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Home My WebLink About10/28/2025 Item 5a, Alvear Rocio Alvear < To:E-mail Council Website Subject:October 28 Study Session on Tenant Protections: Agenda Item 5a Dear Mayor, Councilmembers, and Staff: Thank you for making renter protections a part of our Major City Goals, and for your commitment to ensuring safe and stable housing for every resident of our City. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort staff have put into engaging with stakeholders and preparing the comprehensive report accompanying the agenda for this Tuesday's study session. As staff have ably demonstrated, existing law does not effectively protect most renters in our City, and existing programs do not meet the needs of many residents. The program options they have presented are common-sense solutions to fill these gaps and ensure all rental units meet basic habitability standards, tenants aren't evicted without cause or justification, and the City can collect basic information on our rental housing stock that can be used to formulate effective policy. These programs have been implemented successfully in many other cities and counties across California and the nation, and there is no reason they cannot be successfully implemented here if we just have the courage to stay the course. I can understand why some interests would circulate misinformation about the effectiveness and impacts of such programs and the City’s prior efforts to meet these goals. When the City prematurely abandoned prior efforts, it came with a promise that new policies would be implemented to meet those goals. Now is the time to keep that promise. We all want a livable community with healthy and vibrant neighborhoods, where everyone has safe and stable housing, no matter what. Please continue to move forward to achieve those goals without delay. I am going to add my personal experience: I have lived in San Luis Obispo most of my adult life. I was a homeowner but after my divorce I could not afford to buy anything. I graduated from Cal Poly with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and a Master in Education with emphasis in Counseling and Guidance for Higher Education. I worked as a staff at Cal Poly for 32 years. I retired in December 31, 2020. I rent an apartment and the rents are so high i SLO I have rented my apartment 18 years and the new owner is a billionaire who has properties from Santa Barbara to San Jose. Many of the new apartment buildings in SLO are owned by this person. They have “Property Management Companies”and dealing with them Is very difficult. You know that now they charge $50 a month for having a washer and dryer in the apartment and they charge $50 for having a parking place. The former owners never did that they were aQuaglino Properties. 1 I pay for all the utilities electricity, gas and water. In the small complex that I rent my 1 bedroom apartment. They have water meters behind the building for each apartment. I was told that they received the water bill from the SLO city and they split it among the apartments. I have to pay 2.75% what is that for and I asked do you read the water meters? There are apartments that couples live there or family with kids and obviously they are going to use more water. I live by myself and I am very careful with the use of water. The last two months they water bills were close to $100!! I have the feeling that they are going to continue raising the bills for water. I have my own account with PG&E and with the Gas Company. I pay every month. My question is why the city of San Luis Obispo does not do the same? Every tenant should have an account and pay directly to the city not to landlords because they only want more money! I was told that they include the water that they use to water the tres and green areas around the complex! Several of tenants noticed that the water was leaking all over the green areas. ERA Management was informed and it took several weeks for them to sent someone to repair! I am very concerned. I am super respectful and always pay my bills on time. I have no debts. I have an outstanding FICO score. I am a retired and I get Social Security and my pension from CalPERS. Please help me and many people that live in SLO and like me have to rent. I will be attending the meeting on Tuesday. Thank you, Rocio Alvear, M.A. rocio.alvear@gmail.com Cell: 805.748.6518 2