Calls and efforts for elected officials to get a grip on rising rents and track evictions are growing across Orange County.
It comes as a handful of cities across the county are using taxpayer dollars to help residents impacted by the widespread deportation enforcement actions to pay rent, get groceries and in some places get legal support as some fear going to work.
[Read: Immigrant Aid Efforts Expand Again in Orange County]
In Anaheim, one city councilwoman last month publicly called for a discussion on enforcing statewide rent control laws as a group of local tenants say they got city approval to circulate a petition to try to get a rent control ordinance on the November ballot in OC’s largest city.
Ken Batiste, a resident, said if officials don’t stand up for the interests of renters, they will stand up for themselves.
“We were hoping that our city council, who is supposed to be looking out for us, would put in rent control to stabilize our neighborhoods. We got no-cause evictions. We got people with mold that are afraid to go ahead and report it because they’re afraid that they’re gonna get kicked out,” he said at the Feb. 24 city council meeting.
“We’re tired of the rent going up.”
At the same meeting, Anaheim City Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava asked city staff to schedule a public discussion on implementing the state’s rent caps in Anaheim and a policy to protect renters from no-cause evictions – a debate she said she requested in the past.
“I’m just mindful that there’s already an existing policy for the state that maybe is not being enforced, and perhaps that could be something helpful,” she said at the Feb. 24 city council meeting.
Chip Ahlswede, a vice president for the Apartment Association of OC, said the state law on rent control was a compromise through a collaboration with hundreds of groups, but the initiative being pushed by tenants in Anaheim isn’t being done in the same spirit.
Ahlswede also said Rubalcava’s effort to look at enforcing state law is a better solution.
“When the state came up with their rules, there were over 200 organizations that came together from both sides to do this. This is a one sided effort. We were never called,” he said in a Friday phone interview.
“What Natalie is doing there is probably a much more reasoned approach.”
Further South in Costa Mesa, activists with Costa Mesa Unidos, a community group established by Resilience OC, called on the city officials there last week to establish a rental registry and track evictions in the city.
Roberto Herrera, leadership development director with Resilience OC, said the rental registry is particularly important amid the federal immigration crackdown and urged council members to track evictions.
“As families face devastating family separations, bread winners are arrested and mothers are left scrambling to pay for the rent,” he told city council members last week at their March 3rd meeting
“The fear of evictions linger and failure to pay rent becomes a reality. The city doesn’t track this data point failure to pay rent and the data it does collect is all self-reported under our current tenant protection ordinance,” Herrera said.
“Tenant rights are immigrant rights”
Ahlswede said he doesn’t know why they would want a program to help problematic tenants and that there are other ways to track at-fault evictions by getting information from the courts or the Kennedy Commission.
“People need to pay the rent, they need to follow the rules and they need to be great neighbors and I don’t think any of us would say that’s out of line,” he said.
Last Fall, city officials directed staff to develop a proposal for a rental registry as well as bring back an update to their tenant protection ordinance to require notices of any eviction to the city.
The proposal is expected to come before the city council later this month.
The push for rent control in Anaheim and a rental registry in Costa Mesa comes after officials in Santa Ana finalized an ordinance last week banning algorithms that use confidential real estate data to set rent prices amid concerns they are inflating housing costs.
[Read: Santa Ana Bans Automated Rent Price Fixing]
Critics of the ban in Santa Ana like the Apartment Association of OC say the new ordinance will have no real impact on renters because the city has already implemented its own local rent control ordinance – the only one in the county.
Will OC’s Largest City Implement Rent Control?
City spokesman Mike Lyster said city council members in Anaheim could discuss Rubalcava’s request publicly as early as this month as a local renter group dubbed Tenants United are gathering signatures to get rent control on the ballot this year.
Greg Garcia, interim city manager, told Rubalcava staff could prepare an internal memo to city council members with possible options they can move forward with when she asked for the discussion last month.
Rubalcava said a discussion on the issue would still be good to have and questioned how much it would cost to enforce the state law locally.
“I’m sure there’s an expense related to it for enforcement. That’s probably why it’s not enforced at the state level because funding for enforcement is probably challenging and now that we’re heading into budget season, I just would like to know what that would cost,” she said at the Feb. 24 meeting.
Garcia said they would start by sending out the memo to council members then Rubalcava can schedule her discussion for a later date.
It’s not the first time officials have discussed enforcing the state’s rent caps locally.
In 2024, elected officials talked about what role the city should play and if they had the resources to enforce state laws like Assembly Bill 1482, which limits how much a landlord can raise the rent annually and implements eviction protections for tenants.
[Read: Who Should Enforce State Rent Caps and Tenant Protections in Anaheim?]
At the time, officials said they should educate local renters about this and Rubalcava voiced opposition to implementing rent control despite calls for it back then.
Proponents of rent control argue it will protect tenants from rent hikes and keep local neighborhoods intact while still allowing landlords to increase their fees reasonably.
“Rent stabilization helps keep long‑term residents in their homes, which in turn supports local homeowners by reducing displacement, stabilizing property values, and preserving community cohesion,” reads a Feb. 25 news release from Tenants United.
“Small businesses benefit as well, since stable housing costs allow workers and customers alike to remain rooted in the city. Mobilehome park residents—who often face some of the most extreme rent increases—gain critical safeguards that protect their homes and life savings.”
To view the proposed ordinance, click here.
Lyster said proponents have until early August to get nearly 18,000 verified signatures to get the ordinance on the ballot in November.
“The deadline to place a measure on the ballot is not long after on Aug. 7. So, in practicality, signatures need to be in well before Aug. 4 to allow for various reviews, including by an item before Council to forward to the ballot, if qualified,” he wrote in a Friday email.
Anaheim launched a housing trust fund, bolstered by millions of dollars from Disney, that can be used towards eviction protection grants, building affordable homes and downpayment assistance for homebuyers.
Officials have spent $162,000 from the fund as of February to help families impacted by deportation raids cover rent.
According to a 2021 report by the Southern California Association of Governments, 55,113 of the 100,615 homes in Anaheim are renter-occupied.
The median gross rent in Anaheim is $2,175 and the median household income is $95,227, according to census data.
A Rental Registry in Costa Mesa
Costa Mesa Councilwoman Arlis Reynolds said it’s critical city officials know more about the rental market.
“There’s not a lot of public information about trends in terms of rental prices, who owns this rental housing, how fast prices are going up, where evictions are happening, where unlawful evictions are happening, and that affects two thirds of our residents,” she said at the March 3rd meeting.
Costa Mesa officials last fall donated $100,000 to help support families impacted by immigration sweeps pay rent and buy food.
In 2023, they adopted a tenant protection ordinance to safeguard residents from being evicted by landlords who want to do renovations, sell the property or want to live in the house themselves.
That same year, Latino community health outreach workers – known as promotores – showed up to Costa Mesa City Council meetings calling on elected officials to implement rent control but no ordinance for that has been adopted.
According to a 2021 report by the Southern California Association of Governments, 24,987
of the 41,019 homes in Costa Mesa are renter-occupied.
The median gross rent in Costa Mesa is $2,446 and the median household income is $111,505, according to census data.
Christian Lopez, a member of Resilience OC and Costa Mesa Unidos, said officials have a responsibility to address renter issues in a city where more than 60% of residents rent.
“A rental registry will support the systematic tracking of all evictions and improve communication channels for both tenants and landlords in this majority renter city,” Lopez said at the March 3rd meeting.
“This city council cannot continue to leave these issues in the dark.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.