Earlier this month, the San Pablo City Council passed a local ordinance that will add protections for tenants in the city—ending months of deliberations between council members, residents, and stakeholders. The ordinance will take effect April 1. But one city official, as well as community members and housing advocates, said they had hoped the ordinance would be more robust, with rent control provisions for the city’s majority renter population, and protections for the city’s mobile home park residents.
Of the city’s five council members, three voted in favor and a fourth was absent. Council member Abel Pineda was the only member who voted against the ordinance’s final adoption. In the past, Pineda has called for more protections for tenancies, especially for mobile home park residents. And during a Feb. 17 city council meeting, he explicitly said that he would not vote for the ordinance as written.
“I feel that what we have here today is not really that much better than even what the state provides,” Pineda told the council and those in attendance. “The state law provided a floor, not the ceiling. I feel that right now, everything is leaning one direction, and it’s not with the community, not with your residents and it makes me sad.”
Approximately 60% of San Pablo’s residents are renters, while two-thirds of the city’s total population is Latino. Additionally, the city has seven mobile home parks, totaling 450 spaces in the area. Rent control ordinances are in place in neighboring cities like Concord and Richmond. Concord—which has 1,800 mobile home spaces—also adopted rent stabilization for mobile home park residents.
Since last year, residents from Willow Mobile Home Park and Creekside Village Mobile Home Park have been advocating for rent control for mobile home park homeowners and renters. Approximately 60 people filled the San Pablo City Council chambers at the same meeting on Feb. 17, and several residents from Creekside and Willow were present.
At that meeting, council members voted to move the ordinance forward for a final vote on Mar. 2, with the exception of Pineda. In response, attendees stood up from their chairs, turned their backs to the dais and took off their jackets to show pinned yellow paper that either said “shame” or “vergüenza,” which translates to “embarrassment” in English. Chants of “El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido,” which translates to “The people united, will never be defeated,” were heard as people left the room—showcasing their disapproval of the council’s decision.
Carmen Sanchez, who has lived at Creekside Village Mobile Home Park for 24 years, called the outcome a “total disappointment.” Sanchez lives with her three adult children—two of which are in school full-time—and her husband, who is the only source of income for the family since she experienced an injury at her previous job three years ago.
“I mean, we voted for them [and] now they are letting the town die alone,” said Sanchez, 40, in Spanish. “All we are asking them to do is what they do in other places—rent control for mobile homes.”
The city’s new ordinance, which was formally adopted on Mar. 2, builds on some of the protections outlined in California’s Tenant Protection Act and a state law passed in 2023. According to the ordinance, landlords are now required to offer two months of rent in relocation payment assistance for a no-fault eviction, one month more than what is required by state law. The ordinance also extends just-cause eviction protections, which refers to the legal reasons a person should be evicted, to include all newly constructed units, and subsidized and low income housing, which is not covered by the Tenant Protection Act.
Additionally, the ordinance’s anti-harassment protections prohibit landlords from using certain tactics—such as repeated buyout offers and utility shutoffs—to evict tenants. These protections further build on state law aimed at preventing conduct that is intended to make a tenant vacate a unit. But outside of anti-harassment, the ordinance does not include protections for mobile home park residents nor does it include rent stabilization for any tenancies.
Community members like Sanchez wanted the new citywide ordinance to include rent stabilization for mobile home park residents since they do not receive such protections from the state or the county. While some reasons for termination of tenancy are covered by California’s Mobile Home Residency Law, the law’s civil code does not regulate rent increase amounts, and instead puts it on cities to make that decision since it is a “local control issue.”
“When [the state] passed [the Tenant Protection Act] they said a local jurisdiction can pass their own protections but they have to be stronger,” said Margaret DeMatteo, a directing attorney for Movement Legal, a nonprofit organization that provides specialized legal services for underserved California residents. “Ironically, San Pablo is a city with a majority of renters rather than homeowners, and it’s surprising to me that they have literally nothing compared to all the surrounding cities [and] counties.”
In April 2025, the city council adopted a priority workplan that included the possibility of exploring policy to enhance tenant protections, with a focus on going beyond what state law defines as a just-cause eviction and new anti-harassment protections for tenants. In July 2025, the topic was later revisited at a city council special meeting where they voted by majority to proceed with prioritizing rental protections.
Kieron Slaughter, San Pablo’s Economic Development and Housing Manager, said via email that to ensure the proposed ordinance reflected the needs of both tenants and housing providers, city staff convened a community advisory group in early August. The group, Slaughter wrote, consisted of representatives from Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Institute, California Apartment Association, Contra Costa Association of REALTORS, and Movement Legal.
“The advisory group provided critical feedback on enforcement mechanisms, tenant privacy, and the importance of accessible education. Their input directly shaped the final ordinance language,” Slaughter wrote. He added that staff presented a draft ordinance on Dec. 10, 2025 to the Economic Development, Housing, and Program Management Standing Committee, which is composed of Council members Patricia Ponce and Arturo Cruz, who then “expressed support for the ordinances and recommended their adoption by the full City Council.”
Ethan Silverstein, a managing attorney for Movement Legal, participated in the community advisory group convened last August by the city. However, he says the suggestions that he and Movement Legal made went unheard. “We gave pretty detailed recommendations, and almost all of them were ignored,” Silverstein said. “The tone of the meeting, it was just pretty clear to me that we weren’t being taken very seriously.”
Silverstein said one of their recommendations was that permanent evictions tied to landlord repairs or remodels be prohibited. “Tenants should be allowed to come back at the same rent, and there should not be any sort of expense coming out of the tenants pocket for that,” he said.
He explains that not having such protections creates a situation where tenants are afraid to complain about repairs, which landlords then use as a basis to evict them. But according to DeMatteo, the city ultimately did not adopt that provision for the ordinance.
Silverstein followed up with the city in September 2025 asking for more clarity on what other suggestions for the ordinance the staff was receiving, as well as an estimated timeline for when the ordinance would be coming to council. However, Silverstein was told that staff was still in the “evaluation phase” through email correspondence.
While DeMatteo wasn’t directly involved in the advisory group last August, she said she provided written comments to the city council after each version of the ordinance was read until the morning of the Feb. 17 council meeting when the council would vote to move it forward for final approval.
“They basically put forth an ordinance that was deficient, that wasn’t very strong,” said DeMatteo about the first draft presented in January. “I spent hours going through it and kind of redlining it and showing what is weak, what should be taken out, what should be added in.”
Some of those suggestions included calling for more protections for mobile home park residents by including rent stabilization, increasing relocation assistance, expanding the right of a tenant to return for a no-fault eviction, and strengthening the ordinance’s language by using legally recognized terms, such as “landlord” rather than “housing provider.”
“I’ve never experienced such a tenant hostile environment as I’ve witnessed in San Pablo and I don’t really have the words for it,” DeMatteo said. “I can’t really understand where it’s coming from because it doesn’t back what the voters need.”
At prior city council meetings, residents have expressed during public comment how the lack of protections for mobile home park residents has impacted families. For Sanchez, she says it’s been difficult to keep up with rent alongside rising medical insurance costs.
“[In February], I ordered the [medications] I considered most important, which are chemotherapy, blood pressure, and two others,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “Before, I didn’t have so much trouble buying them, but this time I do, so it’s difficult because I have health conditions that require me to have my medications, and there are other people like [me in the mobile home park].”
During the Feb. 17 meeting, Mayor Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado said that the city wants to represent everyone with this ordinance and not just the few. She also mentioned that members of Rising Juntos, an organization that advocates for tenants rights, who spoke during public comment were “doing things for the organization and not for the entirety of San Pablo.”
“This is why rent control may not and is not, in my opinion, beneficial for a small city like San Pablo,” Pabon-Alvarado said at the meeting. “Large cities operate full departments to administer rent stabilization programs. For a small city like San Pablo, establishing and maintaining this infrastructure would require additional staffing, technology systems, legal capacity and create ongoing fiscal obligations.”
Elia Montano, 54, is a local member of Rising Juntos, and has lived at Creekside Village Mobile Home Park for nearly 30 years. Montano lives with her husband, and their 19-year-old son. Both she and her son work part-time to keep up with the bills, since her husband has been unable to work for a year because of an injury.
However, Montano is also on dialysis, which affects her ability to get a full-time job so she can cover more of her expenses. “If I don’t feel well, I can’t go to work,” Montano said in Spanish. “It’s heavy sometimes for one person and for my son who’s studying online and works.”
Slaughter said via email that the city will continue to educate landlords and tenants about their rights under this new ordinance, as well as applicable state law.
“Consistent with the City’s Housing Element and Housing Action Plan, staff will collaborate with housing partners including nonprofit organizations, legal aid providers, and community-based groups to support outreach and education efforts,” Slaughter wrote.
Rising Juntos and community members say they are exploring other avenues for achieving rent control, such as a citywide ballot initiative for the November elections.
“What we will keep doing is encouraging people to keep coming together—to keep building more power—so that they can see that the people are capable of bringing about change,” said Tomasa Espinoza, Rising Juntos president, in Spanish.
