Sign Petition in Support of Rent Stabilization in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara City Council

60% of Santa Barbara residents are renters. Please join CAUSE in helping to protect them from Unfair Rent Increases by asking the Santa Barbara City Council to pass a strong Rent Stabilization Initiative.

Petition: The Community Stabilization Ordinance

Rent burden shouldered by Santa Barbara tenants is a pandemic. A report produced by CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy) found more than half of Santa Barbara tenants are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing, making Santa Barbara the sixth most cost-burdened county in California.[1] The first of the month rent payments – incredibly challenging and stressful for many Santa Barbara families during the best of times – have intensified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Santa Barbara tenants are not immune from the economic devastation wrought by the global pandemic which resulted in 20 and 40 million Americans without jobs.

In order to support Santa Barbara renters and to responsibly, meaningfully address the soaring rental housing costs in our community over the long term and immediate needs, we suggest including a rent stabilization and vacancy decontrol policy within our City’s just cause eviction regime.

We believe in a policy in which:

  • Rent may only be increased one time within any 12 month period by a maximum of 2% or the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the Santa Barbara Area, whichever is lower.

  • In the event of a decrease in CPI in any given year, no rent increase is allowable in that year.

  • As California’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act dictates, if the unit is voluntarily vacated by the tenant or there is a legal, for-cause termination of the tenancy,the landlord may re-let the unit at market rate (i.e., any amount agreed upon by the landlord and the new tenant).  

Background and Context

There is clear desire from the community to find ways to ease the housing burden for Santa Barbara’s families. Efforts to produce rental housing units, while necessary and commendable, have not resulted in the lowering of rental housing costs in our community. And, in this already difficult context for renters, has come the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to wreak economic havoc on our community.  

With so many in our community already on the edge of housing loss due to the high cost of housing, it is incumbent on the members of the Santa Barbara City Council to make every effort to preserve and increase housing security in our community. We believe it is our responsibility to prioritize residential stability in our community.

Rent Stabilization is a reasonable and constrained, but ultimately profoundly impactful step on the path to solving the rental housing affordability crisis in Santa Barbara. It has never been more necessary than in this time of extreme economic stress and uncertainty to promote stability in housing.

Petition by
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Santa Barbara, California

To: Santa Barbara City Council
From: [Your Name]

We ask the Santa Barbara City Council to pass a strong Rent Stabilization Initiative to provide tenants the protections they need to survive the growing housing crisis.