Basic Principals & Political Positions
EBRHA has approved the following ‘Basic Principles’ drafted by the Government Policy Committee. It is meant to encapsulate fundamental ideas shared by our EBRHA membership and to create a foundation for further political activities on behalf of the EBRHA membership. We welcome your comments and suggestions. We also welcome finally beginning a healthy dialogue with our neighbors about rental housing and how we can work together to solve the current housing shortage. Only by listening to everyone and sharing all of our experiences and data can we make real, measurable progress in addressing this critical need.
About EBRHA
The East Bay Rental Housing Association (EBRHA) represents rental-housing providers in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Our members provide quality, affordable housing, and are the bedrock of a vital, productive community. As residents and local families invested long-term in our communities, we personally feel the successes and failures of housing policies in our daily lives.
We are our communities. EBRHA members are overwhelmingly mom-and-pop homeowners. For many of us, rental income is the primary source of retirement income. EBRHA members include union members, city employees, teachers, retired workers, and folks on fixed incomes. We include your aunt and uncle, grandparents, cousins, beat cops and firefighters, doctors and dentists and neighbors.
We share many concerns and interests with our customers; renters with whom we agree to provide impermanent housing on our properties. We support fair treatment for renters. We support existing Federal and State laws defining our rights and responsibilities.
EBRHA Basic Political Positions
- We SUPPORT rent subsidies for renters in real need, funded by the whole community.
- We SUPPORT the housing policies of most communities in the U.S. where functioning rental markets based on competition between owners keep rents fair, promote housing quality and encourage investment in maintenance and new construction to balance housing supply with demand.
- We strongly OPPOSE government imposed rent subsidy programs that assist renters that have no need, or that are funded by only an arbitrary subset of property owners. These programs (mislabeled “Rent Control”) only worsen housing shortages, damage their communities, and both overly burden the wrong owners and subsidize the wrong renters.
Our Vision for the Community
- Maintain ongoing, honest conversations with the community, informed by real data, about the costs and benefits of price controls on residential rents.
- Any rental assistance program is carefully designed to respect all stakeholders, achieve reasonable, rational objectives, and avoid unacceptable consequences, such as reducing much-needed housing investment thereby worsening housing shortages.
- Uphold the basic Constitutional rights of all citizens. The U.S. and California Constitutions established that all homeowners must receive Due Process in all government deliberations affecting their property. Sufficient time must be allowed for all stakeholders to be heard and for careful deliberations before creating housing policies.
- Subject all government housing programs to regular, independent evaluation to inform any changes, remove failing programs, and sunset all programs unless continued need is clearly demonstrated.