TWENTY-FIVE PEOPLE huddled around card tables in a basketball gym in Novato on a recent Monday night, most of them Hispanic, to learn about housing policies and answer survey questions.
The April 7 event was part of an outreach in conjunction with the release of a new report called Rooted in Marin, which illuminates the details of Marin County’s housing crisis. It included graphs with descriptions of population patterns and neatly presented renter protection policies by city.
Written in collaboration with local governments, Rooted in Marin functions as a housing Bible for city planners, with case studies and analyses. The report can be found both in English and in Spanish.
“We have seen about 24 eviction cases in the last month,” said Charlotte Gonnella, director of case management and housing for North Marin Community Services, the nonprofit human service organization that hosted the event.
NMCS provides child development, mental health and renter assistance programs. Their chief executive officer, Cheryl Paddack, said they are facing a shortage of rental assistance funds.
“A private family fund donates $20,000 a month,” Paddack said at the meeting. “But we have been running out in the first week.”
Last week, the organization received a grant from the county that more than doubled their rental assistance funds, but they can only distribute $2,000 per household, and they receive hundreds of requests every month.
Most of workforce not rooted in Marin County at all
A high concentration of Marin County’s workforce lives in Novato, according to the Rooted in Marin report, but 64% of the county’s workforce must commute from outside the county.
Marin’s low-income residents constitute 42% of its population. The disparities are especially stark among racial groups: 75% of Black and 61% of Latinx households are low-income, compared to 40% of White and Asian households.
According to the report, as of 2023, low-income households making less than 50% of the area median income are disparately leaving the area, with 33.5 more people per thousand moving out of the county than moving in.
Marin maintains the third highest rental rates in both the state and the Bay Area, according to the study. In October, overall rent in Marin reached an average of $2,812 per month, meaning that a household needed to make $112,480 per year to make ends meet. Roughly three out of five Marin renter households make less than the needed income to avoid rent burden — that’s 21,970 out of 37,265 renters, or 60%.
County service data also indicates growing homelessness, projected to reach 1,700 unique clients per month by 2026.
Cinthia Angelicola, a case manager with NMCS, underlined the root of the problem in the meeting, when she told those gathered that the solution is to build more housing.
“Yes, absolutely,” said Chris Logan, a meeting facilitator hired by Marin County. “We think this report will bring more housing. The problem is it takes about 5 to 7 years to build housing. And in the meantime, we don’t want a limited number of housing units to cause displacement before that housing investment.”
With most buildings in the county being 40 to 100 years old, property owners and landlords face higher expenses to maintain and refurbish their properties, which drives up housing costs, according to the study.
‘There’s no space’
Are workers in Marin earning incrementally higher wages? “No,” said Mayra Arambula, who also works as a case manager with NMCS. “On average, the people that I talk to earn $16 to $21 an hour. They’re paying an average $2,900 for one bed. Families range between having two to three kids. So, they all live together. Sometimes they let them stay in the living room, but there’s no space and that affects mental health.”
Marin’s population is also aging, according to the study, suggesting that mortality rates will exceed birth rates in coming decades, potentially exacerbating population loss. With a deficit of working-age adults, age 25 to 44 years, and young families who cannot afford to live in Marin, there is a growing workforce shortage and erosion of the economic base.
“We think this report will bring more housing. The problem is it takes about 5 to 7 years to build housing. And in the meantime, we don’t want a limited number of housing units to cause displacement before that housing investment.” Chris Logan, meeting facilitator
Schools, for example, constitute a vital component of a city’s economic and social structure. According to the report, once schools close, it is near impossible to reopen them in a timely and affordable manner. It creates a domino effect that impedes economic development: teachers and support staff lose their jobs, parents may need to reduce work hours for childcare and transportation, overall education quality declines, and property value depreciates, according to the report.
Each city in the county is responsible for its own housing element and its own renter protection policies, which are consolidated in the report.
Logan described a list of 10 policies in a bilingual presentation. Following the presentation, participants were asked to vote on which policies they favored the most.
“I used to be a school teacher, so I’m going to go over them one by one and pause for questions,” he said.
Policies included rent control, utility cost control, anti-harassment rules and requiring the county to regularly inspect buildings for code violations so that renters don’t have to file complaints and risk eviction.
“Right now, 10% of tenants are represented by an attorney, compared to 90% of landlords,” said Logan. “That is a huge amount. Your landlord has all the information on your apartment, and then you’re there and you have no information to defend yourself.”
After the presentation, people moved across the gym floor and placed stickers on the policies they liked best. The winner for the night was Rent Control.
On April 18, the Canal Alliance will host the next Rooted in Marin community discussion. There is a virtual session scheduled for April 22. Both require registration through the Rooted in Marin website.
A SUMMARY OF RENTER PROTECTIONS OUTLINED IN THE REPORT
• Relocation Assistance is meant to help renters find a new home at an equal rate when they must leave due to causes that are not their fault, such as major renovations.
• Right to Return policies place existing renters first-in-line for the option to move back into their home after a temporary location, as with a renovation, although the rental rate might have changed. They still get the first chance to return.
• Preservation policies kick in when a landlord moves to sell the property at market rate. It provides a window of time, usually 30 to 90 days, for a tenant association or community organization, like a land trust, to buy the property first.
• Just Cause Eviction policies protect tenants from retaliation. A good tenant cannot be evicted for personal reasons. It must be on a list of reasonable causes.
• Rent Control limits annual rental increases. State law caps rental increases at 5% plus inflation. Marin County’s 2024 inflation rate was 3.8%, setting allowable rent increases at 8.8%, but local governments can choose to set a lower cap.
• Utility Cost Control policies address that extra charge renters get for gas, water and power. Some landlords have separate meters for each unit, so one person doesn’t have to pay for their neighbor’s overuse. Cities can require separate meters, which is the case in rent-controlled apartments in San Jose, but generally an evenly divided utility bill for a whole building is thought to be unfair.
• Tenant Anti-Harassment policies are there to help renters who don’t want to report code enforcement problems, such as mold or damaged utilities, out of fear of eviction. This is the case with many undocumented renters.
• Living Condition policies involve a city mandating regular county inspections, so tenants can be ensured of having a safe and habitable home. These take the burden off tenants, who must otherwise issue a complaint to get things fixed.
• Habitability Plans are when landlords need to determine how they will support renters who must temporarily move for repairs.
• Legal Support policies are meant to provide advocacy for tenant/landlord disputes.