Dear RUN,

Last Thursday, more than 40 of us met up online to talk about evictions in affordable housing across California. RUN leaders and developers shared stories from the pandemic, roundtable style, and it was a powerful hour of solidarity and commitment.

Rickie Brown, a longtime RUN leader and property manager at City Heights CDC in San Diego, put it this way: “As a parent now, you have to think about, ‘Do I pay my rent, or do I feed my kids?’”

We know that unemployment is running out for Californians who lost their jobs, and undocumented families never had access to that money. “We need to try and help them and stand by them,” said RUN leader and Housing California board member Joyce Roberts.

And as CEO of Self-Help Enterprises Tom Collishaw put it, “The biggest concern is what this is going to look like going forward, because we know households are more and more stressed as the pandemic wears on.”

But the developers at the roundtable - and, we hope, across California - are committed to making sure their residents stay housed. As Tom Collishaw put it, “We’re not interested in evicting anybody any time, let alone now.”

Roberto Jimenez, CEO of Mutual Housing agreed. “We have to listen to each other,” he said. “We have to breathe. And then we have to advocate together for additional resources, particularly for rental assistance.”

RUN exists to make that advocacy happen. As Community Housing Works CEO Sue Reynolds said, “Political action at the federal and state levels is the only thing that's going to create the resources we need.”

That’s part of why Stephanie Park from Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins’ office spoke on the call about SB 1410, a bill that would provide rent relief from the state. Keep an eye on this space for more about how to support that bill and AB 1436, which would limit back-rent evictions.

A giant shout-out to Jazmin Posas, Daphine Lamb, Verica Mancich, Andrea Noble, Rafa Monroy, Alex Alvarado, and the other speakers, who are leading this essential conversation from Sacramento to the Central Valley to San Diego. As the pandemic wears on, we RUN together!

Take good care,

Tori

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News you can use

• One of the bills RUN is fighting for, AB 1703, will help protect the affordable housing we need. To help communities and nonprofit housing developers compete with giant corporations who want to gobble up affordable housing and increase rents, this bill would intentionally level the playing field. Read more here.
• Read more about how DC, San Francisco, and Minneapolis have jumped into protecting tenants from corporate landlords, just like we’re trying to do in California.