent program's many services to local landlords and tenants.

He's everywhere doing everything.

He's also here today.

So please welcome Bill.

Thank you, everybody.

Uh so uh I'm here to update you on two recent California Court of Appeal decisions impacting our good friend, the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

The decisions have implications for rent control, eviction protections, and local regulation of the rental housing market.

Before I get into that, however, let me just say a few brief words about the rent program and what we do.

The rent program is part of the city attorney's office here in Alameda.

We're charged with administering the city's rent ordinance.

And in addition, we work in close collaboration with the prosecution and public rights unit when there are housing complaints that fall maybe partly outside the scope of the rent ordinance but involve other rights like fair housing.

So you should contact the rent program if you are a tenant or a landlord and you have questions about what is permitted under local law when it comes to rent increases or terminations of tenancy.

We can tell you more about the process of petitioning for rent adjustments based on fair return, for example, if you're a housing provider or if you're a tenant.

Or if you're a landlord and you're having any sort of issues with submitting annual registration or paying your program fees, our our staff is here to assist you with that.

So and even if you have questions about something other than those issues, uh our staff is knowledgeable and has a lot of resources that we can provide and maybe point you to a department or agency that may be able to address your specific issue.

So uh as Ryan uh mentioned, uh we have uh brochures uh out on the table.

We have those QR codes for the survey that we're taking right now on utility fees, so uh so grab those.

Um with that, let's talk about Costa Hawkins.

Let me see, yes.

So a lot uh many of you probably know the details of this, but uh for the the benefit of those who don't, Costa Hawkins was adopted in 1995.

One of the stated purposes of it was the legislature didn't want local rent control laws interfering with the production of new housing.

So they said, okay, uh local rent control can't apply to newly constructed apartments and also single family homes, why not?

Um they also based everything on a fixed point in time that keeps getting further and further in the past.

So today the law exempts not just brand new housing, but also 30-year-old housing.

Uh and in case that wasn't complicated enough, in 2019, the legislature decided that there actually needed to be rent control at the state level.

Uh so if a city has its own local rent control like Alameda does, uh, as long as the local cap is lower than the state cap, it still applies.

Um but to make things more excited, they created a slightly different set of exemptions from Costa Hawkins.

So this time it was a rolling 15-year exemption for new construction.

Uh and also the exemption for single-family homes doesn't apply when a corporation owns the home.

So what that does is it creates this mess of overlapping exemptions.

There are at least 10 different categories of uh of rental units.

So the blue rows here are what we in Alameda's rent program call fully regulated, which means that the city's rent cap applies.

Sometimes they're exempt from the state cap, sometimes not, but it doesn't matter.

Um the rents can't be raised more than our local annual general adjustment or AGA, which uh for the next few months at least is currently set at 1%.

For the green rows, Costa Hawkins prevents us from applying our local AGA, but they are subject to the state cap, which is currently set at 6.3%.

And then there are the orangish rows where neither the local nor state cap applies.

Um however, if you can read it, take notice of that text in the final column there about proper notice for older single family homes.

So that state law, AB 1482, requires non-corporate landlords who want to exempt their single family home to have disclosed that exemption to the tenants.

Uh and in many cases, the deadline to do so has uh already passed.

There's not a way to go back uh and do it.

File that information away.

We're gonna come back to that in a moment.

So when you add up all those different categories, uh what you see is that the vast majority of rental units here in Alameda are subject to our local one percent cap.

Then there's a tiny slice of homes that are subject to the state's 6.3% cap.

But then there's this 13% chunk uh that aren't protected by either.

That's about 2,000 tenant households here in Alameda.

Now the rent ordinance, as it's written, has a backstop for this.

It says that if a tenant receives a rent increase of 10% or more and then vacates, then the landlord owes the tenant a relocation payment, similar to if the landlord were doing an owner move-in.

The basis for this is the I uh the idea of constructive eviction.

Um basically the rent increase is so large that the intent is to get the tenant to move out.

Uh and since cities are not prevented from regulating no fault terminations of tenancy and requiring relocation payments.

It's been pretty common for uh jurisdictions that have rent control to say that a rent increase above a certain amount is actually uh constructive eviction.

And that brings us to the first case I'm going to talk about.

Um in 2022, voters in Pasadena passed a ballot measure that established new tenant protections and created an independent rental housing board.

Uh the California Apartment Association, along with local landlords uh in Pasadena immediately challenged the provisions in court.

Uh they lost at the uh trial court level and then appealed.

Uh and then uh the appeals court gave a decision that came down just a few months ago in December.

Uh so what uh challenges, what challenges did the CAA raise?

Uh they had problems with the ballot measure uh using a ballot measure to amend the city charter.

Uh they had some issues with the rental housing board uh reserving seven of the eleven seats for tenants.

Uh the appeal uh court said, nah, both of those are fine.

Um they also raised issues with two specific regulations.

One requiring a special notice when a tenant fails to pay rent before the landlord can issue the normal three-day notice that starts the unlawful detainer process.

And then a regulation that requires relocation assistance after a large rent increase, very similar to Alameda's regulation.

And the court had problems with both of those.

So I'm not going to uh get into details uh about the eviction notices, but as to the relocation payments, basically what the court said is back in 1995, the legislature specifically voted to make it legal for landlords of these types of units to raise the rent by any amount that they please.

Uh we don't think that that's constructive eviction.

Maybe the landlord isn't trying to force the tenant out.

Uh what if it's just a lawful good faith, very large rent increase.

Umends a lot of the assumptions that cities like Alameda had had built their regulations on.

Uh so as a result, there are no longer any limits on how much a landlord may increase rent for anything built in the last 15 years.

There's also no limit on anything with a single unit on its own parcel, including single family homes, uh, unless, of course, it is owned by a corporation, in which case the statewide rent cap does apply.

And then remember those requirements about non-corporate landlords having to notify the tenant that the unit is exempt.

So, see, I told you I was gonna come back into play.

So it needs to be uh for older rental units, the deadline, you know, or for I'm sorry, for older tenancies that were in existence before the law was passed, the deadline to notify the tenants has passed.

For newer tenants, it has to be in the original rental agreement.

Uh something else that I don't know that the court really considered, having read over the decision is what this does to cities Ellis Act policies.

Um the Ellis Act gives property owners the right to get out of the landlording business altogether, uh, but then gives cities the ability to regulate the process and to put tenant protections in place.

In Alameda, the far and away the most common usage we see of the Ellis Act is when someone has been renting out a single family home that they own and now they want to sell it and they want it vacant because they think that that will help with the sale.

Um Alameda's Ellis Act policy has a lot of requirements for advanced notice, relocation payments, restrictions on the unit going forward, a lot of tenant protections.

Um if the landlord can get the tenant to move out by just increasing the rent 25% or 100% or 300%, uh, then there's no relocation payment and no restrictions.

So what are the implications for I guess I should mean I've been focusing on single family homes because that is the majority, but this also applies to to condo units that are that are rented to tenants because they have their own uh assessor's parcel number.

Um so what are the implications for tenants going forward?

Uh I would say tenants should think carefully if they are considering renting a single family home or condo uh and be aware that they have fewer rights than other tenants.

Um it's important to keep a copy of the original lease or rental agreement because that's what rent program staff are going to be asking for uh to determine if the tenant was properly notified of the exemption.

Um and finally, uh be aware that state law, this is a change within the last couple years, but state law does require a landlord to give uh 90 days notice rather than the regular notice uh if uh a rent increase exceeds 10%.

Um so for proponents of rent control and tenant advocates, that's not great news, but there is another recent case.

Uh it's been foreshadowed a little bit in remarks uh uh earlier today.

Um is this mouthful of an LLC versus the city of Alameda.

That's us.

Uh a few miles down the road is Admiral's Cove, which consists of 150 rental units.

Uh they were originally built in 1969 as naval housing.

Um eventually they were abandoned, they fell into disrepair and were vacant for about a decade.

And then in 2018, uh the government sold the units to a developer, Carmel Partners, uh, which is the entity behind that LLC.

Uh now the developer could have torn down the units and built a whole bunch of brand new apartments on that parcel.

Uh they didn't do that.

Instead, they took the units as they were and they renovated them and then started renting them to tenants.

Uh when the rent program became aware that several tenants had received uh very large rent increases, uh in some cases in excess of ten percent, uh, while the moratorium was in place during the pandemic, uh we directed uh Carmel to rescind those rent increases and to refund the tenants.

Uh their response was, oh no, these units are exempt under Costa Hawkins.

Um it's true that these units got their very first certificate of occupancy in 2020.

Uh but courts have generally held that when a structure existed prior to 1995 and had some sort of prior residential use, that the certificate of occupancy doesn't really matter.

Um because what the legislature cared about was increasing the supply of local housing.

So the rent program administrator, that's me, uh told Carmel, uh sorry we don't accept your position.

So eventually it found its way to the Alameda County Superior Court, where the judge found in favor of Carmel.

Uh we didn't like that decision, uh, and so we appealed it.

So uh the developer argued that before their renovations, the units had only been used as military housing and weren't available to the general public and therefore not actually part of the city's housing stock.

Uh they also said that the buildings had become so run down and uninhabitable that the renovations increased the city's housing stock.

And luckily for us, the appeals court did not accept either argument.

Um the court basically said, hey, these units help to house members of the Alameda community who just happen to be in the military.

Uh furthermore, they didn't accept the developer's position that if a unit was vacant for a long time or required an extensive renovation, then it should be exempt from rent control because then of course the question becomes well, how long is long enough?

How extensive is extensive enough?

And the court said, no, it's too hard to consider this on a case-by-case basis.

It's better to maintain a bright line rule.

So the decision uh generally maintains the way that courts have interpreted exemptions under Costa Hawkins.

Uh they uh could have expanded it greatly and they declined to do that.

Um it also confirms that cities may impose rent control on any unit with a prior residential use, regardless of whether there was some sort of qualification about who could live there.

Um that has wider implications.

Uh you know, cities across the state are considering what to do with former military housing.

This very clearly uh states that uh uh as long as it is just being renovated, that it is subject to rent control.

But there are implications for senior housing and for income restricted housing, or for uh cases where there are preferences, say for teachers or other professions.

Uh and then uh finally it means that uh these 150 households here in Alameda will be guaranteed greater housing stability and refunds for the overpayments that they made, and the rent program staff are currently working to ensure that that happens.

So on that note, uh a big thank you to all of the rent program staff and attorneys that worked on this case, and especially City Attorney Shen, who made those oral arguments uh in front of the Court of Appeal and convinced them to uh overturn the trial court uh position.

So that's all that's all I have for you.

All right, we're almost ready for your questions.

Give us one more second.

Gary has a couple of final quick words.

Thanks, Adam.

Uh almost 60 years ago, uh, as Dr.

King was trying to persuade the uh the country to pass the Fair Housing Act.

Uh he visited in in early uh 1968, he verse he visited California and he also visited Kansas City.

Now he had visited California in part because California had as uh in a very, I think, heroic move by the people or by the legislatures of California had passed an act called the Rumford Act, which was one of the very first laws that uh protected folks from housing discrimination.

Uh unfortunately the the voters were persuaded by a you know lobbying and everything to reverse that uh in a uh amendment to the Constitution, which in turn was rejected by the U.S.

Supreme Court.

But there was a lot of churning going on between the heroes and uh and the villains of California.

And uh and and Dr.

King came out to California in early 1968 to highlight that as a reason why federal protection was needed.

He also stopped in Kansas City, Missouri because that town with all its issues with segregation discrimination, had a set of heroic activists who got the city of Kansas City, Missouri to pass one of the nation's very first fair housing ordinances by a city.

And uh Dr.

King was intrigued with that.

When he stopped in Kansas City, he met with those very folks at at the airport and uh and again stressed that what we needed to to stop this were strong fair housing bills.

Uh flash forward now uh some 58 years, you know, to now as we're as we're uh celebrating uh the the Fair Housing Act.

Uh I can see echoes of that now here and in Kansas City.

Here in California, uh as Leah described, you have uh uh the state reacting to hostility toward a protected class uh of national origin and immigration status and passing uh the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act, uh, an act that that stops uh in its tracks the harassment that will happen uh when landlords are emboldened by the rhetoric, the anti-immigrant rhetoric to uh exploit their immigrant tenants or to report them, try to report them to ICE.

Those sorts of things, the attorney general, the civil rights department, and cities like Alameda beefing up their uh restrictions against things like AI and uh and holding on to the disparate impact.

Real California is really, you know, uh trying to cut rise to the occasion of what's happening in the nation to keep keep things safe here.

And in Kansas City, similarly, we have some heroes there.

Um that the city itself has tried to pass some pro-tenant ordinances in the past year and a half or so, which have been post-empted, unfortunately, by the Missouri legislature.

But they were they were pioneering ordinances.

They also passed one of the strongest right to counsel ordinances in the country that guarantees every tenant uh a landlord in any eviction case.

And then we've got groups like KC tenants, a union, and uh the Heartland Center uh for jobs and freedom that are that are organizing tenants and and uh and going for bold systemic change in the in the face of uh what they get what they're getting from the Missouri legislature and the the Federal Government right now.

So I just wanted to tie that back in with some with the history of of what we're celebrating today to both assure you that things aren't so dire in Kansas City.

We're we're we're fighting back there, and I'm very proud as as my uh for my ties with California that you all are doing the same.

That's it.

Thanks.

All right.

Um let's get to your questions.

We have one main ground rule, which is we we have great panel of people who can talk about rights, responsibilities, what the law says.

We can't talk about your specific situation.

We certainly can't give you advice, but we also can't really go deep into your your specific situation.

That is more a call to Rico, our incredible investigator, paralegal uh at the city attorney's office.

His card, there's a stack of his cards out there.

Um he's the one you call about your case, and we'll we'll we'll dive into it uh then.

But today is the public uh public event.

We want questions of all kinds on the issues of fair housing in the community, and uh Rico is gonna float around if you can uh raise your hand.

Uh and we have we have our first hand in the middle of the right-hand side.

Uh actually it is if you don't mind, it just better catches the recording.

Thanks.

Okay.

Um unfortunately the lady who is here for the immigration rights is no longer here, but maybe someone else could speak to this.

Um I'm a I'm a property manager, and um we understand immigration rights that you can't discriminate against your status.

How do you recommend we deal with it and this has not happened to us yet, but how do you deal if ICE officers show up at your your your entry gate or your lobby?

Um, you know, I've read a lot of stuff on this.

You say no, but as we as we kind of seen on television and videos, they can be rather forceful.

Um they have um what I would call BS administrative warrants versus judicial warrants.

And uh our attorney all says just call me, but what the odds of getting them immediately when that happens.

I mean, uh do you have any recommendations on how to handle that?

That is an excellent question.

I almost was going to bug Leah before she left uh to talk about that specific question.

But Mark, would you venture uh some general uh advice on it?

I'd love to.

Uh what would you what would you like to do?

Now I I'm not being too sarcastic or cynical.

Like would you like to say get out of my office and the office door is locked, and I'm calling the police to report trespassers.

Would you like to do that?

You can do that.

Okay.

You can do that.

Um, then they will react, and maybe they'll come with a battering ram.

But that's one answer.

Um I say, and I framed it that way because what is and I no no judgment, but but what is your degree of courage, commitment, uh, care generally?

You can tell them the drop dead, or you can open the door and welcome them in with open arms.

But it is your call, and you have bases to reject them.

But there might be consequences.

There certainly might be.

Uh uh, the whole concept of administrative warrants is now up in the air.

Different courts in the country have have uh reacted differently to that.

Are you all lawyered up so you can go and immediately in five minutes get your injunction?

You know, there's tons and tons of consequences.

Um, but but you have your options and you need to get with your your entire administration about what you're gonna do.

Um, yeah, I just wanted to maybe for the benefit of everybody who hasn't looked into the warrants issue, like like you all are uh alluding to.

There's there's two different warrants and ICE.

I can't think of a single example where they've been able to or even taken the time to go actually get the right court warrant.

It needs to be a judge signed warrant before they can you know force their way into your property.

Uh they're all they're using only the administrative ICE signed warrants, and uh and so that's just an issue for everyone to be aware of and flag and consult your attorneys about what to do in those in those situations.

Um but it's a great question to think about organizationally and come up with an organization policy, because you don't want to be the one at the door making an ad hoc decision at the moment.

But that's certainly something, well, unfortunately, down to our individuals in our own homes we should know about and be thinking about and have a plan for and just one thing before I give up the phone.

In terms of fair housing and low-hanging fruit, um, as a property manager, I can't tell you in the last six years.

I can't tell you over the last six years of how many people I've met in Alameda and Oakland who still are saying no Section 8, and um are still not dealing with the consequences of that.

And you know, I know there's only so much enforcement that can be done, but to me that is low-hanging fruit.

That that's a great question.

I would love to address that.

If it's an Alameda, please call RICO today.

Because we enforce that, absolutely.

I think the City of Oakland does too, but you know, it doesn't mean it's not happening, but without enforcement, these laws don't do us any good.

So please I would just add that the Civil Rights Department, what used to be D FEH, they are uh doing more and more of those cases.

So anyone should be anyone who's been hurt heard the no from a landlord because of their they've got a housing choice voucher should should contact that department if they don't already live in one of these cities that is doing a great job with enforcement.

That's right.

And the hardest thing often is proving it.

So if we don't have something in writing, then it could be word against the other.

But we we we look at those two.

So yeah.

Just on the immigration thing, I just have to, the last time I came here panel, it was said the only thing about uh the only thing about uh if somebody comes in uh ice comes, that is exempt if they have a subpoena.

That means you have to obey.

So you're being kind of in disingenuous by telling them to be brave and everything.

If they have a subpoena, you must obey it.

Well, I just want to I mean the distinction we're trying to make is that in the law there is a distinction.

I know you're trying to make between the.

Let's please have the courtesy of letting him respond to your comment.

The distinction is whether it's a court-signed subpoena or just an administrative subpoena that that someone at ICE itself has signed.

ICE is not taking the time to go to courts to get these documents signed.

So that's why you can, again, I think you should all speak with your attorneys about this and get get opinions, but there is a basis for saying no to a subpoena or a warrant that's not signed by a judge in these situations.

Can I ask one more thing?

Okay, um, Mr.

Mark.

Okay, one thing that made me a little suspicious, because you made a big sign of this, when somebody is being evicted and you says the burden of proof of of how much rent was charged is the landlord's.

Why is that a problem?

Have you have you put more restrictions on what could be considered rent?

Because the way I see it, rent is rent.

A landlord knows what's missing.

And why is that you made such a big deal about it?

Is there a reason uh why you said that?

Is there some just back to basics?

Um in civil proceedings, uh the plaintiff has the burden of proof.

In as that translates into eviction cases, the property owners, the housing providers are the plaintiff.

So they make allegations against a tenant, hopefully to support their basis for eviction.

If the claims they make are that the tenant has not paid rent that is lawfully owed, and that's a very important uh set of criteria, rent that is lawfully owed, the landlord must make those allegations.

The landlord then has the burden to prove those allegations that the tenant has not paid rent that is lawfully owed, and if the tenant can prove that the landlord cannot meet that burden because either the property lacks um the basics of habitability, in which case the landlord doesn't have the right to demand this much rent because the landlord is only giving this much service, the law very clearly enshrined in the state law, Civil Code 1941, Civil Code 1941.1, the the Green versus Superior Court, many, many other cases say if the landlord is demanding 100 percent of the rent, and they have the burden to prove that, but if the tenant proves, well, I haven't had heat for four months, then the landlord is not entitled to 100 percent of the rent, and the landlord has not met their burden of proof, and the landlord can lose their case.

However, in that case, the law also says, enshrined in the law, CCP 1174 says, but the tenant must pay, the jury must find what the tenant is obligated to pay, even if the landlord didn't provide that the full 100 percent uh level of rent services that the that the landlord is claiming.

If the jury finds the the landlord only provided 80 percent of that, then the tenant must pay that within five days of the jury having found that, or the tenant does then get evicted.

So there is an overall equity going on that the legislature has recognized.

Next question.

Yes.

Uh am I coming through with my mask on?

Hello?

Oh.

So I guess this will does this work better?

Um Yeah, uh I was uh I have a question about the rubs.

Um there's the fairer return petition that allows potentially allows the housing provider to increase the rent above the AGA limit.

That's just the AGA limit, right?

Not if the unit is covered under the California-wide uh rent control, that doesn't allow the landlord to go above that.

Uh in some cases it would.

If if there the it's there's a formula involved if if net operating expenses are not uh are rising faster than the rate of the consumer price index, then there's a potential to increase the rent above what the local rent control limits are.

I don't know if that answers the question.

Because you are asking about the AB 1482, the the state requirement.

Uh the thing about uh fairer return and uh the the uh the attorneys can maybe back me up on this, but it's a it is a constitutional right.

It's based on the United States Constitution.

Uh and so it uh it uh if the as with eviction cases, the burden of proof is on the landlord to show that you're entitled to uh a fair return, but that constitutional right uh would uh would basically be would would trump the uh uh the the rent control laws, the the the rent caps, both the local and the and the state.

I just I just want to say with respect to fair return, it's a very, very important part of all rent stabilization ordinances in the state, and it's very complicated, um, but it's a very fundamental uh element that the courts have recognized that rent control ordinances must allow the landlord for this thing that's called the fair return, or else the uh the rent stabilization ordinance is constitutionally deficient as not meeting the requirements of the Fifth Amendment as applied to the States through the 14th Amendment.

That is to say, the government cannot take your property without due process or just compensation, and if the rents are rising faster than the rent ordinance will allow, then the Supreme Court and California Supreme Court in the case of Fisher versus City of Berkeley in 1984, many other cases, have said, well, then that results in an unconstitutional taking.

So that all these ordinances allow for as a safety valve, property owners to come before the rent board and say, I'm not making a fair return, and you show all your documentations to prove that, and then the rent board might allow a rent adjustment over and above what is the allowable annual general increase.

And uh just in Alameda uh we uh we have independent hearing officers that hear those petitions and make those rulings.

Next question.

I have a question.

Um this kind of touches on the first question.

If the Federal Government is saying to a housing provider, let's say like HUD rules on Section 8, for example, that no tenant may be a beneficiary of Section 8 or other similar HUD programs if either they or a member of their household is an undocumented immigrant, how would a housing provider navigate the Federal Government requirement that they not do that, but then also abide by California state law that they don't ask about immigration status.

How would a housing provider navigate the Federal Government requirement that they not do that, but then also abide by California state law that they don't ask about immigration status?

Well, uh you are alluding to uh some rules that are being proposed by uh through HUD that uh uh households that have immigrants in them uh will no longer be eligible for any HUD programs, basically, including the the housing choice voucher program.

And uh I think in the uh case of like the immigrant tenant protection act, uh there are exceptions included in that for when uh federal law explicitly uh you know prohibits uh uh a household like that, you you would then be allowed to ask.

Uh that's my you know quick take on it.

I I will uh I will double check on that.

And I can if you want to leave me your your email address, I can follow up on that and look it up for sure, you know, for sure.

But uh my understanding is that uh the immigrant protection act has exceptions in it uh as far as what a uh a landlord can ask if if a law specifically prohibits uh uh uh the uh someone who doesn't have documentation from living in uh HUD sponsored housing.

Well, I I I was wondering on that note if if a tenant is unable to make rent because they've lost a subsidy due to something like this.

I I I maybe I'm missing something, but what why would the landlord need to ask what the source of the of the of the rent is?

In other words, let's say a tenant due to a family member's immigration status loses their voucher.

Uh then they wouldn't be able to make the rent potentially, right?

And then that uh Oh, I'm okay.

I may have misunderstood the question.

I thought he was asking.

I mean, maybe I did.

But but in other words, the the landlord, why would the landlord need to inquire about somebody's immigration status just because they're worried that they might not be able to make the rent uh given these new developments?

Is that kind of what you were asking?

No, I've been.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

As a housing provider, they would have to know.

Potentially action getting them or resided their participation because they're they have both participating and don't.

Who don't qualify?

Okay.

Because they're receiving a federal subsidy.

Because they received the federal subsidy.

Because the law is because they're receiving the federal subsidy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks for that question.

Uh yes, sir.

Oh, sorry, was there somebody before?

Oh, yeah.

Uh question reviewer.

Um this question is for for Bill.

Um I found your presentation very informative.

Um how can I get a copy of your presentation?

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I wanted to ask that myself.

Um I uh I suppose I can make that uh available.

Um I'll give you my email.

You can send it to me.

I'll I'll connect with you.

Thank you.

Me too.

Thank you.

Um great presentations by everyone.

My question is for uh Mr.

Janowitz.

It's regarding the rental application fees.

It wasn't really discussed today, but I know that um the state has laws in place to cap rental application fees and refund if applications aren't reviewed on a timely basis, and Berkeley rent board has established some additional fees.

This seems to me to be kind of a um unfair, maybe uh provision to allow for landlords to collect fees um well, not unfair, of course, we need to have landlords be able to to spend the money to review applications effectively, but I mean, and unequitable in some ways because people who have more money can tend to pay more fees and apply for more units, and also because I'm wondering about enforcement.

How is it even enforced and how do landlords know that they have to refund fees, for example?

And I'd like to know what Berkeley's experience is there too.

Thank you.

There have been in the last several years have been a couple of different uh laws passed statewide with respect to application fees, screening fees, and the return to the tenants of unused uh of uh of their application fees when they weren't selected, and providing them with copies of of the reports that were generated so that hopefully they can use them in the future.

Um I don't have all the details, and I and I don't have the specific uh codes.

Um they're in the they're in the civil code uh offhand to site.

But it was an effort by the legislature to bring some equity to the um to the industry that that sells the screening uh information and to refund to a tenant who who applied, but there were 30 other tenants and uh and the landlord has just collected these.

And then the legislature in hearings heard of abuses of landlords not even they have selected the tenant already, but they collected another fee.

So um I what what you need to know is that there is legislation in this area.

It is an attempt to to be uh a little bit equitable about returning to tenants, uh both a copy of their um screening report, so they can use it in the future, and a refund of the fees.

Now, enforcement is an interesting issue.

Um, like with many of the issues we're talking about, a lot of the enforcement is left to the individual, and in this case it would be a suit in small claims court, which is not real um effective or fun uh um for a variety of reasons.

But uh a lot of these do not have um built-in enforcement and or punishing uh uh uh treble damage, punitive damages.

But I'm not certain about these these these ordinances.

I can tell you there is legislation in the last several years, it's worth looking up.

And the Berkeley ordinance.

I don't know that the Berkeley ordinance itself creates any ha speaks to this.

I I just don't know.

But I will say the Berkeley Rent Board has a very informed, very available uh public information unit, as many of these jurisdictions have.

I know Alameda is great.

Um I I will tell you, with all honesty, City of Oakland is not as good as some others.

Um coming to these kinds of events is a good way to start.

I hope that wasn't too vague.

Thank you.

Um this is pretty embarrassing to say, but um I'm a single woman and I'm 60.

I've never been married.

I have good friends, but I've lived alone for years and years and years as a renter.

And sometimes I want single people to be able to be labeled as a type of family.

Um the way married women, let's say, get seen as a certain type of family.

They have to support their children and they need schools, let's say, and single people need certain things too, like if we have pets, those are our family in a certain way, and if we have friends, that's our family in a certain way.

And so if I look at affordable housing, it says I need to move to I don't know, some other place where my friends don't live, or maybe I might have to give up my pets.

So um it's super embarrassing to say this, but I I just feel a need to say it.

Um also when you're single, there's no spouse who's working, so you don't know.

I am lucky to have some family helping me now, but you don't have a spouse who's like paying the rent.

So if you lost your job, you might not um be able to rely on that, and maybe you can't go back to your family of origin.

So I'm I'm speaking about a personal situation, but I'm saying that I'm sure I'm not the only one.

And thank you for listening.

If I could just respond, uh you might be interested in the the legislative history for the uh Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1974 when they added gender to fair housing, federal fair housing protections.

Uh that has a lot of evidence to it about the discrimination that single women experienced uh in you know by against from landlords and from banks and and uh realtors uh and they finally got that protection from that discrimination uh when it was finally added to the laws along with race and national origin and disability.

And I want to I want to say your issues are so important and they affect so many people.

It's it's it's it's very important.

Thank you for sharing that.

I also wanted to add Civil Code 51, the UNRWA Civil Rights Act in the State of California.

It exists separately but integrated into the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, but it forbids uh arbitrary discrimination.

And that's been applied in a broad variety of of contexts.

So that's just another another potential tool if there is disparate treatment, unfair treatment or discrimination based on any of the related qualities and characteristics that you're talking about.

Uh hello.

Are private nonprofit corporations that provide housing and governments, city governments that provide housing, um do they need to f follow the same law, housing laws that a mom and pop uh housing provider follows?

Like if you had a spreadsheet and you had all the laws and you had private 501c3 corporations that provide housing and city government and a small housing provider, do they all have to comply with the housing laws?

Well, my first uh uh response is uh as far as fair housing laws go, yes.

Uh there would be a couple of exceptions, such as senior housing.

Uh a lot of senior housing is is the nonprofit, uh often government uh sponsored kind of housing that they do not have to rent to families with children if they are following all the all the rules.

But as far as fair housing laws go, they they they apply to nonprofit uh as well, with that one exceptional.

Um I can speak to uh the the city's rent ordinance anyway.

Uh it uh it includes um portions that talk about uh types of housing that are exempt uh from the ordinance and our ordinance uh does uh exempt uh a hundred percent uh uh affordable developments uh that are uh uh run by um uh the city's housing authority uh or the um or an affordable nonprofit uh housing uh provider uh if they are affordable subsidized units.

Um but uh for example uh the city of Alameda owns uh a number of uh properties out on the former uh base at Alameda Point.

Uh and they are uh uh they're not subsidized affordable housing.

They're rented at market rates, uh and those units are subject to the rent ordinance, just like any uh and to all uh uh all portions uh of the rent ordinance.

So the limit on rent increases, uh just cause, uh relocation payments, uh, and every once in a while we have to deal with one of those uh those cases and uh folks on my staff and folks on the uh the staff of the um uh base reuse and economic development uh department uh have to have a conversation about what uh what the laws are and how they need to be followed.

So thank you.

I just wanted to make a comment on your question about the applications.

Um I was told that you should take the first application that you get that passes the credit check.

So if I get one dropped off here and then there's one in the mail the next day, I'm doing the credit check for the one that arrived first, and if they have a good credit score, I'm gonna accept their application and I will mail back the check and application to the second person.

Um the if I run the credit check, I get the automatic charge for that amount, and I never charge more than what I'm getting charged.

So if they're running your credit check, they just spent that money.

So they're not gonna want to give you money back for doing it.

So that's why I do it in the order that I get them.

And if the first person passes, then the next person that maybe came, I would just mail them their stuff back.

That's a good practice.

And if everyone followed it, things would be simpler.

I would just say that Mark was talking about some of the abuses with applications and you know, running taking all these fees and when they've already chosen the person, that's an unlawful business practice.

If they if that could be proven, that's the also something we'd want to hear about.

Any other questions?

I have two, but I don't want to hog the microphone.

One is for disparate impact.

So if a housing provider has a policy, let's say they generally don't rent to folks who have a history of evictions.

If somebody was to say that that is discrimination, would they have to show intent that the housing provider intended to discriminate, or that their policy was just a business decision.

Well, uh under disparate impact rural analysis, you do not have to show intent.

Intent's the other tool, the other way to show discrimination.

Uh with disparate impact, you're looking at policies that have a you know they look you know facially neutral, but they have an impact.

Uh and so the the policies that uh do not allow any exceptions to no evictions or or no criminal record, uh they they might have a disparate impact uh on on protected classes.

Okay.

I have a follow-up to your first question too, if you unless you have I answered that one.

That second one.

Okay.

I just want to say uh the the change that's coming with uh uh households that have uh immigrants in them.

There's there's about 80,000 of them nationwide.

Uh those households get reduced federal assistance because they have someone who uh doesn't have documentation in their household, but they it's at least reduced.

So this change, uh this proposal uh is going is potentially gonna have well it will have tragic consequences, because close to 80,000 households might be evicted uh through this, or or folks in those households might be forced to leave.

Uh the last day to comment on that uh proposed rule is tomorrow, by the way.

So if you're from an organization or or have the inclination, you can you can go to the HUD uh website and and post your comment on this on this rule.

It's actually something that's kind of you know breaking you know news right this week on on on that very important and potentially tragic uh change in federal law.

I have a question for Ryan.

Um if I'm a landlord, a housing provider, and I don't want to deal with rubs, and I want to spend the substantial cost of installing individual meters.

Does that qualify under the current CIP policy?

And or could I also submit a fair return petition based on those costs?

Uh the short answer is yes to both.

Uh there are certain certain projects, so uh just to back up a little bit of capital improvement plan is uh where landlord can make certain substantial improvements to the property, to the rental property.

Uh and if they're qualifying projects, they can be passed on to the tenants over a long period of time in which the tenants would end up paying back the costs of those improvements.

Um so every case is a little bit different.

Uh submetering may qualify, but we would want to uh it's not specifically something that we point out, uh, but generally the installation of energy efficient systems, substantial plumbing projects.

So submetering for water uh and electric is something I think in most cases we might approve, but I don't want to make any guarantees.

We want to look at the details of the construction project.

Um sorry, what was the second question?

Uh would it qualify for fair return?

Oh, fair return, yes.

Uh capital improvement projects uh are expenses that are eligible uh to include in that um fair return petition, uh, you know, which looks at your net operating expenses versus revenue.

All right.

Well, we want to thank all of you for coming out.

This is really great.

We appreciate your participation, and uh let's thank all of our panelists for their time and wisdom.

Thank you.

We have left, so if you want to take a to-go snack, please feel free.

You are the man.

But uh yeah, this is great.

I mean the city of Alameda.