Home is sacred. Home is holy. Home is where the heart is.
Home is the first place where we learn how to live in community, how to put the needs of others before ours, and how to share what we have with others. Home is the cornerstone of healthy, thriving communities. California must become a place that ensures every single person has a dignified place to call home.
PICO California organizes campaigns to stem evictions and foreclosures and protect low-income renters from exorbitant rent increases. We are fighting to prevent displacement and homelessness through the state acquisition of currently unsubsidized rental housing and preservation of the housing as affordable rental housing or homeownership opportunities. We have also successfully organized campaigns for numerous local rent control ordinances, vacancy taxes that fund affordable housing, and programs that protect existing – and promote the creation of – affordable housing.
Our current campaigns include:
- Affordable housing on faith institution land: PICO California is leading the fight to streamline the state approval process for affordable housing development on faith institution and school land.
- Protecting renters against no-fault evictions and exorbitant rent hikes: We are fighting to limit rent hikes, strengthen existing laws for “no fault” evictions, and expand the coverage and enforcement powers of the California Tenant Protection Act.
- Anti-displacement and affordable housing preservation: We are calling on California to invest $500 million to preserve currently affordable housing and prevent the displacement of thousands of families. This budget request puts the value on preserving affordable housing units for our families that need it instead of it being sold off to corporate landlords.
- Housing as a human right: PICO California is organizing to create a constitutional amendment that would permanently codify housing as a human right in the state of California. Declaring in our constitution that housing is a human right paves the way for further protections and guarantees that our families and communities throughout California will have housing and stay housed.
- Fair chance access to housing: We are working to uphold the moral truth of redemption and second chances by ensuring that formerly incarcerated Californians do not face unnecessary hurdles to safe, dignified, and secure housing. We are organizing to make it unlawful for landlords to discriminate against housing applicants for their conviction histories and remove it from applications completely. Our past mistakes should not forever define our futures. Our spiritual traditions emphasize forgiveness, and we are fighting to ensure that the opportunity for redemption isn’t stifled before it begins.