California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed several new laws to protect tenants from eviction and high rent costs, including a bill that caps the amount of security deposits people must pay upfront.
The bills strengthen California’s already strong tenant protection laws and aim to prevent vulnerable, low-income renters from falling into homelessness and exacerbating one of the state’s biggest crises.
Here are three bills signed by Newsom in recent weeks, and one he vetoed over concerns about cost:
Limiting bail
One of the more significant measures signed by Newsom this year is Assembly Bill 12, which prohibits landlords from charging more than one month’s rent as a security deposit.
Assemblyman Matt Haney, a San Francisco Democrat who authored AB 12 along with anti-poverty groups and labour unions, argued that high security deposits were often the barrier to people finding affordable housing, especially in wealthier coastal cities with more exorbitant rents.
The opposition, including Republicans and moderate Democrats, argued that landlords take a risk in renting out their properties and that security deposits ensure they have enough money to cover any damage. Reducing how much landlords can charge upfront, opponents of the bill warned, could mean more rental properties being taken off the market.
“Further limiting a property owner’s ability to financially cover property damage or unpaid rent is an unfair imposition on rental housing providers,” the California Apartment Assn. wrote in opposition to the bill.
The bill goes into effect on 1 July.
Strengthening an anti-eviction law
In 2019, California lawmakers approved a bill that created new rules against evictions and capped annual rent increases at 5% plus inflation.
This year, state Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) introduced Senate Bill 567 to tighten those rules and ensure that landlords don’t use what supporters of the measure called loopholes in the law to illegally evict tenants.
The new law, signed by Newsom, adds enforcement mechanisms to ensure that owners don’t use permitted evictions to remove low-income residents, then turn around and put the unit back on the market at a higher rent. It was similarly opposed by business groups, housing and tenant associations and moderate Democrats.
“Today is a victory for all Californians,” Michelle Pariset, director of legislative affairs for the nonprofit Public Advocates, said in a statement when SB 567 was signed. “Because of this law, more of our neighbours will be able to stay in their homes!”
The law goes into effect on 1 April.
Study of public housing
In recent years, lawmakers have largely failed to pass bills to create more supportive housing, a type of publicly owned, mixed-income housing popular in Singapore and Austria that’s often more affordable than typical rental units.
This year, state Senator Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) introduced Senate Bill 555 to study how California can move forward in developing supportive housing through a mix of acquiring existing buildings or producing new housing. The bill requires the California Department of Housing and Community Development to complete a robust study by 31 December 2026 that identifies funding options and available public land, as well as challenges the state may face in pursuing supportive housing.
Vetoed social housing bill
Critics of the social housing bill signed by Newsom pointed out that a study doesn’t build new housing.
Instead, they supported Assembly Bill 309, a bill by Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose) that would have created a new program within the state Department of General Services to eventually develop up to three public housing projects on state-owned surplus land.
Newsom vetoed the bill on 7 October, arguing that the state was already developing affordable housing on surplus land, while claiming that the bill “could potentially cost the state several hundred million dollars”.