New Pasadena Tenants Union Deliberates Over Direction

A newly-formed tenants rights group dedicated to building “a movement to promote tenant housing stability in the City of Pasadena” is debating its primary focus as it builds membership and gestates before it officially announces its goals in February, 2017.

Comments online and in interviews made by those familiar with the Pasadena Tenants Union indicate the group is apparently considering either primarily advocating for more affordable housing or for outright rent control in Pasadena.

Pasadena Tenants Union spokesperson Nicole Marie Hodgson has declined requests for interviews.

Local labor and immigration activist Pablo Alvarado said that his group, The National Day Laborers Organizing Network, was a “fundamental part of the process” of forming the Union.

It is premature to conclude the Union’s primary focus will be on rent control in Pasadena, Alvarado said.

“I don’t know if we are there yet,” he said. “Affordable housing may be our issue. It’s still early.”

Currently, the cities of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Palm Springs, San Francisco, and Thousand Oaks, among many others in California, have a rent control policy. Pasadena, however, does not, and has no official position on the issue.

Approximately 52% of Pasadena residents are renters, according to a recent study.

Pressed about creating a rent control policy in Pasadena, Alvarado said, “Obviously, it’s going to be an uphill battle, but I would say that it’s a fight that needs to happen here, particularly because a significant number of residents here rent homes, and obviously rental prices keep going up. Eventually, workers will come from other places to work here, and they will not be able to live here anymore. That’s not a good thing for a community.”

Alvarado noted that he had been a renter in Pasadena for many years, and said, “I can tell you so many stories about dealing with landlords, and at that time, there were not that many remedies, not many things that I could do to push back against landlords.”

But, Alvarado continued, “I am so happy that we are building this union, because at the very least, people need other people to talk to, who are in similar situations, and they need the ability to organize.”

Alvarado still says, however that the city of Pasadena, which offers a host of services for renters, could still be doing more.

“There are some good projects here that are helping people,” Alvarado admitted, but said, “There is more that can be done”

“I look at some many of my friends who have lived in Pasadena who have had to move, because they cannot afford rent,” he added.

“It’s sad,” Alvarado continued,”when the people who give their sweat and hard work and love to this city cannot afford to work here.”

According to Bill Huang, Pasadena’s Director of Housing, the City currently offers numerous services to assist both renters and those looking for housing in the City. Currently, said Huang, there are close to 3,000 rent-restricted or “affordable” housing units in Pasadena, and most of them are apartments.

The City also has about 1,400 families on Section 8 housing, said Huang, who explained, “This means that, for those families, every month, we pay about two-thirds of their rent, and yes, you have to get on a waiting list, and yes, the wait is really long, as with any other housing authority.”

Huang also noted the website, pasadenahousingsearch.com, which he described as “a very powerful search engine, which allows people to search not only in the City of Pasadena, but all over Southern California as well.”

The city also has an Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, noted Huang, which helped develop 46 units in Pasadena over the last year, mostly apartments. The ordinance mandates that whenever a multi-family building is built with ten units or more, 15 percent of the housing units must be set aside as affordable, or the developer could pay the city a fee, in lieu of such affordable apartments, Huang explained. Those fees are then used to develop more affordable apartments, said Huang.

Along with the 46 apartments built last year, there are more than 50 new apartments under construction at the moment, through the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, said Huang.

Pasadena develops housing on its own, as well, said Huang, and noted the recent completion of both Heritage Square, a new 70-unit senior housing complex on Fair oaks and Orange Grove, and Marv’s Place, a new 20-unit development for formerly homeless families. An existing 44-unit affordable housing complex was also recently rehabilitated, said Huang.
Meanwhile, a January 2016 report on municipal rent control by Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles-based economic research firm, stated, “We did not find strong evidence that rent control helps to reduce the number of low-income households spending 30% or more of their income on rent. Rent control can have a negative impact on low-income households not living in rent-controlled units through higher growth in citywide median rents.”

The report continued, “Rent control ordinances are associated with lower growth rates in the supply of rental housing and with higher rental price growth in the broader market. Rents are too high because multi-family housing and the state’s housing stock have failed to expand commensurately with the ever-growing population. The solution to this affordability problem is to expand the apartment stock in these cities, not introduce price ceilings.”

Beacon Economics also prepared a report against Pasadena’s Minimum Wage Ordinance, which unanimously passed the City Council earlier this year, and went into effect in July.

In the city of Los Angeles eighty percent of its 880,581 multifamily units are covered by rent control, according to the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department. Tenants in rent controlled units pay an average of $602 less than the average market rate unit.