Richmond tenants are pushing back against rent hikes, alleging poor living conditions

When Irene Maldonado became pregnant with her second child four years ago, she and her husband realized they could not continue living in San Francisco if they wanted to provide a home big enough for their growing family.

They eventually moved into the Bissell Avenue Apartments in Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood. But while the two-bedroom apartment’s $2,000 rent was more manageable, Maldonado, who works as an enrollment specialist for social services, questions whether living in the complex is worth even that much, complaining of allegedly faulty plumbing, dirty red carpet lining the outside stairs, crumbling kitchen and bathroom cabinets, deteriorating balcony supports and an unresponsive maintenance staff.

Yet, she said an extra $92 was tacked onto her rent this month, which has been eating up anywhere from 50% to 80% of her and her husband’s paychecks, especially since he relies heavily on tips.

If the currently affordable housing options move out of reach, whether due to cost or safety, Maldonado fears her family may have to move, too.

“I don’t want anything fancy, but I constantly have to ask and wait for repairs,” Maldonado said. “It’s a burden every day — coming home and you don’t know what’s going to be broken. The last time it started flooding, if my husband hadn’t been there, we would have come home to everything ruined. It’s always a constant worry to not know what’s going to happen next.”

Maldonado’s struggle is not unique.

Several Bissell Avenue tenants protested outside of their landlord’s Hillsborough home this week, asking to reverse rent hikes they think are unfair, a sentiment echoed by many of Richmond’s renters across the city amid rising housing costs and inflation.

Courtesy of Edith Pastrano, a lead organizer with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment in Contra Costa County 

Richmond residents have more protections than renters in other cities, such as Antioch, where elected officials are only recently considering passing new housing ordinances for rent control and just-cause evictions. In accordance with Richmond’s rent ordinance, the Bissell Avenue Apartments are completely rent controlled, since the 20-unit, two-story complex was built in 1985.

However, because rents have not increased in recent years, the building’s landlord is allowed to “bank” an extra 5% in rent hikes. In 2021, that meant costs could increase by 6.6%.

Eddy Campos, who helps maintain the property his father, Guadalupe Campos owns, does not think the critiques of the buildings are fair. He said his staff provides maintenance and takes care of issues as they are reported in a timely manner. He said they often have trouble scheduling repairs and questioned whether tenants have properly flagged all problems needing attention.

But even though Richmond — where around half of the roughly 37,000 habitable housing units are rented — is one of the Bay Area’s cities that has implemented its own rent control policies, those measures can only do so much to ease the blow of rising housing costs.

Starting in September, the city’s five-member rent board gave landlords the green light to increase rents by 5.2% — up from the 1.6% cap currently in place. Shiva Mishek, vice chair of the Richmond Rent Board, said landlords do not have to ask for the full inflationary increase from their tenants, but the board, by law, can’t cap that rate.

Seeing how tenants are struggling to afford current increases, housing advocates worry that even more people will be at risk of homelessness when that change takes place.

That’s already a persistent problem in Contra Costa County, which saw the biggest jump in its unhoused population in the entire Bay Area, counting 3,093 people without housing this year — 35% higher than 2019’s tally.

Edith Pastrano, a lead organizer with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment in Contra Costa County, said her organization will implore the Richmond City Council at the end of the month to at least implement better code enforcement and inspections.

“What we’re really pushing for is dignified housing,” Pastrano said. “It’s not fair that working people have to bust their ass for a roof over their head that is literally crumbling.”

That would give Pedro Ramirez, who has lived at Bissell Apartments for the last three years, some reprieve. Splitting costs with a roommate, their monthly payments were also raised in July to $2,024 – 6.5% higher than last year – in order to stay.

“It is very difficult, even between two of us,” Ramirez said, “to cover that expensive cost of rent.”