San Jose’s City Council just approved eviction protections for 450,000+ tenants! Under the new law, a landlord will be required to have a just cause for eviction. Additionally, a landlord will be required to make relocation payments for certain types of evictions. These protections will be similar to those already in place for tenants in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.
Under the old law, San Jose tenants could be evicted for no reason at all. San Jose already has modest restrictions on rent increases (typically limited to 5% per year). But without eviction protection, the limitations on rent increases were largely meaningless–a landlord who wanted more rent could simply evict the tenant and charge a new tenant the higher rent. With eviction protections in place, this won’t happen.
The eviction protections will go into place immediately and will cover all tenants in San Jose. Unfortunately, the limitations on rent increases do not cover all tenants. We need to repeal Costa-Hawkins to make that happen.