Supervisor Jackie Fielder will today introduce legislation to set a minimum amount of unpaid rent that can justify an eviction in San Francisco, a means to “provide renters some breathing room in the midst of unprecedented affordability and housing crises,” she said.
San Francisco’s Rent Ordinance allows evictions for any nonpayment of rent, regardless of how much is owed.
Fielder’s ordinance, which is being co-sponsored by five supervisors and supported by the mayor, would allow eviction only if a tenant owes more than a month’s rent, defined by the “fair market rent” that the federal government says a typical apartment of a certain size costs for one month in San Francisco.
That number is updated annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Right now, the fair market rent is $2,485 for a studio in San Francisco, $2,977 for a one-bedroom apartment, and $3,604 for a two-bedroom unit.
Evictions are top of mind: The city has seen a 26 percent rent spike year-over-year and is bracing for the IPOs of two AI giants. Evictions, predictably, have also risen.
“We’re in a classic San Francisco boom cycle, which comes with higher incentives for landlords to evict long-term, rent-controlled tenants,” said Tuesday Rose Thornton, an attorney at the Eviction Defense Collaborative.
With soaring rents, Thornton said landlords may be waiting for tenants “to miss these pretty nominal rent payments so that they can initiate eviction proceedings.”
About a quarter of evictions in a sample from the Eviction Defense Collaborative last year were for nonpayment below the fair market rent, Thornton said. With the new law, ideally, similar cases will be prevented, Thornton said, that could easily amount to hundreds of evictions a year.
Los Angeles, Oakland and Berkeley have all passed similar laws, each setting the bar at one month of fair market rent.
The legislation is “not going to erase a tenant’s debt to a landlord or enable tenants to permanently live rent free,” said Fielder. “Once that one month fair market rent threshold has been met, landlords can pursue eviction.”
Co-sponsors include supervisors Myrna Melgar, Shamann Walton, Connie Chan, Bilal Mahmood, and Chyanne Chen.
It is not yet known who will line up in opposition, though Fielder anticipates that landlord industry groups will take issue with it.
The mayor said he backs Fielder’s bill.
“This legislation will give much-needed stability to renters across our city, but it must be a first step,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement. “We are continuing to identify additional steps to support families so we can build a city that makes it easy for them to put down roots.”
The board will be voting on the matter in October at the earliest.
