Santa Barbara City Council votes to create ad hoc committee to address housing crisis

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.-More than 100 Santa Barbara City workers and SEUI union members took time off to rally and attend Tuesday's Santa Barbara City Council meeting.

Union members said they can't afford to live where they work.

Many took time off from work to attend the meeting and to voice their support for higher wages and lower rents.

Zac Smith said city workers were out in force because they have been working without a contract.

He said they are willing to walk off their jobs for fair pay. He said they joined rent control advocates to show wage and rent struggles are connected and need to be addressed.

Smith remembers what his mom paid for rent when he was a boy in the 1990s.

"My mom was a single mom making $15 dollars an hour at the county. We paid $725 for a two bedroom place near Oak Park, now that would be about $3,000 dollars, while the wage that she was making would be around $23 an hour [today], so that wage increase is about 50 percent since I was a kid, while rent has increased about 300 percent, the math doesn't add up."

People for and against rent stabilization plans packed the city council meeting.

CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United For A Sustainable Economy) policy advocate Frank Rodriguez said "We want to stop the displacement of our working class communities, especially in the Eastside and Westside of Santa Barbara."

He said city and service workers are the hardest hit.

"Rents have been skyrocketing, and as folks continue to recuperate from the COVID19 pandemic we need to make sure rents aren't rising to a place where they are displacing our city workers, or our service workers that make sure Santa Barbara runs."

Landlord Michael Schaumburg opposes rent control and rental registries. He said the government involvement makes the problem worse.

"Once landlords get a whiff that there is going to be rent control they raise the rents. We didn't have a problem  before they started talking bout rent control," said Schaumburg.

Laura Bode, who serves as executive director of the Santa Barbara Rental Property Association, said vouchers could be an alternative.

"It is the one thing that can make a difference. You take a program like Section 8 that we have for lower income and you replicate that for your workforce and create a voucher system where employers and cities can provide housing vouchers that can be directly used by those who need it."

Bode said she believes rent control ends up benefitting the rich.

Opponents of rent control programs, included UCSB economist Peter Rupert, who spoke independently, shared studies that show negative unintended consequences.

Rupert said rent controls in other states reduce the building of new rental properties by 15 percent.

Councilmembers listened to about two hours of public comments,

Instead of voting to fund a proposed Rent Stabilization Economic Impact and Feasibility Study they voted unanimously to create an ad hoc committee to look for housing crisis solutions.

Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez proposed the idea and volunteered to chair the committee.

Alejandra Gutierrez and Kristen Sneddon volunteered to serve on the committee with him.