MEHC Letter of Support for tenants in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood

On April 14, MEHC board chair Jenny Silva sent an official letter of support for tenant protections in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood. You can view it here.

Dear Esteemed Council Members,

We are writing to urge you to take action tonight to address the displacement currently taking place in the Opportunity Zone in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood. We stand with local tenants in their pleas for relief and we urge your immediate action to prevent further mass displacement and gentrification by passing a temporary ordinance to protect renters in the Opportunity Zone.

Aggressive investor activity and predatory housing practices targeted in the Canal neighborhood is causing an immediate threat to the homes of some of the County’s most vulnerable residents. This Council has taken action in the past to provide much-needed protections in this area and we call on you to do so now with urgency. Families are experiencing unjust treatment. They are bearing incredible levels of stress and disruption to their daily lives. They are losing their housing and being forced to remove their children from school
and leave Marin. Local businesses struggle to find and retain the workers that fuel our local economy. These realities undermine the strength of our community and they are wholly unacceptable to our shared values of racial and economic justice. We can do better and we need to move quickly. We urge you to adopt the urgency ordinance in front of you tonight, and then to follow this action with the adoption of city-wide protections.