July 23, 2024—San Jose Spotlight reporter, Vicente Vera, covering politics, policy and government, spoke with Public Advocates’ Senior Staff Attorney Suzanne Dershowitz about a rise in evictions after pandemic era protections expired and what advocates and cities are doing to support renters now. Amongst solutions? Understanding your rights under the California Tenant Protection Act (2019) and the Homelessness Prevention Act (both legislative policies PA co-sponsored) which went into effect in April of this year.
“The situation today looks more like the (pre-pandemic) status quo, where tenants have a very short timeline to respond to an eviction notice and fight for their rights or fight an unlawful eviction,” Suzanne Dershowitz, senior staff attorney for Public Advocates, told San José Spotlight. “Many tenants don’t know where to begin when they receive a notice, oftentimes tenants will just move out and do what we call ‘self evict.’”
This was re-printed in Palo Alto Online.
