Civil Code 1927

Currently, as many as you know and witness — Oakland has a large homeless population, a population that keeps growing due to the area’s housing crisis. Many Bay Area organizations such as churches are attempting to mitigate the housing crisis by offering their parking lots to house people and their vehicles (RV’s and cars); while the attempts are noble, they are merely bad-aid solutions.

Oakland City officials recognize that something needs to be done about the displacement and will be voting on a tax measure on July 24, 2018, which if passed will be placed on November’s ballot. The tax will only be applied to the 5% of landlord’s who make $200,000 or more in rental revenue a year. “we’re capturing revenue that has a relationship to the problem” says council woman Rebecca Kaplan. Oakland landlord’s currently pay 1.39% business tax of their rental revenue — adding the extra 1% is estimated to generate $7.8 million in annual funding for the city’s homeless programs. The money raised by the tax would go towards shelters, sanitation, clean up services, counseling, assistance and rehousing efforts.

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