The LA Daily News takes a look at some of the people that could be harmed by Prop 98’s odious landlord power grab. This isn’t just some hypothetical, but real people living here in California. People will be forced to leave the cities and head out to the exurbs or out of state. For example:
He’s a disabled Vietnam veteran. She’s a retired teacher who spends most of her pension on health insurance.
Arnie and Marilyn Bernstein are among an estimated 1million Angelenos with a rent-controlled apartment.
But if voters kill rent control in a June ballot measure, the Bernsteins say, their monthly payment would jump from $876 to $1,300 – a 48 percent increase.
“We couldn’t afford another apartment,” said Marilyn Bernstein, 62, of Canoga Park, who has lived in the one-bedroom unit for 21 years. “We’d be living under a bridge – like `Tent City, here we come.’ The possibility of lifting rent control would be devastating.”
Emphasis my own. The fact is that while this is permanent vacancy decontrol, the rent control ends when the tenant moves out, Prop 98 makes it a heck of a lot easier to do evictions. Tenants are generally in a lot worse place if Prop 98 passes. So, Jon Coupal, head of the local Destroy Gummamint Set (HJTA), has to defend this turdblossom. Let’s see what he comes up with. Ah, yes, he lies.
“It doesn’t make it easier to evict anybody,” Coupal said. “All the protections under existing law remain in effect. Only when that unit is vacated can anybody raise rents. We actually take the existing protections against evictions and make them part of the California Constitution.”
Naysayers insist, however, that the landlord-backed measure would essentially end rent control in California.
Oh, those naysayers, always coming in with their facts and messing up your spin. You can read the proposition on the Yes 98 site. Look at Section 3, the part that would be grafted onto the California constitution. Do you see tenant protectsions there? Not so much. In fact the only time the word “tenant” is mentioned comes in the Sec. 5, where it eliminates rent control.
In reality, Prop 98 slashes into the heart of tenant protections. It is a dangerous ruse to use the issue of eminent domain to dramatically increase property rights in a way that was never envisioned in the past.