Volunteers hit the streets in Redwood City on Saturday to get out the vote in favor of a new rent control measure. If passed in November, Measure E would roll some rents back to 2025 rates and add caps on rent increases. It would also strengthen tenant protections and “just cause” relocation ass istance in Redwood City. The average one-bedroom apartment in Redwood City is now going for $2,900 a month, and more than $3,700 for two bedrooms. Volunteers said the housing situation will become even more dire if Measure E fails. Diana Lopez said she has been living with five other adults in a two-bedroom apartment for more than 10 years. “Because we couldn’t afford to live by ourselves,” she said. Housing data shows Redwood City’s unhoused population includes as many as 50 to 100 children. District 2 City Council Member Chris Sturken says the rent situation is already critical and without more controls. “Folks in the service sector in Redwood City depend on this measure to be able to continue to live in Redwood City,” Sturken said. Sturken admits rental owners and the city would bear most of the costs, but without it, he says the housing crisis will worsen, especially as new AI jobs bring more workers to the region. But the California Apartment Association says there are already rent controls in place in Redwood City and even more statewide with the California Tenant Protection Act. “The Tenant Protection Act that Governor Newsom signed and heralded as the strongest statewide tenant protection law in the country,” California Apartment Association Local Public Affairs Executive VP Joshua Howard said. The group began its own campaign launch for “No On E” Thursday, and yard signs are already up in Redwood City. Howard says rising costs on things like insurance, maintenance and personnel are adding up, and more rent controls could lead actually worsen the housing crisis by forcing some owners to leave the rental market. “When you limit the ability to recover those costs, it’s only going to make the decision for a housing provider very difficult to decide. ‘Do I stay in business and not make any money, and continue to lose money, because I can’t keep up under this new law, or do I sell my building and leave the rental housing market?’,” he said. Howard says the Bay Area has seen this in the past, when similar laws have passed. But supporters say the danger of doing nothing to further control rent costs in Redwood City could cost a local worker shortage, because more people will have to leave to survive. “The folks in this room, the folks at the grocery store, the nail salon, they may move away,” Sturken said. The “No On E” folks say they will begin their own door knocking campaign as both sides try to sway voters before the November election. ...read more read less