Why this matters
San Diegans, similar to residents in other communities, are grappling with a worsening housing and homelessness crisis. The ability to measure this problem is key to stretch limited resources to those who need it most.
In the middle of a housing and affordability crisis, San Diego’s elected leaders wanted to know more about why people are getting kicked out of their homes.
That’s why the City Council unanimously voted to start collecting data on eviction notices sent to renters. Such a database could help officials guide policy and efficiently allocate city resources. The only information available right now is the number of court filings, and records show about 750 evictions are filed every month in San Diego Superior Court.
“It doesn’t tell us whether or not it’s somebody who missed rent or it’s somebody who broke the toilet and leaked it on the people below them,” Councilmember Jennifer Campbell said ahead of the vote in April 2023. “Even though it’s going to cost us a couple hundred thousand bucks, I think we will in the end be glad we have that data.”
More than 18 months later, the city’s eviction registry still does not exist. In recent weeks, inewsource asked city leaders what has led to the delay and who’s responsible for moving the data collection effort forward. They’ve offered sometimes conflicting explanations, indicating it has been in limbo.
Over the weekend, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who initially proposed the eviction registry, offered some clarity, saying it should move forward through an intentionally time-consuming process required by law to vet new city surveillance technology.
Officials hope it could come to fruition next year.
Meanwhile, the region’s homelessness crisis rages on. Every month for more than two years, the number of San Diegans who fall into homelessness for the first time has outpaced those who move off the streets and into housing. And officials have no idea why.
“I feel like it’s a shame because it’s data that could be used for resource allocation, especially around homeless services,” said Gil Vera, deputy director of Legal Aid Society of San Diego, the largest poverty law firm in San Diego County.
Why is eviction data hard to find?
State law protects eviction records to safeguard tenants’ credit scores and rental history. Generally, these records only become public if a tenant fights an eviction and loses, but even then, you’d have to know the name of both parties and the property’s address to access the record.
It’s incredibly valuable data, Vera added, especially as local governments brace for budget constraints in the coming year.
“If you can see where evictions are happening, who they’re happening to, why they’re happening, you might be better able to allocate homeless resources to prevent homelessness.”
The story about what happened to San Diego’s eviction registry is rooted partly in red tape and how slowly government moves. And, according to Elo-Rivera, whose term as council president just ended, it’s also an example of priorities.
“When we’re thinking about how the city decides to make one thing a priority instead of another, who are we thinking about?” Elo-Rivera said in a recent interview with inewsource. “Whose priorities are we trying to address first? And in this case, vulnerable renters don’t necessarily seem to be at the top of that list.”
Where it all started
Two years ago, top city officials set out to bring San Diego’s tenant protections up to and beyond those set by state law.
They were particularly interested in helping renters who were kicked out of their homes due to no fault of their own — including, for example, landlords who terminate a lease to substantially remodel a property or to remove it from the rental market altogether. This is what’s called a “no-fault eviction.” It’s different from someone failing to pay rent or violating the terms of the lease, which is known as an “at-fault eviction.”
Under the new local ordinance, renters facing no-fault evictions would be entitled to at least two months’ financial assistance, as well as other notice requirements and accountability measures for the landlord.
“San Diegans who are paying their rent and abiding by their lease should not live in fear of eviction,” Elo-Rivera said at a press conference a week before the Council’s vote. He and Mayor Todd Gloria were backing the new protections. “Sadly, too often, San Diego renters are being evicted despite following the rules.”
More than 540 people signed up to speak at the City Council meeting in April 2023, both in support of and opposition to the expanded tenant protections. On one hand, tenants and advocates raised alarms about the financial and emotional impact of no-fault evictions. On the other, property owners and landlord groups raised questions about how often it was really happening.
After nearly four hours of public comment, Council President Elo-Rivera amended his own proposal to include a data collection effort on eviction notices given to San Diego renters.
“This amendment is meant to address the data needs that have continuously been raised during the course of the conversations, both with tenants’ advocates and the industry,” Elo-Rivera said during the meeting, adding that an eviction registry had been part of ongoing discussions. They have included “questions about whether or not this policy is needed, the extent to which no-fault evictions are impacting San Diegans, as well as the impact of evictions overall.”
He proposed requiring landlords to alert the San Diego Housing Commission within three days of giving tenants an eviction notice — regardless of whether it’s a no-fault or an at-fault eviction.
Chula Vista already has an eviction registry
It went live by the time local tenant protections took effect in March 2023, although it only collects data on no-fault eviction notices. In a smaller city that collects half of the available data, the information is limited. For example, in nearly two years, the city collected data from 145 no-fault eviction notices. The vast majority were for substantial remodel.
This kind of data collection effort could help leaders better understand the nature of evictions throughout the city and direct financial assistance or other resources to places where it would be most effective, Elo-Rivera added.
The Housing Commission already collects sensitive landlord and tenant information through its management of hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal housing programs. To collect data on evictions, an official with the agency guessed that it would cost about $200,000. The agency would need to develop a portal, hire and train staff to manage it, and produce educational information for tenants and landlords. Staff would also have to determine the parameters and the data ultimately collected from each notice.
The requirement for landlords to notify the Housing Commission wouldn’t take effect until 30 days after the portal went live, and officials didn’t anticipate it would be ready until July of this year — more than a year after the vote.
After some back and forth, all nine council members agreed it was the right decision.
“I do think it’s important to have both the no-fault and at-fault data so that we can monitor what is happening,” Councilmember Joe LaCava said at the time.
Where it stalled
The eviction registry, known formally as the Tenant Termination Notice Registry, ran into bureaucratic red tape not long after that initial vote.
And that red tape is known as TRUST, or the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology. It’s a local law that stems from a public outcry over the city’s mishandling of smart streetlights several years ago. The law requires several layers of approval with public meetings in each of the nine council districts before acquiring or deploying any surveillance technology — a purposefully arduous, several monthslong process. It was intended to allow community input and oversight for any surveillance technology or data collection effort.
That public oversight is essential to ensuring privacy is protected, said one of the architects behind the TRUST ordinance.
“Surveillance oversight in San Diego is led by the community, not bureaucrats,” said Seth Hall, with San Diego Privacy, a member of the TRUST SD Coalition. “Submitting the eviction registry through the TRUST oversight process is the only way that anyone in San Diego can have confidence that proper protections are in place, and that San Diego’s leaders are prioritizing the safety of everyone that needs housing.”
In a recent interview with inewsource, Elo-Rivera said after months of back and forth, the City Attorney’s Office insisted that the registry either go through the TRUST process or be exempted from it altogether.
So, in January of this year, when the City Council met to consider sweeping changes to the surveillance ordinance, officials attempted to include an exemption for the eviction registry. Council members wanted to fast track the city’s data collection effort as hundreds continue to lose their homes every month.
Councilmember Kent Lee thanked staff for including the registry and other housing-related programs in the exemptions because, he said, “Those are items I do not believe we want to hang up.”
Near the end of that discussion, Deputy City Attorney Joan Dawson asked council members to pump the brakes. She said the exemption language, as it relates to the registry, could have unintended consequences and encouraged council members to take another look.
“I do want to point out that we have had limited time; we are basically redrafting this (TRUST ordinance) on the floor today,” Dawson said. “We have had limited time to review the language. This, as you all have identified, is a very complex ordinance. It is also a very broad ordinance.”
Confusing language?
The issue flagged by city attorneys boiled down to one phrase — “… personnel employed by an agent of the city …” — and how it could unintentionally include scores of people and databases, impacting other city business. That language was intended to include an exemption for the city’s eviction registry, but council members tossed it and agreed to start over. They never did.
Council members wrestled with the language relating to the registry for a bit before deciding to scrap it altogether. Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who chairs the city’s Public Safety Committee, said she would commit to bringing this up for discussion in a committee meeting the following month to clarify the language.
Nearly a year has passed and she never brought it back up.
Asked why, a spokesperson for von Wilpert said her commitment was to put this topic on an agenda, not to write the amendments herself. No one has brought anything forward for consideration, spokesperson Khayri Carter said.
Carter also pointed to the City Attorney’s Office, saying von Wilpert and her staff were told the registry either had to go through the TRUST process or council members would have to amend the Municipal Code altogether.
In a statement to inewsource, the City Attorney’s Office said: “The City Council may declare any measure does not fall under the TRUST Ordinance at any time and does not require permission from the City Attorney to do so. All that is required is an open vote by the majority of Council Members on the item. We look forward to assisting the Council with proceeding according to the will of the majority on this issue at a time of their choosing in the future.”
That still hasn’t happened.
Carter said last week von Wilpert has asked the City Attorney’s Office for a legal analysis on exactly what it would take to track evictions in San Diego. The status of that request is unknown.
Some council members have expressed support for the registry and think it’s a priority. In an October memo outlining a budget wishlist for the coming year, five of the nine council members said they wanted to set aside $500,000 to get the registry up and running — von Wilpert was not one of them.
Lee remains optimistic.
In a statement to inewsource, he said the registry “is an important tool for protecting renters from illegal evictions. From the start, I have been a strong supporter of this initiative and am anticipating legislative action will be brought forward imminently that will exempt the registry from an unnecessary and lengthy compliance review currently required by the (TRUST) ordinance.”
The proposal is not without critics. The Southern California Rental Housing Association, a group that represents thousands in the rental housing industry, notified the Council that it had concerns with the data collection effort.
Elo-Rivera admits he is frustrated about the nearly two-year delay.
“Eviction registry is a pretty wonky thing,” Elo-Rivera told inewsource. “That’s not the sort of thing that the average San Diegan’s walking around with a picket sign demanding.”
What they want is the benefit of a registry, Elo-Rivera added. They want to know if their landlord gives them an eviction notice, it’s done in accordance with the law and they have the assistance they need to avoid homelessness or displacement.
The delay, especially in the face of testimony from dozens of renters talking about how they’ve been harmed, speaks to a bigger problem in government, he said.
“When wealthy people want something, when wealthy corporations want something, they demand it and oftentimes get it,” Elo-Rivera said. “When working class people or poor people say that they need something, or say that they’re experiencing something, they’re asked to jump through hoops to prove it, despite them not having time to do that because they’re trying to survive.”
Correction: Dec. 18, 2024
This story has been updated to correct a sequencing error in the TRUST ordinance. Public meetings occur early in the process.
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