The coronavirus cases in Isla Vista are spreading like wildfire with 459 total cases as of November 12. On November 15 the Santa Barbara County, along with 41 other counties in California, were placed back into the purple tier– the strictest tier, which forces restaurants’ dining rooms, gyms, movie theaters, places of worship, and many more to close indoor services. This means several people will once again suffer a high rate of unemployment with only governmental assistance to help feed families and pay their rent.
Isla Vista is home to over 23,000 people, most of them being college students who rent. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is around $2,100, and with the small parameters that make up IV’s limited housing, landlords control the price of rent. Most students earn a minimum wage income, $12-13 depending on the size of the business, which means that a large portion of their income goes towards their monthly rent payments. Not to mention the people that still have to support entire families after giving over 50% or more of their monthly income towards shelter.
According to the Yes on 21 campaign, 1 in 3 of the 17 million renters in california spend 50% or more of their income on rent and a minimum wage employee has to work 92 hours a week to afford the average one-bedroom apartment. For this reason, Proposition 21 on rent control was, and remains, an urgent issue.
Proposition 21 was a statewide ballot initiative that would have placed limits on unfair sky-high rent increases. “Prop 21 would have allowed a city or county to pass rent control for any building older than 15 years, and following a vacancy, a landlord would be able to increase rent by no more than 15% over 3 years, and owners of one of two residential units would be exempt from any local rent control law,” said Maia Surendra, Outreach Director of the Isla Vista Tenants Union.
In a short interview on the importance of rent control within Isla Vista, Maia Surendra also explains its benefits. “With prop 21, rent control would have changed in IV because it would have allowed Santa Barbara county to enact vacancy control measures. This would have meant a couple of things for the IV community. First, for students, it would have meant that landlords would not have been allowed to raise rent between tenancies beyond an agreed upon amount. Second, for community residents, it would have meant that the county could enact rent control that goes beyond what we already have, so tenants would be able to plan for increases in rent in the future, and vacancy control would’ve meant that there would be no advantage for landlords to evict or push out long term residents in order to charge higher rents to students,” states the the Outreach Director of IVTU.
Homelessness and affordable housing are predominant issues especially during times of the pandemic. Like food, water, education, and healthcare, shelter is a human right.
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