Welcome to the Bay Area, where the rent for a studio costs $2135 and a one bedroom apartment costs up to $5140 a month. According to RealFacts, the rent has increased 66% since 2007. In just this year, rent is expected to rise by 7.8%. That is why San Jose has approved a rent control regime where landlords can only raise rent up to 5%. The regimen is set to start no later than January 1, 2017.

Landlords are kicking out tenants on false accusations in order to raise the rent for a new tenant. However, some landlords were smart enough to read the law and told tenants they have 90 days to move out. Some owners were not and gave their tenants 30 days to move out. This is against the tenants’ rights, and most landlords can face lawsuits for violating these rights.

Here at Lincoln, a teacher candidate that wanted to teach here at Lincoln emailed Mr. Hewitson that he wasn’t considering San Jose anymore because of the cost of living. “We had teachers leave before,” Mr. Hewitson said, and “move out of the Bay Area.” 

The overly expensive rent has caused people to lose their housing completely, and the homeless rates over the past two years have gone up 3.8% . According to NLIHC, a person has to be making $39/hr to afford an apartment in San Francisco, and $34/hr to afford living in San Jose. Think about it, the minimum wage is $10.00 in California. How will we survive if the rent goes up even more? Fortunately, the Rent Control regime is a step in the right direction, but it will be months until the regime goes into effect.

Landlords are doing anything to kick out low-income families. A landlord from Brooklyn went from cutting the tenants’ power to building an illegal building behind the existing building. The tenants lost access to the back doors, which is a city violation. Therefore, the city came and kicked everyone out. This is an example where the landlord was willing to go through a lot to evict the tenants.