Comment Detail
Date: 06/09/23 First Name: Patricia Last Name: Hacker Email: Hackerpm@att.net Organization Type: N/A Organization: None Comment
While I live in San Francisco, CA and enjoy current rent control laws, I fear the day when forced to move due to events beyond my control. In any such event, I would have to move out of San Francisco because finding another un subsidized studio apartment in a safe neighborhood will be impossible because of the cost of rent or availability. In fact, I would have to move out of my native state. I would suffer that. Beyond just that, I want to add that the effect that property owners (landlords) have ignored the effect they have on neighborhoods. They have destroyed one neighborhood I formerly lived in in San Francisco by raising leases on commercial space which caused many long-standing small businesses to move out. As a consequence, properties were boarded up for years. The character of our neighborhood was thus changed. My current neighborhood is going down this same road. Apartment renters have been vacating The City for several years. We have vacant apartments here in my building and elsewhere in the neighborhood that I could never afford to move to. My chances outside San Francisco are the same, and their lack of rent control is fearful for me in my old age after family losses has turned help from them to zero.Then I will become just another strain on society, except on landlords. Happily, I have had responsible landlords through time in San Francisco. They seem to have understood the social contract. I consider myself lucky. But most others are not so lucky. Too many landlords show no evidence of being conscious of a social contract where there’s a balance of give and take. They seem to be far distant from sharing the responsibility. The cost of rent determines the health of neighborhoods and the people in them.