The San Jose City Council approved on March 26 the city’s first policy regarding tenant preferences based on geography. Passed unanimously, Resolution No. RES2024-84 established a citywide “Tenant Preferences Program to Fight Displacement” to preserve housing specifically for residents at high risk of displacement from their communities. Twenty percent of units in new and existing developments will be designated for low-income tenants living in areas characterized by high risks of displacement, while 15% of units in such developments will be designated for tenants already living in the same district as the development.
Passing the landmark policy had been a high priority since 2017. City staff collaborated with SOMOS Mayfair, a resident-led organization serving the community of Mayfair in East San Jose, to develop the policy through an extensive community engagement process. The policy also incorporates a disparate impact analysis to ensure compliance with fair housing laws.
Program eligibility is limited to San Jose residents earning at or below 80% of area median income (AMI). The AMI for Santa Clara County is $184,300 for a family of four and $129,000 for an individual. Applicants must also live in a displacement tract as defined by the UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project and/or currently rent a home in the same council district as the subjected development. Developments subjected to the resolution requirements are city-funded or city-negotiated affordable housing, including senior housing, and any affordable housing in the city on which public agencies want to apply preference, regardless of city-funding status.
The passage of the resolution owes much to the work of a coalition of advocacy groups including SOMOS Mayfair, Silicon Valley at Home (SV@Home), and the Housing Justice Work Group of the Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Coalition. The groups organized community members to give their input through community listening sessions and sent letters advocating for passage of key provisions of the program. Many of the members of these coalitions are residents of East San Jose, which has the highest number of households at risk of displacement. The two-bedroom Housing Wage for East San Jose ranges from $50.96 to $69.62 per hour, three times the city’s minimum wage of $17.55. The tracts with high displacement risk are predominantly Latinx and Asian communities with majority low-income households.
The policy will be most effective if the city can increase the number of affordable housing units developed across the city, and it will not address displacement that has already occurred. However, the tenant preference program will be a crucial tool to help maintain the diversity of San Jose and keep residents in those locations where they already have deep community-ties and support.