M-A is in the single wealthiest zip code in the United States. The median home listing in San Mateo County is $1.6 million. It should therefore come as no surprise that affording living space is a challenge for many members of the M-A community.
M-A alum and current East Palo Alto (EPA) resident Filiberto Zaragoza explained, “I rent in the Woodland Apartments in East Palo Alto, and it is hard. My parents and I work full time, and we’re not a super big family, but even still, we pay a massive chunk to the Woodland landlords. Although we manage to afford it, if something happened to my Dad, we wouldn’t be able to live here anymore.”
Zaragoza added, “I’ve been a tenant all my life and bounced between Menlo Park and EPA. I graduated from M-A in 2021, and I struggled with housing throughout my time there. A lot of my peers also had the same circumstances or worse, especially those struggling to gain citizenship or even just learn English.”
Zaragoza joined Youth United for Community Action (YUCA) as a sophomore. He said, “I was introduced to the job because it was a paid volunteer position, and I always needed money in high school. I cared about the housing issue because I was living it, but I also learned that YUCA fights for so many other issues like environmental and restorative justice. With YUCA, I’ve researched legislation, organized protests, and spoken before the city council.”
In recent years, housing activist groups like YUCA and others like Menlo Together have made strides toward creating affordable housing across the state and locally. Recently, Menlo Together supported the “No on Measure V” political campaign in Menlo Park. “Measure V” would’ve impeded affordable housing development for teachers and low-income families.
Alongside political campaigning, YUCA and other housing justice groups offer a variety of resources to the community to support renters, such as bilingual “Know Your Rights” workshops for tenants.
These workshops educate tenants, many of whom do not speak English or lack citizenship, what their legal rights are as tenants and how they can take legal action against abusive or neglectful landlords.
An anonymous source explained how YUCA armed them with knowledge, saying, “I am grateful for everything, but when we moved into a property with a landlord we had rented from previously, there were a lot of issues. Our landlord neglected to tell us about subtenants also living on the property, even though it’s a single-family building. On a number of occasions, she neglected to resolve a leaky roof or a persistent mold problem, and we had to deal with it ourselves. YUCA gave me the confidence to say ‘Hey, these are not legal living conditions, so you need to do something.’”
Since 1974 in the California State Supreme Court, Green v. Superior Court, the law of the land has stated, “The landlord must repair problems that make the rental unit unfit to live in, or uninhabitable, due to the implied warranty of habitability.”
The definition of uninhabitable is very broad. Examples are any faulty weatherproofing in rooves, doors, walls, or windows; a lack of natural lighting in each room; or a broken sink or shower.
The anonymous source added, “I’ve dealt with landlords since I was 14 years old because my mother did not speak English. I really try not to ask for too much, because we did know that the landlord could sell the property and we’d have to leave, but the conditions she allowed got my brother sick, made me have to take time off work without compensation, and forced my mother to do strenuous housework while my partner and I work.”
Zaragoza also expressed difficulties he experienced with landlords. He said, “Despite the high cost, our apartment complex still has numerous issues: paint peeling, sinks not draining, and cockroach infestations. These issues are their responsibility, but it’s difficult to contact them and actually get the problems fixed. After the flooding this winter, they released a statement saying they’d clean up this thick layer of sludge that flooded the garages. It was really the community that cleaned it up.”
The anonymous source said, “Reminding [my landlord] constantly that she needs to resolve these issues is incredibly taxing for me. She challenges the validity of my problems, and if she does agree to fix them it takes forever. She refuses to simply compensate me if I hire a crew to deal with the problems, and instead, insists on scheduling them herself which forces me to leave my job at odd hours to open up the house. But every time I complain, I’m afraid she’ll think it would just be better to sell the property, and my family would have to leave.”
The looming threat of vindictive eviction is one of the reasons why community groups like YUCA exist because they foster collective support for tenants and marginalized individuals.
On May 13th, at the Trinity Church on Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Together hosted a bilingual panel discussion about housing and renting in the communities of East Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Menlo Park.
In attendance were representatives from YUCA, Faith in Action’s Redwood City Branch, and the Housing Leadership Council. The event highlighted the personal experiences of renters and housing activists and promoted new legislation such as the California Homelessness Prevention Act SB 567.
The bill, which passed the California Senate Judiciary Committee on April 27th, would close loopholes permitting evictions and thus reduce homelessness in California. However, the rapidly increasing cost of rent continues to displace community members and halt their life plans regardless of eviction loopholes.
The anonymous source said, “If I had the ability, I would live on my own with my partner, but the circumstances have prevented me from being independent. When we got married, we considered moving out on our own, but the cost of rent would be 30% of our checks. Without housing stability, we have completely crossed out the idea of having kids so we don’t force them to endure the same generational trauma.”
