Please Vote NO! Many small Moms and Pops are hurting. Costs for home maintenance is up significantly. A 4'x8' piece of drywall increased 50%. Pandemic scarcity is driving up material costs. Many items are not even available on the shelf!

Support Oaklanders who offer low-cost housing for our community! Vote NO!

I strongly oppose this proposal. We need to take concrete steps to support Mom and Pops who offer affordable housing. Many small housing providers are struggling because of high home maintenance costs due to the pandemic. Copper pipe fittings, lumber, electrical wires and many other basic materials have risen 300-400%. Trash, water, insurance, etc. have gone up 8-30% as well!

Local Oaklanders who provide low-rent housing are part of the housing solution and need to be uplifted. Many have not received rent for months or years -- Please help!

I strongly oppose! You pick on landlords, big AND small, because you figure we're cheap targets, universally hated by everyone and you can easily put another feather in your union-driven caps to shade your Pinocchio noses. But this won't cover up the stench of the trash under my overpass, or on the corner of my street, nor will it make my street any safer from the weekly sideshows or daily car break-ins. You're picking on some of the only tax-paying, caring, voting citizens you have left. Crime is running rampant, the city is becoming a toilet and soon you'll be left with nothing but people to lazy to work sitting around waiting for their next stimulus check...or planning their next caper, God bless Councilwoman McElhaney for standing tall. I wish I was in your district.

This cannot be rushed through blatently ignoring the policy set forth 20 years ago by bringing all parties to the table to come to an agreement. No other industry has caps in adjustments for inflation. Do you go to the grocery store and tell them sorry, you cannot raise the price of your food for inflation, no you do not. Neither can any other business afford not to cover their costs and this is just to cover inflation, it is not a rent increase, CPI is purely to keep up with current. Not good legislation here trying to sneak in without review. Shameful.

I've lived in the SF Bay Area, mainly Oakland sent 2001, and I've seen the rents go higher and higher, with a lot more folks becoming unhoused and living on the streets. Oakland has become a wasteland oh, because of the disparity between the wealthy oh, and those who are just scraping by including myself. I'm a massage therapist of 17 years, and even with my built of clientele, it's difficult to pay the rent right now coming out of the pandemic. A lot of people are still uncomfortable receiving work, and some people with careers like mine are suffering, and the thought that I rent could be jacked up 6.7% didn't mean that I would become homeless. It isn't okay for landlord to make a profit when the rest of us are starving or not having a place to live. Housing is a human right, land ownership should not be a job, it should only be a management position at Beth. People should not be profiting off of land and there should be limits on how much the red can be which is why Fife's proposal is important.

If landlords are struggling to pay their mortgages, PG&E, etc then they can apply for mortgage assistance and discounted rates. If their buildings are paid off then they're not at risk of losing their homes, like many tenants would be in the rents went way up. A lot of people are losing money right now, myself included, but that's not a reason to take advantage of other people who are also struggling.

We are landowners of a 1930s apartment building in Oakland that is in constant need of updating and repair. Our revenues are constantly running in the red, especially with rent eviction moratoriums in place, and with tenants that will not pay. Why is the brunt of the rent restrictions falling on owners of buildings built before 1983? In addition, are your salaries capped at 60% of CPI? Perhaps you would like to make the same sacrifices for your city. Small landlords of Oakland providing reasonable rental rates cannot withstand further restrictions and burdensome regulations placed on them and survive.

Please do not vote for another piece of legislation that will replace small mom and pop housing providers with corporate landlords.

In a recent publication by hedgeclippers.org, the authors noted that corporate landlords are have profited greatly by [crowding out “mom and pop” landlords.] They also noted one study which “found that large corporate rental companies evict tenants at higher rates than smaller, mom and pop landlords and that these high eviction rates were concentrated in predominantly Black neighborhoods.”

Hedgeclippers.org is a website supported by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). Why then does ACCE continuously support legislation that makes it harder for mom & pop housing providers to survive in Oakland? San Francisco and Berkeley have enacted identical legislation in their cities. Corporate landlords have increased their ownership in both cities as the number of small housing providers and the population of black residents have diminished there. SF and Berkeley have already failed their residents by enacting these policies. What makes you think Oakland will be any different. Vote no on Item #2.

https://hedgeclippers.org/hedge-papers-no-69-billionaire-corporate-landlords-are-exacerbating-californias-housing-crisis/#_ftn27

Dear councilmembers,

The City of Oakland is showing bad faith and injecting politics in unilaterally breaking a 20-year agreement. Politicizing the Inflation Adjustment for Rent each year was detrimental to everyone involved. That is why in 2001 tenant advocacy groups, housing providers and the City of Oakland came together at the table with their viewpoints and negotiated in good faith.

The CPI adjustment as it is currently calculated is the time-honored result of collaboration and agreement among community stakeholders and the city. The average rent adjustment for the last 19 years is 2.4%. The longstanding covenant should not be lightly dismissed because of the result of a single year’s rate of inflation. This is likely an aberration.

Regardless of what the council thinks Councilmember Fife’s proposal might be accomplishing, it comes at the great cost of breaking the good faith that is created in multilateral negotiations. If the council wants to change a 20 year agreement, the right way to do it is to invite all interested parties back to the table to renegotiate in good faith.

Democratic governments work when there is genuine outreach and true community partnership. As residents we demand that the city honors its agreements.

First and foremost, housing is a human right. Secondly, given how prices are increasing on everything people need to survive (food, gas, soap, etc.) and wages are not increasing at the same rate, Oakland City Council must do everything it can to make sure people can afford a place to live. The current minimum wage was nowhere close to being enough for people and their families to survive in the Bay Area even before the current economic crisis. Even a rent increase cap isn't nearly enough to solve the housing crisis, but it's a start to making sure we don't worsen the crisis. Please remember we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and covid has upended the lives of so many people in so many ways that it would be extremely cruel to let "market forces" dictate rent increases. Housing is already absurdly expensive here, it would be a shame to see City Council vote in favor of landlords over the people.

If this ordinance fails, we'll see an increase in the unhoused population, and then what will you? Fund the cops over real services for people? Instead, please pass this ordinance to prevent a bad problem from getting worse.

I am a long term renter and voter in Oakland and I have paid my rent on time and in full throughout an ongoing global pandemic and financial hardship including the inflation that we are all dealing with. Is everyone who would be subject to this rent increase guaranteed a 6.7% pay increase as well? If not, I don't see how that will work unless the goal is an explosion in homelessness and misery on the streets above and beyond what we are seeing now, along with a drain on struggling essential workers who would be pushed out. The long term goal is to build more housing to accommodate everyone, but preventing displacement is critical in the short term, both in a moral sense and to keep the economy and services running. Essential workers don't grow on trees, they need protection too. I'm sure there is a way to assist struggling mom and pop landlords without declaring war on working class renters into the bargain. I applaud Councilmember Fife's effort to stand up for Oakland renters.

As a 24 year resident of Oakland, and as a 22 year public school employee, I strongly support support Councilmember Fife’s ordinance to change the rent increase formula to 60% of CPI increase, or 3% in any year, whichever is lower. After I pay my current rent, I have less than $1,000 left for all of my expenses, a situation which is hard to manage, and makes it nearly impossible to save any money for the future. I know that many thousands of other Oakland renters live on far less money than I do, and such a sudden and large increase in rent will simply be unmanageable. I hear a lot of rhetoric about "mom and pop" landlords who are being adversely affected by the current inflation, but it certainly seems that the bulk of that rhetoric comes from corporate landlords or owners of multiple properties who are just trying to ensure the largest profit margin possible, which is why rent control exists in the first place, to protect vulnerable renters from corporate greed. Please do not let this happen to the most vulnerable members of our community for whom all price increases and inflation are extremely regressive.

For the average Oakland rent of around $2,000, a 6.7% increase would mean an increase of $134 per month, or a total of about $1,600 of additional rent in a year. This is almost an extra month of rent a year! For comparison, Berkeley’s increase this year is 2.1% and in San Francisco, it is 2.3%.

Inflation has caused an approximately 15% increase in consumer costs. This has caused renters to spend more of their incomes on out-of-pocket health costs, food, and gas, sometimes having to choose between these necessities. This leaves less if any money for anything else. I urge the city council to consider housing is a human right, the city cannot adopt a 6.7% increase! Please pass this ordinance to limit the CPI to a cap of 3%

Reject!! Stop with attacking us small mom and pop owners who are trying to provide for our families. Oakland has much bigger problems we are facing. Support us instead of always attacking us!!

Please vote no on the proposed rent increase cap of 3%.

Landlords are unfairly being targeted.

What a lot of people probably don't realize is with the Covid lockdown, there was actually a significant decrease in market rental rates driven by basic supply and demand. Landlords have had a large decrease in income while utilities and expenses continue to increase. I had to renegotiate lease agreements 15% lower with many tenants who would have moved to other apartments because the market rates had decreased so much. We found out that the problem with rent control is that it protects the renter from large increases, but it does not protect the landlord from large decreases.

With inflation where it is, wages are likely to go up 10% or more (minimum wage $14 to $15.50), and Oakland city council enjoys a 6.3% wage increase. And yet, for landlords this bill would cap increases in our income at 3%, and that is after an already disastrous downturn in our income, while utilities and expenses continue to go up. That is totally unfair.

Strongly opposed. A rent increase of 3% is a rent **decrease** in real dollar terms. A rent increase matching CPI is neutral. Council members just received a pay raise of ~6% equivalent to CPI but they're wanting to reduce property owners same ability to keep pace with inflation. Hypocritical. I can only imagine what will happen to the health of Oakland's already deteriorating housing stock if property owners aren't able to afford to maintain properties.

I have lived in Oakland (D3) for over 10 years now, and have watched so many of my friends and neighbors get pushed out of the city due to rising rents. Rent control is the only thing that makes it possible for so many of us to stay here, and a 6.7% increase is absolutely unaffordable for so many people. Further, we all know that our unhoused population has grown by about 1,000 people since the start of the pandemic. If we allow rents to increase more than 3%, we’re going to see more and more people becoming houseless or being pushed out of the city. We absolutely need a 3% limit on the amount rent can be raised every year!

Leaders: As you consider the proposal be mindful of the perverse incentives for legacy property owners to sell – and thereby accelerate displacement.

Lowered rents in regulated units provides significant upside for corporate investors. Without the ability to cover costs and provide for a small return, Legacy owners face tremendous pressure to sell. A quick Zillow search reveals a large number of rent-controlled properties with 2-bedroom rents as low as $700, being offered for more than $1 million. Low rents do not service high debt so expect legal displacement to increase rents.

Currently tenants in rent-controlled units can force a Landlord to justify any increase to protect themselves from gouging. However there is no relief for a Landlord whose costs exceed rents.

Although intended to preserve Black residency, the legislative report does not disclose that in the wake of these policies both model cities have seen a significant DECREASE in their Black population, down to less than 4% (SF) and 8% (Berkeley).

Modification to existing tenant protections must provide small owners the opportunity to cover increased costs. Without this provision, expect Oakland to replicate SF’s and Berkeley’s painful loss of Black residency and socio-economic diversity as small landlords sell and are replaced by corporate owners who are more likely to raise rents, discriminate against low wage and low credit tenants.

Please vote no. I own a duplex is Councilmember Fife's district and rent the other side. The cost of Property Taxes, Insurance, Utilities, basic maintenance and repairs continue to rise at a much higher rate. This unfairly punishes the smallest among the housing providers.

My name is Taylor and I was born and raised in Oakland. I am a social worker in Oakland and a rent increase this drastic would crush me. I already have a hard time paying the inflated rent on my low salary. Please pass this and prevent native Oaklanders from getting pushed out! The tenants are the ones who need the help, not the land lords! Don’t cater to those that already have enough wealth to afford AN ADDITIONAL property, in addition to their homes! . Keep low income folks in their homes first before you make the rich even richer!