Agree and I've also suggested that to him. The irony is that he probably just doesn't want to be the lone vote against all of the other members like the Mayor and our former Supervisor Adams.
If you're a low-income renter with little to no credit or a spotty rental history, you'd likely have an easier time finding housing without the recent tenant protection and rent control laws in effect. As Brian pointed out, landlords are now far less inclined to take risks on folks they might have cut some slack to before. This shift is pushing the local rental market toward tenants with solid incomes, stellar credit, and clean rental records. For someone like a struggling single parent, it's getting tougher to secure a place. Ironically, the council members who seem to have it out for landlords are tightening the squeeze on the very vulnerable renters they're trying to help.
"Taxes must be paid regardless. Once again, the government puts all the burden on the property owners. Mortgages must be serviced, regardless. Maintenance must be performed, regardless."
Good quote, but the item left out is that the insurance companies can and often do but burdens and conditions that cannot be met without increases in rent. They use State of Calif. laws / ordinances to justify what is crushing the small property owners.
Tenants that have taken advantage of good rents / and owners, too often they shaft the small mom/pops. e.g. small unit great rent, when faced with increased cost from the above, threaten unfair practices. Then in the dark of night moved out, leaving the owner holding a full months rent. This is a common practice and then forces property owners to set hard rules (there goes the friendly relationship) or hire a property manager at additional cost, who draws the line.
The Gang of 4 don't get it. Keep sticking it to the property owners after all at least 3 of them consider property, confiscation of wealth from the workers. They have so much said so both in votes and comments in Council. If correct 2 of them are renters. Harmon as an attorney knows she has a direct conflict of interest and both should rescues themselves from both a) being in the room during discussion, and b) voting where they are creating by their vote a preferential condition they will profit.
In physics if you take a container of explosive gas, start compressing the container and then add heat the outcome is a fast and destructive.
This article makes the point. Up and down the State over the past 40 years the compression of government confiscation of rights has created the growing explosion. Ownership is considered by many to be a "taking." Add into the mix illegals and there you go. This is why the middle class and companies that create wealth are leaving the State.
You’re preaching to the choir. Your article lays out the problems quite succinctly. However, until we start educating the general populous and show them how they are being used to drive up prices everywhere things will not change.
We must take back the schools from the unions and Democrats(but of course I repeat myself) and wake people up to the fact that the media is a compliant partner (and I repeat myself again)
I just watched as the business unit next to mine remained shuttered for 8 months and then, once the magic date of 6 months without rent paid was reached, the Sheriffs swooped in and seized assets and now the rental agency can proceed with getting a new tenant. Every residential landlord in town knows that the law is set up to burden them with the same scenario. A tenant can simply stop paying rent and they will be stuck, still servicing a mortgage and insurance, for up to the six month "grace" period before they can boot out the tenant. I watched a property owner across the street from my home move away and leave his house to be a rental he planned to return to someday. only to find that rental agencies twice rented to large groups of people but told him it would be a small family. Twice he had to do evictions and finally he gave up and sold the house. That was a decade ago, and the biggest change since is the pervading presence of the institutional investors, Blackrock, Vangard et al. They are the ones who will snap up properties and be the arbiters of rentals when the market discourages the mom-and-pops.
Run Brian Run. This esoteric essay tells me we have nincompoops running our city. I wonder how much money is taken under the table. No one can be that stupid unless their getting paid for it.
Well stated. I still would like to see the city challenged to formally apply the concepts of income control to itself. Freeze all sources of income. Allow expenses to skyrocket. Demonstrate how well that works. I hope this gets asked of the City Council as a 'show of hands' who would support this for the city right now today. Just expose the BS for what it is. All that they care about is getting elected. Period. No amount of reasoning will have any impact at all. Maybe a class action law suit?
The concept that many still have not learned is the simple economic equation of “delayed gratification.” The effects of Rent Control, over time, bites the renter in the rear. And history then repeats itself.
"regulated rental use becomes economically irrational."
"Rent control compresses margins and depresses values. Small owners sell. Larger buyers step in, developers and institutional investors who can absorb regulation, wait out timelines, and redevelop later."
The rich prosper. The working class pay the cost. The poor only receive enough resources to live in the streets. The Democrats only give false promises, and increase the problems and taxes on the working class. Welcome to California!
Thank you for the long and detailed explanation; however, if the goal of rent control et al. is to help people who need financial assistance, it would be better that all of society bear that cost rather than have it be placed on the backs of landlords. This would result in only truly needy people obtaining benefits and allowing the free market to work in the housing market. Berney
Good argument. Society should also burden the risk of ownership. Costs, wait that is what rent is for. When taxes, insurance, maintenance, interest rates, inflation increase so does cost of housing. Meaning tenants costs meed to increase as well. Not freeze.
Elaine, there are many things relevant to the country I live in; such as voter ID laws and the cost of gasoline. But they are not relevant to a discussion about the efficacy of rent control laws and history.
For instance; you want to discuss why the federal government believes it has the right to enforce federal immigration law over the objections of a state governor and local citizens.
(It does, btw, and that is actually in the constitution. The last time this happened was 1957 and President Eisenhower at the time sent in the National Guard and the 101st airborne to put down the riots and force the state of Arkansas to desegregate.
The same will happen this time except it'll be Minnesota, ICE, Gov. Walz and President Trump.
You are on the racist loser side of this same as Democrat Arkansa Governor Orville Faubus in 1957.
But that has nothing to do with rent control laws in Santa Barbara, and you trying to make it so is a simpleton attempt at distraction, trolling (like Robert Johnson here), and straw man re-direction. It won't work. The readers of this sub stack are well educated and not prone to distraction.
Elaine, the intention of today's article -- as well as all the S.B. Current's articles this past week -- is to foment outrage amongst its MAGA base on local matters while cleverly distracting them from the more important issues facing our nation; be it the murder of Americans by ICE in Minneapolis, Trump's maniacal attempt to break up NATO and appease Putin by threatening to take Greenland "one way or another", the fact that 96% of the cost of the tariffs are bourn by U.S. consumers and importers, that Trump has personally profited over $1.4b in the past year off his presidency, that he has tried to rewrite the histories of the 2024 election and the January 6 insurrection, that he and/or his family have accepted bribes-for-pardons through their World Liberty crypto scam, that he has weaponized the DOJ against too-many-to-list Republicans and Democrats alike (think Powell, Smith, Cheney, James, Comey, Brennan, et al) merely because they dared to stand up against his lunacy, that DOGE was an utter failure, and, well, almost incidentally by now, the fact that 99% of the Epstein files have yet to be released despite a court order and his own promise to do so. So you see, Elaine, it's all Santa Barbara City Council's fault!
Thank you Robert. I am genuinely perplexed and can only take the silence as consent..agreement with everything you outlined. I want to be WRONG. What is happening is so far beyond party allegiance that it’s astounding to me that it’s not bringing us all together in alarm and disgust. I try to understand which is why I brought it up. There is no sane justification for what Trump, Vance, Miller, Bovino, Nome and the rest of the thugs are doing. None.
"can only take the silence as consent..agreement with everything you outlined."
The silence is due to feeding time for trolls ended. Especially hyperbole with 0 evidence or proof to back up even one iota of defamatory remarks. We observe Mr Johnson here just like one of those crazy people walking down the street all angry and yelling cuss words at no one in particular.
There is your issue. Stop focusing on national politics and focus on what is happening in our back yard. City has prohibited reasonable development by making it very difficult and expensive. Our schools are ranked amongst the lowest in the nation. Illegal laborers are the most abused class from sexual to wage theft. You really shouldn’t point fingers at political parties. Look at our own city & state. But they say politics are downstream of culture. People vote according to culture. Meaning the good people of this city and state must enjoy difficult expensive development, poor academics and abusing people who choose to break US Laws.
Brian Campbell for City Council!
Agree and I've also suggested that to him. The irony is that he probably just doesn't want to be the lone vote against all of the other members like the Mayor and our former Supervisor Adams.
Need a slate of like minded and well funded candidates that includes an ethnic component to get traction.
If you're a low-income renter with little to no credit or a spotty rental history, you'd likely have an easier time finding housing without the recent tenant protection and rent control laws in effect. As Brian pointed out, landlords are now far less inclined to take risks on folks they might have cut some slack to before. This shift is pushing the local rental market toward tenants with solid incomes, stellar credit, and clean rental records. For someone like a struggling single parent, it's getting tougher to secure a place. Ironically, the council members who seem to have it out for landlords are tightening the squeeze on the very vulnerable renters they're trying to help.
Great job again Brian. Another 5 star story that just gets to the heart of the matter. It did however take me one large Bloody Mary to read it.
"Taxes must be paid regardless. Once again, the government puts all the burden on the property owners. Mortgages must be serviced, regardless. Maintenance must be performed, regardless."
Good quote, but the item left out is that the insurance companies can and often do but burdens and conditions that cannot be met without increases in rent. They use State of Calif. laws / ordinances to justify what is crushing the small property owners.
Tenants that have taken advantage of good rents / and owners, too often they shaft the small mom/pops. e.g. small unit great rent, when faced with increased cost from the above, threaten unfair practices. Then in the dark of night moved out, leaving the owner holding a full months rent. This is a common practice and then forces property owners to set hard rules (there goes the friendly relationship) or hire a property manager at additional cost, who draws the line.
The Gang of 4 don't get it. Keep sticking it to the property owners after all at least 3 of them consider property, confiscation of wealth from the workers. They have so much said so both in votes and comments in Council. If correct 2 of them are renters. Harmon as an attorney knows she has a direct conflict of interest and both should rescues themselves from both a) being in the room during discussion, and b) voting where they are creating by their vote a preferential condition they will profit.
In physics if you take a container of explosive gas, start compressing the container and then add heat the outcome is a fast and destructive.
This article makes the point. Up and down the State over the past 40 years the compression of government confiscation of rights has created the growing explosion. Ownership is considered by many to be a "taking." Add into the mix illegals and there you go. This is why the middle class and companies that create wealth are leaving the State.
Thanks for this piece.
You’re preaching to the choir. Your article lays out the problems quite succinctly. However, until we start educating the general populous and show them how they are being used to drive up prices everywhere things will not change.
We must take back the schools from the unions and Democrats(but of course I repeat myself) and wake people up to the fact that the media is a compliant partner (and I repeat myself again)
Thank you for writing the truth! Now if the powers that be will listen! We may be able to change our group with the election ahead!🌸
Well done Brian. Thank you for keeping this issue at the forefront.
I just watched as the business unit next to mine remained shuttered for 8 months and then, once the magic date of 6 months without rent paid was reached, the Sheriffs swooped in and seized assets and now the rental agency can proceed with getting a new tenant. Every residential landlord in town knows that the law is set up to burden them with the same scenario. A tenant can simply stop paying rent and they will be stuck, still servicing a mortgage and insurance, for up to the six month "grace" period before they can boot out the tenant. I watched a property owner across the street from my home move away and leave his house to be a rental he planned to return to someday. only to find that rental agencies twice rented to large groups of people but told him it would be a small family. Twice he had to do evictions and finally he gave up and sold the house. That was a decade ago, and the biggest change since is the pervading presence of the institutional investors, Blackrock, Vangard et al. They are the ones who will snap up properties and be the arbiters of rentals when the market discourages the mom-and-pops.
Run Brian Run. This esoteric essay tells me we have nincompoops running our city. I wonder how much money is taken under the table. No one can be that stupid unless their getting paid for it.
Well stated. I still would like to see the city challenged to formally apply the concepts of income control to itself. Freeze all sources of income. Allow expenses to skyrocket. Demonstrate how well that works. I hope this gets asked of the City Council as a 'show of hands' who would support this for the city right now today. Just expose the BS for what it is. All that they care about is getting elected. Period. No amount of reasoning will have any impact at all. Maybe a class action law suit?
Outstanding synopsis Brian! Choose your poison!
The concept that many still have not learned is the simple economic equation of “delayed gratification.” The effects of Rent Control, over time, bites the renter in the rear. And history then repeats itself.
Excellent article!
"regulated rental use becomes economically irrational."
"Rent control compresses margins and depresses values. Small owners sell. Larger buyers step in, developers and institutional investors who can absorb regulation, wait out timelines, and redevelop later."
This is the point
The rich prosper. The working class pay the cost. The poor only receive enough resources to live in the streets. The Democrats only give false promises, and increase the problems and taxes on the working class. Welcome to California!
Thank you for the long and detailed explanation; however, if the goal of rent control et al. is to help people who need financial assistance, it would be better that all of society bear that cost rather than have it be placed on the backs of landlords. This would result in only truly needy people obtaining benefits and allowing the free market to work in the housing market. Berney
Good argument. Society should also burden the risk of ownership. Costs, wait that is what rent is for. When taxes, insurance, maintenance, interest rates, inflation increase so does cost of housing. Meaning tenants costs meed to increase as well. Not freeze.
I’m wondering why these local issues are so compelling when the country is falling apart. Would love to know what folks here think of the information below. https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-25-2026?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Elaine: This linked article is not even remotely relevant to Brian's article.
Ignore the article link by Elaine, it's irrelevant to the discussion
No…but it’s relevant to the country you live in.
" it’s relevant to the country you live in"
Elaine, there are many things relevant to the country I live in; such as voter ID laws and the cost of gasoline. But they are not relevant to a discussion about the efficacy of rent control laws and history.
For instance; you want to discuss why the federal government believes it has the right to enforce federal immigration law over the objections of a state governor and local citizens.
(It does, btw, and that is actually in the constitution. The last time this happened was 1957 and President Eisenhower at the time sent in the National Guard and the 101st airborne to put down the riots and force the state of Arkansas to desegregate.
The same will happen this time except it'll be Minnesota, ICE, Gov. Walz and President Trump.
You are on the racist loser side of this same as Democrat Arkansa Governor Orville Faubus in 1957.
But that has nothing to do with rent control laws in Santa Barbara, and you trying to make it so is a simpleton attempt at distraction, trolling (like Robert Johnson here), and straw man re-direction. It won't work. The readers of this sub stack are well educated and not prone to distraction.
Elaine, the intention of today's article -- as well as all the S.B. Current's articles this past week -- is to foment outrage amongst its MAGA base on local matters while cleverly distracting them from the more important issues facing our nation; be it the murder of Americans by ICE in Minneapolis, Trump's maniacal attempt to break up NATO and appease Putin by threatening to take Greenland "one way or another", the fact that 96% of the cost of the tariffs are bourn by U.S. consumers and importers, that Trump has personally profited over $1.4b in the past year off his presidency, that he has tried to rewrite the histories of the 2024 election and the January 6 insurrection, that he and/or his family have accepted bribes-for-pardons through their World Liberty crypto scam, that he has weaponized the DOJ against too-many-to-list Republicans and Democrats alike (think Powell, Smith, Cheney, James, Comey, Brennan, et al) merely because they dared to stand up against his lunacy, that DOGE was an utter failure, and, well, almost incidentally by now, the fact that 99% of the Epstein files have yet to be released despite a court order and his own promise to do so. So you see, Elaine, it's all Santa Barbara City Council's fault!
Thank you Robert. I am genuinely perplexed and can only take the silence as consent..agreement with everything you outlined. I want to be WRONG. What is happening is so far beyond party allegiance that it’s astounding to me that it’s not bringing us all together in alarm and disgust. I try to understand which is why I brought it up. There is no sane justification for what Trump, Vance, Miller, Bovino, Nome and the rest of the thugs are doing. None.
"can only take the silence as consent..agreement with everything you outlined."
The silence is due to feeding time for trolls ended. Especially hyperbole with 0 evidence or proof to back up even one iota of defamatory remarks. We observe Mr Johnson here just like one of those crazy people walking down the street all angry and yelling cuss words at no one in particular.
There is your issue. Stop focusing on national politics and focus on what is happening in our back yard. City has prohibited reasonable development by making it very difficult and expensive. Our schools are ranked amongst the lowest in the nation. Illegal laborers are the most abused class from sexual to wage theft. You really shouldn’t point fingers at political parties. Look at our own city & state. But they say politics are downstream of culture. People vote according to culture. Meaning the good people of this city and state must enjoy difficult expensive development, poor academics and abusing people who choose to break US Laws.
Focus Elaine.
The "Oh look! a chicken!" diversion is inappropriate to a very well written and informative article irrespective if one agrees or not.