HomeMy WebLinkAbout4/15/2025 Item 7a, Silloway
Glenn Silloway <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Act to Protect Renters
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April 15, 2025
Dear SLO City Council:
I am writing to thank you for including item 3 under your Housing and Neighborhood Livability
Goal: Ensure housing that is safe, healthy, and affordable, while facilitating stronger protections for
renters. In a city where 60% of the residents are renters in a hot housing market whose cost increases
have pulled rental rates toward the sky, this is a necessary—if very challenging—goal.
I urge you to fund and pursue the study sessions and plans you list in item 3, but also to make these
forums visible with published outcomes. Then let the final findings lead you to legislate effective
standards for a fair rental market.
Why is it necessary to legislate what seem to be obvious standards of decency? Because the rental
market is not transparent; landlords vary widely in their dedication to quality; renters have little option to
taking whatever is available at the moment they need shelter; there are no commonly known standards;
and when things go wrong in the tenant-landlord relationship, there is little recourse for the renter.
Landlords can afford lawyers—tenants often cannot.
Of all the items you may study going forward, I think the most important is the Rental Housing Registry.
Properly designed, this would provide the information foundation you need to create further standards
and regulations that are appropriate and effective, and fair to both tenant and landlord. Variations on this
theme are fairly common in California, as I’m sure you know, so you are not starting from zero in the
work.
I look forward to watching your progress toward helping create a healthier rental market in SLO.
Sincerely,
Glenn Silloway
Morro Bay
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