Racial & Economic Justice Advocates Rally At City Hall To Demand Rent Relief

Early yesterday, the Community Budget Alliance (CBA), a coalition of 22 community-based San Diego organizations, gathered for a combined protest-press conference demanding the Rent Relief portion of Mayor Faulconer’s proposed budget be raised to $70 million.  

As an active CBA member, our team participated in organizing and implementing the event because we know first-hand of the huge need for rental relief. Every day, we receive calls from hundreds of families asking for emergency rental assistance.

Community members began by drawing 140 chalk outlines representing the 140,000 low income households in San Diego currently at risk of eviction and homelessness. Each chalk outline symbolizes a crime, a kind of death, because each eviction could mean death when a family is condemned to live on the street. Public safety is not possible without housing, and that connection between housing and public safety was expressed by writing the names of those killed by San Diego police in many of the chalk outlines.  

Called the People’s Budget, the CBA’s proposal also included specific funding requests for community resources such as renter protections and funding for undocumented residents (see specific requests here) and would also divert funding from the San Diego Police Department to rent relief because, as advocates argued during the morning’s press conference, housing is central to a safe, healthy community.

The proposal awaiting approval by City Council was for $10 million, which would only help 2500 households out of the 140,000 low income households. As the eviction moratorium is slated to expire at the end of June, many families fear eviction after not having work or income since the pandemic shutdown began in March.

“The Mayor’s budget is a racist budget,” said Barbara Pinto, ACCE member and Logan Heights resident, “COVID 19 disproportionately impacts people of color, black people. More that 40% of people in my neighborhood are unemployed and are having to choose between food and rent. Public safety is food on the table. Public safety is housing stability. Public safety is not funding the police that will brutalize our community. We are demanding the city council listen to us, the people, and defund the police and invest in our communities.”