Pasadena Tenant Justice Coalition (PTJC) is launching its campaign for rent control and eviction protections in Pasadena. PTJC’s campaign will focus on making sure rents cannot increase more than inflation, and landlords can’t evict tenants without cause. PTJC will start collecting signatures for a petition in the fall of 2019 to go on the ballot on Nov. 3, 2020. There will be a launch party on Thursday from 7-9 p.m. at Throop Church, 300 S. Los Robles Ave., featuring discussion on protections needed by Pasadena tenants.
According to a press release from the Pasadena Tenants Union:
“Rising rents are causing Pasadena to lose its families, its diversity, and its key community members, like teachers and nurses. Rent control allows for stable homes, leading to long term residents who consider Pasadena their home and make Pasadena the community it is.
The Pasadena Tenant Justice Coalition (PTJC) is formed to address the lack of tenant protections in Pasadena resulting in escalating and unconscionable rents, as well as the city’s allowance of the practice of evicting tenants who are in full observance of their lease obligations without cause, resulting in extreme housing instability for many tenants. Low-and-moderate income tenants of color have been especially hard hit by the city’s failure to control rents and its allowance of arbitrary evictions.
PTJC is grounded in the principles of inclusion, committed to racial, ethnic and language justice, invested in the promotion of the interests of the city’s renters, especially its lower income households. This commitment is in recognition that the city is rapidly and unrelentingly gentrifying, resulting in the displacement of the city’s most vulnerable households and communities. PTJC is committed to reversing the city’s indifference to the displacement within our beloved community of those populations that contribute so much to its rich cultural diversity.”
