Green Party on Budget & Economy Party Platform

Increase affordable housing & protect renter's rights

Increase Affordable Housing Supply
• Enforce laws against illegal hotel conversions.
• Use vacant housing--whether at closed military bases, housing kept off the market by speculators, or landlords delinquent in taxes--to shelter homeless persons.
• Build human-scale, low income housing (as does Habitat for Humanity).
• Pursue more efficient use of our existing housing supply, such as home-sharing & cooperative conversions of existing dwellings.
• Subsidies, trade-offs with developers, and the creative use of city zoning ordinances should be used to increase affordable housing.
• Renter's Rights
• Protect tenants with rent control laws, including vacancy control.
• Prevent evictions without just cause. Restrict owner move-in evictions of long-term tenants, the elderly, and disabled persons.
• Crack down on landlords who refuse to maintain their properties in habitable condition, or who engage in illegal evictions, with hefty fines and, in extreme cases, jail terms.