Oakland City Council votes overwhelmingly to end COVID-era rent moratorium

OAKLAND -- After hours of passionate debate, the Oakland City Council voted 7-1 late Tuesday night to end the city's  pandemic-era rent moratorium in stages by July 15.

The issue has been a heated one between landlords who are thousands of dollars in back rent and tenants who fear being kicked out into streets.

To avoid a flood of evictions, the council members put into place permanent "just cause" protections for tenants.

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"I'm proud to have led the Council's work to end the moratorium responsibly, with time to inform and support tenants and property owners before the end date of July 15," said Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas in a prepared statement. "I'm grateful that we added new tenant protections to help avoid the eviction cliff that we see happening in other cities."

But Councilmember Noel Gallo felt the ordinance still did not do enough to protect landlords so he cast the lone dissenting vote.

The new ordinance establishes a timeline to end the moratorium, rather than leaving the expiration date tied to the end of the local COVID-19 emergency.

The current eviction moratorium will end on July 15, 2023. The timeline is as follows:

• Now through July 14, 2023 — current eviction moratorium continues
• July 15, 2023 — eviction moratorium and late fee moratorium end
• July 1, 2024 — rent increase moratorium ends

Oakland has been one of the last cities in the Bay Area — along with San Francisco, Berkeley and San Leandro — to keep an eviction moratorium in place.

Many mom-and-pop landlords claim their tenants are taking advantage of the policy, leaving them at risk of losing their livelihoods. 

"I'm back due some rent ... $56,000 over the last three years from my tenant," said John Williams, as he read a sign he brought to bring to Oakland City Hall Tuesday.  

Williams currently lives in the top unit of the duplex he's owned for nearly 20 years. It is his only home. Renting it out was supposed to secure his retirement. But at the end of this month, he's facing foreclosure. 

He said for 10 years, Martina Matin, his tenant in the bottom unit, had paid $1,500 for the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, though the checks always came late or bounced. 

But in March 2020, she stopped paying altogether. 

"It's a nightmare," Williams told KPIX. "It's an absolute endless nightmare where it's ridiculous that we're put in this situation for three years, with no conversation, or any kind of dialogue on how do we recapture our funds, other than we have to go to court to do that, or chase them or lose the money."