Landlords in Santa Clara County are circumventing a decades-old law that requires them to pay to relocate evicted tenants. To counteract this, county leaders could give unincorporated neighborhoods stronger eviction protections than surrounding cities.
The Board of Supervisors will next month consider expanding its 1993 renter relocation assistance policy, which covers tenants in unincorporated areas. The changes would extend protections against wrongful evictions to tenants who have lived in their homes for any period of time — even less than a few days — and to tenants living in single-family homes or duplexes. It would also apply to homes built in the past 15 years and impose new restrictions on landlords seeking to evict tenants for remodeling work. The changes would only authorize evictions for remodeling work if the work is specifically “renovation and repairs.”
This goes beyond the statewide protections provided by California’s landmark 2019 rent control and eviction regulation law – and in some ways even beyond those in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Milpitas, which now have stricter protections than the state.
“This would be the most comprehensive tenant protection compared to any other jurisdiction in this county,” Supervisor Joe Simitian said while discussing the idea at a Housing and Land Use Committee meeting in May. The committee will reconsider expanding the policy at its Sept. 3 meeting.
Single-family homes make up the largest share of renter-occupied housing in Santa Clara County’s unincorporated areas, such as the Burbank neighborhood and some parts of Alum Rock in San Jose, county data show. Renters live in about 9,000 homes in the county’s unincorporated areas — 29% of the county’s unincorporated housing stock.
Although cities like San Jose have local rent controls and protection against eviction, there are also isolated communities within their borders that do not have their own legal personality and fall under the jurisdiction of the respective county.
“Tenants in these areas are not afforded that protection,” Huascar Castro, an organizer with Working Partnerships USA, told San José Spotlight.
Outdated policy
County leaders said the 1993 policy lacks effective enforcement. The county encountered the problem after red-tagging buildings and was repeatedly called to provide emergency assistance to vacated tenants who should have received moving money from the landlord but did not.
“Last year, the Office of Supportive Housing assisted nine homeless households,” a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Housing told San José Spotlight. “Depending on the household’s needs, assistance may include temporary hotel/motel accommodations and/or security deposit and rent assistance.”
Last year, authorities recorded 3,180 evictions nationwide, the highest number since 2014. By comparison, during the pandemic, there were fewer than 2,000 evictions between 2020 and 2022. Important protections that renters fought for at the start of COVID-19 have expired, leaving renters facing eviction with fewer options.
Expanding this rule would also further restrict landlords from evicting tenants so they can move in unless they own at least 50% of the property, whereas state law requires only 25%. Landlords would also be prevented from evicting tenants for letting a family member move in.
During the May meeting, Simitian sharply criticized the district attorneys who put forward the proposed policy for distorting the information too much in favor of renters – and for not checking with influential landlord associations such as the California Apartment Association and the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors before submitting the proposal.
Enrique Navarro-Donnellan, government affairs associate at the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors, said the proposal is a “hit at the root” of every property owner’s nest egg: their home.
“This ordinance will destroy that foundation and leave even fewer affordable options for those you want to serve. In unincorporated Santa Clara County, there are no large investor complexes that are usually the target of these measures. Our small family businesses are all we have in the county,” Navarro-Donnellan said at the May meeting. “This ordinance discourages investment by adding more rules and regulations and restrictions on how homeowners manage their property.”
Castro said the proposed changes to the law would stabilize entire neighborhoods.
“Many housing units are located in unincorporated areas, and that makes residents much more vulnerable to unjustified evictions,” Castro told San José Spotlight.
Contact Brandon Pho at (email protected) or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
