CONCORD — Temporary relief for renters came Wednesday night when the Concord City Council voted unanimously to enact a moratorium on evictions and rent increases through May 31.
The ordinance went into effect immediately and applies to both residential and commercial properties, city spokeswoman Jennifer Ortega said. It will be extended automatically if Gov. Gavin Newsom extends his current stay-at-home order that applies to the entire state.
The City Council pushed the ordinance through in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Newsom earlier this month issued an order giving cities the authority to halt evictions for renters and homeowners, and since then, residents and tenant advocates have urged both Concord and other cities to enact the moratorium on evictions immediately as people lose income while the sheltering order is in place.
“We generally facilitate over 12,000 daily job placements for our day laborers, but are now only fielding a couple of calls a day and we, of course, have closed the Day Labor Center,” wrote Debra Ballinger, executive director of nonprofit Monument Impact, in a memo to the City Council last week. “So they are without income. We don’t want them to lose their homes.”
Hers was one of 35 organizations that signed onto a letter to the council members last week urging them to enact the moratorium. City officials have pegged the number of renters in Concord at more than 43 percent of the population.
Concord’s ordinance protects tenants against evictions for failure to pay rent and establishes a 90-day repayment window for each month of overdue rent. That window begins on the first day the moratorium is lifted.
In addition, the ordinance protects tenants against being charged late fees or other penalties for failing to pay rent or utilities and protects most tenants from rent increases.
According to Ortega, the protections are spread to landlords by urging financial institutions and other utilities to freeze any foreclosure or utility shut-offs that may come from their inability to collect rent.
The city also will create an advocacy and mediation program for tenants whose landlords do not comply with the new ordinance, Ortega said.
Major cities across the state, including San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles, already had enacted similar moratoriums.
The moves come a week after the city established a program to house 10 homeless families or people who would be at high risk of serious complications were they to get sick with coronavirus. That program has housed 17 people, 11 who are part of families and five who are there without family.
Staff writer Annie Sciacca contributed to this report.