Protect renters, protect community
I want to urge readers to vote yes on Measure V’s renter protections. This rental crisis no longer affects just lower-income families and people of color, who are being disproportionately displaced; middle-class residents who have lived in the area for years are also being pushed out. Teachers, paramedics and even families with good tech-job salaries are no longer able to afford the rent increases.
Today, landlords can evict anyone with a 30-day notice, simply because someone else can afford to pay more, and in some cases twice as much.
Measure V does two main things to help in this crisis: It requires a just cause for an eviction, and limits rent increases to inflation. All while guaranteeing landlords a fair return.
This ballot measure is not meant to be punitive or punish property owners, many of whom are corporations based outside our community. Similar laws have been proven to work in 12 California cities, and many limit rent increases even more sharply than Measure V. Just as in those cities, investors will still seek to buy rent-controlled properties in Mountain View.
Don’t believe the apartment owners’ doomsday scenarios — they aren’t based on reality.
Measure V keeps our service workers near their jobs. They are more likely to have to commute by car than tech workers like myself, so Measure V is good for the environment and highway traffic congestion.
This rental crisis is killing the diverse communities that are here right now. Everyone here knows someone who had to uproot their family and pull their children out of local schools. There are hundreds of people who don’t have anywhere to go who are living in RVs throughout the city. This nightmare is happening while landlords make windfall profits.
This can’t wait anymore. Please vote yes on Measure V’s common-sense renter protections to protect our community.
Michael O’Brien,
Renter, tech employee
Mount Vernon Court
Give current ordinance a chance
Thank you, Tom Means, for your in-depth analysis (“Rent stabilization is still rent control,” Oct. 21, the Voice).
My concern is that renters are not studying the collateral problems or reading these opinions. I think that anything they read from property owners, or against Measure V, is considered a lie to trick them.
While renters do need some protections, Measure V is not a reasonable or fair measure; I will not vote for it. Give the current ordinance a chance.
Hue Simpson
Del Medio Avenue
Measure V: David v. Goliath
It’s awesome the Mountain View Voice (October 14 edition) endorsed Measure V, which seeks rent stabilization and just-cause evictions in Mountain View. Your wonderful editorial rightly asserts, “rent stabilization is overdue and urgently needed to help staunch the flow from our community of senior citizens, working families, and others not reaping the economic benefits of the high-tech boom and who can no longer afford skyrocketing rents.” Thank you for your endorsement!
Schools are losing teachers and small businesses employees because of the immoral skyrocketing rents that find justification in the materialistic and greedy laws of “supply and demand,” but ignore the dignity and humanity of the people who need and have the natural right to work and live in our city as individuals and as families. The Chamber of Commerce, which supposedly represents Mountain View businesses, shamefully came out against Measure V.
It’s fair to recognize there are landlords in Mountain View who are not taking advantage of “supply and demand” laws. Unfortunately they are few. Most of the apartment buildings are owned by corporations — without heart or soul — wearing only the dress of greediness and worshiping the god of money at any cost 24/7.
Measure V is the result of the unwillingness of most of the City Council members to do social justice to their city tenants in spite of having the moral obligation to do so as elected public servants. Adding insult to injury later they came up with their own Measure W to undermine Measure V.
It’s a David versus Goliath battle. Tenants and their advocates incarnate David. Greedy landlords with their big money for insidious propaganda against Measure V incarnate Goliath. But responsible and social justice-conscious voters this Nov. 8 will make David rise and Goliath fall.
Job Lopez
McCarty Avenue
Penciling out cost of MV housing
We bought our house in Mountain View in 2010. The first tax bill was $8,810.70. The current tax bill is $10,248.50, up 16 percent. Monthly, that is $854.04.
If one bought in this neighborhood today, a house would likely cost $1.5 million, with a monthly tax bill in the vicinity of $1,600. If one put down $300,000 and borrowed $1.2 million, the mortgage would cost about $6,000 per month. Rents in the neighborhood might reach $5,000 now.
So to hold and rent a house, you forgo opportunity cost on $300,000, pay out about $7,500 per month and take in $5,000.
Sure looks like we need rent control to keep those greedy landlords in their places.
Raymond R. White
Whitney Drive
CAA distortions on Measure V
California Apartment Association (CAA) asserts a number of false consequences of Measure V, and claims support from a California Legislative Analyst Office report of February 2016, which preceded the writing of Measure V.
CAA claims Measure V will:
1. Drain the general fund. V doesn’t require a dime from the general fund except start-up costs. (Section 1709 (j). Landlord fees will pay Measure V costs.)
2. Cost $2.3 million per year (unit cost: $132/month) for 14,168 households covered. CAA implies taxpayer costs, deliberately inflated. Other cities’ fees: $3 to $30/month/unit. The Rental Housing Committee’s incentive: Keep fees low.
3. Curb future building. State law bans regulating rental units built after 1995, so building boom continues.
4. Fail to protect working families. V protects 14,168 households from eviction for no cause; landlords can’t raise rents egregiously. “Naturally affordable” units are now unaffordable for longterm hardworking good tenants.
Vote yes on V.
Joan MacDonald
Emmons Drive
Government meddling the real problem
I read in a recent issue where one of your readers compared the EpiPen with housing in Mountain View, pointing out that both are products that are basic human needs, so moral considerations apply to each.
The writer has forgotten to mention the real issue that these two things have in common, in that the market for them has been contorted by government actions. In one case, we have Obamacare regulating drug companies and dispensers, and in the other, the City Council dictates when, where, and how landowners may develop and market their properties.
If we did not have so much government meddling, then there would not be a problem with either product!
Marc Roddin
Ernestine Lane
Measure V good for the community
I’m writing to express my sincere gratitude that the editorial staff of the Voice recently endorsed Measure V. I, too, am in firm support.
As a law student, and now as a graduate, I’ve worked with individuals who have lost their homes, and I strongly believe all people need a place to call home.
When I moved to California, I knew I wanted to continue this work, and that’s how I came to join the Mountain View Tenants Coalition and their push for Measure V.
Measure V, a rent-stabilization measure on the Mountain View ballot, protects renters in two major ways. First, it limits the amount by which a landlord may raise the rent. Second, it prohibits landlords from evicting tenants without just cause. Currently, no-fault evictions are lawful, meaning tenants can be forced out of their homes when landlords feel like raising the rent.
Under the current law, tenants are suffering because rents can skyrocket in an incredibly short amount of time, giving people little time to plan and few options when their wages fail to keep up with costs. Measure V gives renters greater security, knowing that, by law, their landlord cannot double their rent on short notice or arbitrarily evict them.
Many individuals, such as teachers and nurses, have already lost their homes and been forced out of Mountain View. Our community is not whole without them.
But, for the people currently struggling, we still have the ability to come together as a community and provide relief. Measure V provides equity and fairness to renters and gives a chance to people who would otherwise be facing the loss of their home. Join me and vote for V; it’s the right thing to do.
Diana Pillsbury
Mountain View
