Opinion

Op-Ed: State Complicit in Affordable Housing Crisis

Published

10 years ago

March 14, 2016

By James Vann

Part III

Oakland’s longstanding rental and affordable housing crises continue relentlessly. To the shame of local policymakers, very little has been done at a significant magnitude to alleviate residents’ suffering.

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On its own, the market does not stem displacement or produce renter protections and affordable housing.

Only governments can perform these functions. Left to its own devises, the market will not provide housing to meet the mounting needs of lower income residents, who are an ever-growing majority of residents.

The state government is not innocent. Actions and non-actions at the state level have mostly made the local housing crisis worse.

Three particularly egregious state programs cripple local efforts to address housing problems: the Ellis Act of 1985, the Costa-Hawkins Housing Act of 1995, and the “Palmer vs. City of Los Angeles Decision” of 2009.

The Ellis Act permits wholesale, no-cause eviction of tenants when an owner no longer desires to operate rental housing — often a ploy to evict current tenants to make way for more expensive rents.

Costa-Hawkins — an accomplishment led by Gregory McConnell of Oakland and acknowledged with great pride on his website — erodes rent control by deregulating controlled units following each vacancy.

More recently, the Palmer Decision eliminated the ability of cities to impose inclusionary housing requirements to provide specified percentages of affordable units within a market development of rental housing.

The roots of the Costa-Hawkins Act are local. For years, State Senator David Roberti (LA), Judiciary Committee Chair, blocked the heinous Costa-Hawkins bill in committee.

When Senator Roberti was termed out in 1994, Berkeley’s beloved and presumed liberal Senator Nicholas Petris was appointed the seceding chair.

As one of his first acts, Senator Petris, a Berkeley resident and rental property owner, betrayed his local constituents and released the Costa-Hawkins bill to the Republican-controlled legislature.

The bill was passed overwhelmingly by the Republican house, and has since been a plague on renters and rent control programs all over the state.

While there may be little local residents can do to change federal housing policies, this is not at all true of state laws. There are urgently needed programs that can be implemented by the state that will significantly relieve the crisis being endured by tenants, artists, homeless and low-income households.

Despite having both a Democratic governor and solid majority legislature, there are no indications that needed improvements will occur without consistent mass organizing and ongoing pressure.

Here are some of the actions that are needed:

Declare a general “State of Emergency in Rental Housing” to permit a period of relief from the epidemic of astronomical rent increases and no-cause evictions so that remedial programs can be proposed.

Repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Law, which greatly restricts the ability of cities to establish, monitor, and maintain equitable regulations or fair rents and unwarranted evictions.

Repeal the Ellis Act, which permits wholesale elimination of rental buildings and mass eviction of current tenants, allowing units to be replaced with luxury condominiums.

Reverse the L.A. Superior Court’s Palmer Decision, which prohibits cities from enacting inclusionary zoning — a program that formerly permitted cities to require that a percentage of a market development (usually 15 percent to 30 percent) must be affordable to lower income households.

Before the Palmer Decision, every city in the Bay Area had an inclusionary housing requirement – except Oakland.

Use a large portion of the state budget’s surplus to create a fund for local communities to build housing for very low-, and low-income individuals and families. Presently, persons on fixed income, Social Security, SSI, or disability can only be served by federal Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers and the quantity of these units is woefully below the need.

Make it illegal to reject a tenant’s rent, or to claim non-receipt, as the basis for issuing a three-day notice, followed by subsequent Unlawful Retainer eviction of an otherwise fully compliant tenant.

Establish a fund and program of loans and grants to Land Trusts. These developments are one of the only forms available for permanently affordable housing that does not escalate with irrational markets or inflation.

Establish a fund and program of loans and grants to enable cities to purchase abandoned and vacated industrial buildings to be made available for affordable sale or rental to artists and community non-profit social services organizations.

Enact an administrative procedure to authorize city and county attorneys to initiate legal action against patterns and practices of owner harassment of tenants. Present state law puts the responsibility on tenants to file suits in small claims or superior courts — a remedy that is not affordable to many.

Reinstitute Redevelopment and Tax Increment Financing, programs that for decades enabled cities to build affordable housing.

Enact statewide bonds of $2 billion to finance the development of “mini-home communities” for homeless persons and families.

Enact statewide bonds of $5 billion to aid developments of critically needed affordable housing.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.