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Santa Barbara City Council Meeting highlights multiple strategies to address housing crisis

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif.— Alex Entrekin is an attorney for a non-profit law firm that helps tenants.  
 
He says the work can be heartbreaking. 
 
“What we're seeing every day is somebody on the line between living on the street in their seventies as a disabled person,” said Entrekin, who works for the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, helping renters facing eviction.
 
Entrekin says in the last five years, in particular, rents have skyrocketed.
 
Property owners say that expenses are increasing. 
 
They fear that if they don’t keep up with rent increases, they won’t be able to afford repairs and upgrades later on. 
 
“We raised rents 5% this last September because of Prop 33 on the horizon. It was the first time we raised rents since the beginning of COVID. My plumber and our electricians were both $45 and our they're now $105 an hour,” said local property owner Tom Solomon. 
 
Tuesday night, a housing task force that's looked at the issue for the past year made several policy recommendations.
 
They include creating a rent stabilization ordinance, incentive programs for housing providers, forming “tiny home” ownership programs, and facilitating more housing opportunities for single parents. 
 
Locals are hopeful that both tenants and landlords can find common ground. 
 
There's a lot of good ideas. Last night, and a lot of this ideas work together. And I think a lot of the people who are supporting those ideas can work together. Things like rent stabilization, things like subsidies, those that can actually work together. And it is nice to see the that task force come away with with a lot of different ideas that the city is going to explore,” said Entrekin.
  
Legal Aid attorneys say they are increasingly taking on more complex legal cases when it comes to tenant rights. 
 
Clients had over $1 million dollars in amounts recovered or debt eliminated during their legal proceedings. 

Article Topic Follows: Top Stories
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Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County
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Mina Wahab

Arab-American producer & reporter with a mission to dig deep in interviews, share authentically, shed light on the issues that matter, and provoke deep thought.

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