Los Angeles Apartment Association Launches 'No On Prop. 10' Campaign

The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles next week will launch a local “No on Prop. 10” campaign against Proposition 10, also called the Affordable Housing Act, which would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles Executive Director Dan Yukelson said the group, which represents thousands of property owners, will set up a Facebook presence, website and send a weekly message “about the detrimental effects Proposition 10 will have on the availability of rental housing” to newspapers, websites and other media platforms.

“Beyond this, we intend to launch a full scale ground campaign with field personnel that will knock on doors and make phone calls to get the word out to vote ‘No on Proposition 10,’” Yukelson wrote in an email.

The local effort comes a week after a statewide coalition of various organizations such as the NAACP, United Latinos Vote and others held a press conference in Sacramento and launched a website against Proposition 10. 

“California’s already suffering from a housing crisis,” United Latinos Vote Executive Director Robert Apodaca said in a news release. “Prop 10 will further drive up the cost of housing, make California even more unaffordable for those living paycheck-to-paycheck. It also gives false hope to the working poor who find themselves with even fewer and more expensive housing options.”

Proposition 10, which will appear on the California November ballot, would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a statewide law that prohibits municipalities from enacting rent control on single-family residences, condominiums and multifamily properties built after 1995. It also allows property owners to raise rent to market rate when a tenant vacates the unit. 

If Prop. 10 passes, a city and/or county would have the authority to regulate a “landlord’s right to establish and increase rental rates on a dwelling or housing unit.”

About a dozen or so cities across the state have rent control ordinances.

On Sunday, the California Democratic Party voted by more than 90% to endorse Prop. 10.

“The party’s endorsement helps make clear that it stands with the millions of Californians struggling to pay the rent and supports returning the power to respond to the state’s housing affordability crisis back to the people and back to local communities,” Trippi, Norton, Rossmeissl Campaigns strategist Joe Trippi said in a news release. Trippi is the lead strategist of the Yes on 10 Campaign.

The Prop. 10 ballot will appear on the state’s Nov. 6 ballot.