Nowhere to Go: Community-Based Research on Tenant Displacement and Relocation in the San Francisco Bay Area
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The San Francisco Bay Area housing crisis is among the worst in the nation, with hundreds of thousands of renters facing rapid gentrification and forced displacement. In response, many Bay Area local governments are considering a variety of tenant protection policies and working to compromise amidst stifling political gridlock between tenant and landlord groups over rent stabilization. Research on residential mobility and evictions suggests that forced displacement leads to financial and health consequences and that displaced tenants face barriers to accessing housing due to discrimination and lack of information. However, few studies examine local tenant protection policies besides rent control, leaving policymakers blind to their effects. One such policy, tenant relocation assistance (TRA)—money given from landlords to tenants upon eviction—has become increasingly popular because of its general acceptance from both tenant and landlord groups. This exploratory study evaluates TRA policies in the Bay Area by considering the impacts of displacement on tenants and landlords. Using a community-based research approach, this project partners with local housing and community-based organizations and draws on (1) an overview of all TRA policies in the Bay Area, (2) quantitative analysis of two municipal-level TRA datasets, and (3) 13 semi-structured interviews with tenants and landlords. Main findings show that due to various policy eligibility constraints and unaddressed barriers to relocation, TRA does little to keep displaced tenants in their hometowns or mitigate the consequences of forced displacement. Policy recommendations suggest alternatives to TRA that proactively prevent forced displacement.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 2020 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Ham, Kate |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | Stanford Urban Studies |
|---|---|
| Subject | San Francisco Bay Area |
| Subject | tenant displacement |
| Subject | tenant protection policy |
| Subject | relocation assistance |
| Subject | community-based research |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Ham, Kate (2020). Nowhere to Go: Community-Based Research on Tenant Displacement and Relocation in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/vw826zm7724
Collection
Stanford University Urban Studies Capstone Projects and Theses
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- Contact
- kateaham@gmail.com
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