Corporate landlords and their high-powered lobbying group, the California Apartment Association, are working to stop pro-rent control campaigns in three cities in California, and they’ve already dropped $20,000 to kill a pro-rent control measure in Redwood City. Big Real Estate is already rolling out misinformation campaigns to confuse and scare voters, with tenants and activists working to counter corporate landlords’ dirty politics. If the underdogs win, it’ll be a major victory for the housing justice movement in the United States.
California has long been a hotspot for housing justice activism. Between 2018 and 2024, for example, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent organization of Housing Is A Human Right, sponsored three ballot measures that sought to repeal or reform statewide rent control restrictions.
Worried about losing billions of dollars in profits if one of the initiatives passed, corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association raised a total of more than $310 million to trick voters and kill the measures.
Unfortunately for California’s 17 million renters, Big Real Estate’s big spend worked: the measures were defeated and corporate landlords kept charging higher and higher rents, making outsized profits off the backs of hard-working people.
(Read: “Exposé: Big Real Estate’s Money Trails to Kill the Expansion of Rent Control in California.”)
The California Apartment Association has a mandate – probably set by corporate landlords, who have delivered hundreds of millions in campaign cash to the CAA’s four political committees over the years and whose executives sit on the CAA’s board of directors – to go to any city in California to kill legislation or ballot measures that would create strong tenant protections, including rent control. It doesn’t matter how small that city may be.
So corporate landlords and the CAA are now gearing up for rent control battles in San Pablo, Redwood City, and Salinas. In each of those cities, rents have skyrocketed – and seniors, families, and students desperately need protections against predatory landlords.
In a September 17 article for its members, the California Apartment Association gave a rundown of the three races, noting that “defeating local rent control remains a major CAA priority.” The lobbying group also wrote that it will give members “opportunities to get involved as the November 3 election approaches.” So corporate landlords and the CAA are planning a full-out assault on their opponents: tenants and activists.
In Redwood City, in San Mateo County, tenants and activists are working to pass Measure E, which will create rent regulations and expand tenant protections. As first reported by Housing Is A Human Right, the CAA, using corporate landlord money, has made a $20,000 contribution to a committee to stop the initiative. But local tenants and activists, led by Faith in Action Bay Area, are urging residents to vote “yes” on Measure E.
In San Pablo, in Contra Costa County, a grassroots campaign is working to pass Measure S, which also aims to establish rent control and stronger tenant protections. Rising Juntos and ACCE are two of the activist groups battling corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association, urging residents to vote “yes” on Measure S.
And in Salinas, in Monterey County, tenants and activists are telling residents to vote “no” on Measure H, which aims to repeal tenant protections, including rent control.
In one of the more outrageous examples of local politicians siding with Big Real Estate, the Salinas City Council passed rent control and stronger tenant protections in 2024 — but less than a year later, the City Council, with new members, voted to repeal those rights. The California Apartment Association and corporate landlords were most probably behind the shocking switch.
In response, tenants and activists collected enough signatures to place a measure on the local ballot this year that will stop the City Council’s repeal and reinstate rent control and other tenant rights. Led by Protect Salinas Renters, activists and tenants are telling residents to vote “no” on Measure H.
The pro-tenant campaigns in Redwood City, San Pablo, and Salinas have an incredible fight on their hands, facing down many of the largest corporate landlords in the country and the California Apartment Association, which will try to trick and deceive voters.
But if all three pro-rent control efforts win, it will be an extraordinary victory that will stabilize sky-high rents and help seniors on fixed incomes, working-class families, and hard-working people. It will also be a shot heard around the country, inspiring tenants and activists throughout the U.S. to take on Big Real Estate and pass their own tenant protections, including rent regulations.
Patrick Range McDonald is a veteran investigative reporter and the award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right.