Join Samantha Ramirez as she hosts special guests Carly Finkle from Canal Alliance and Marina Palma, community board member, for an insightful conversation on housing and the challenges of rising sea levels in Marin County. Tune in to Cuerpo Corazón Comunidad for essential resources, information, and solutions on health and safety.
by Mike Blakely | Marin IJ
During the pandemic (and before, for many), the issue of equity came front and center.
Here at the Marin Economic Forum, we looked at equity through an economic lens, which means evaluating how even income and opportunities are distributed across our residents. As a data-driven organization, our approach was to analyze metrics of economic well-being, but we discovered the depth of data we needed doesn’t exist.
What we were able to analyze illustrates a mismatch of stories between the macro and micro picture of economic well-being in Marin.
The most common metric associated with economic equity is income inequality, represented by the “Gini coefficient” (the distribution of income across a region). Measured on a scale of 0 to 1 with zero being full equality and one meaning no equality, Marin comes in at 0.51. That means some degree of income inequality exists, but not significantly different than the state (0.48) or national (0.49) numbers.
Household income is another typical measure. Marin County has an impressive median household income of $131,800, but when measured by ethnicity we observe great disparity. White ($136,086) and Asian ($155,838) household incomes are much higher than Latino ($82,486) and Black ($68,013) incomes, according to a 2021 study by the American Community Survey (ACS).
In the same way the Gini coefficient can only report at county level, median household income does not allow us to measure equity. We find the same situation among poverty rates: Aggregate poverty in Marin measures 7.8%, lowest in the Bay Area according to the 2021 U.S. Census. However, according to a 2019 ACS study, poverty among the Latino and Black population is more than double at 16.9% and 16.8%, respectively.
We can also analyze home ownership. While the average home price of $1.5 million bodes well for property taxes, many would-be owners are priced out. In Marin County, almost 70% of the White population owns a home, followed by 61% of Asian American residents, compared to just 39% and 25% for Latino and Black American residents, respectively.
Education is yet another indicator. As measured by percentage of students meeting University of California and California State University requirements, Marin County enjoys the highest rate of “college readiness” among the Bay Area (65% of all students), but our Latino American population is significantly behind as a group at 41%, according to the Bay Area Equity Atlas.
It also reports that Marin enjoys the highest rate of business ownership per 100 residents (6.1) in the Bay Area. But the county-level figure does not show the significant differences by ethnicity: business ownership among White (6.9) and Asian (7.6) residents is significantly higher than Black and Latino (2.2 and 1.7 respectively).
The data presented above is not being offered as the totality of measurement of economic equity in Marin. However, it does demonstrate why Marin County is often not eligible for state and federal funding resources when data at the county level is the barometer.
For example, our organization was awarded a federal grant only because the COVID-19 pandemic eliminated the requirement that Marin qualify as a “distressed community,” which could not be possible using county-level data. As my colleague Omar Carrera, CEO of Canal Alliance, recently said, “using aggregated data for Marin County hides the poor.”
To confirm our level of economic equity in Marin requires that we more purposefully collect and analyze data that can really measure our residents’ economic well-being. Without this information, the critical investments we make with public and private dollars won’t be well directed and may not achieve the desired impact. This is a problem that the Marin Economic Forum wants to solve and we hope the community joins us with advocacy for better measurement and volunteering their resources and data as part of the overall mission.
Por Yomara López y Marián Caraballo, TELEMUNDO 48
Decenas de inquilinos, en su mayoría hispanos, acudieron el lunes en la noche a una reunión en el Ayuntamiento de San Rafael para exigirle a las autoridades que impongan un control de renta para así evitar desalojos en la ciudad.
Con pancartas en mano con mensajes como “no más desalojos” y “no más injusticias” los presentes aseguraron que temen quedarse en la calle si no se toman las medidas necesarias.
Irene de León compartió su testimonio luego de ser desalojada el año pasado de un complejo de apartamentos en el área del Canal tras notificar que sus cuatro hijos llegarían de Guatemala.
“Me dijeron que sí, de hecho, me subieron la renta, pero cuando ya mis hijos llegaron me dijeron que me moviera el mismo mes que ellos llegaron”, relató Inés.
La madre de familia aseguró que los arrendatarios no le dieron los 30 días de aviso que estipula ley para desalojar la propiedad.
“Para mí fue demasiado injusto, me tiraban las cosas, me tiraban las cosas de mi hija”, indicó Inés.
Así como Inés, otras personas también relataron el calvario que han sufrido tras ser desalojados.
Residents of an apartment building located at 400 Canal Street are faced with potential loss of their housing, having received ‘buy-out’ letters from the building’s new corporate ownership, Tesseract Capital Group, a firm that describes themselves as an “opportunistic commercial real estate private equity company.” As new owners of this housing complex – the largest apartment building in the Canal community – they plan to substantially remodel all 99 apartments and increase rent to market rate, which is expected to be considerably higher than current rent rates.
This is gentrification in action.
In response, our Policy and Civic Engagement team is working to empower residents, support them to know their rights and stay in their homes, and connect them to legal support. We are organizing forums, knocking on doors, and getting the word out to people about their legal rights and options. We do this work in partnership with Legal Aid of Marin, Tenants Together, and Voces del Canal, and in coordination with the City of San Rafael.
At a forum on September 27, the coalition of partners hosted a Renters Rights Community Forum for residents of the apartment complex. Roughly 50 people participated in event, hearing from presenters in English and Spanish, about their legal rights and resources related to housing, rental assistance, and the eviction process. The atmosphere felt serious and meaningful, and there was ample time for questions.
The buy-out letters offer three-month rent payment to tenants in exchange for giving up their apartments. The original buy-out letters offered less than what is required by the City of San Rafael through their relocation program. After advocacy and intervention from City of San Rafael staff, the owners are now offering the full relocation fee amount the law affords them.
Residents receiving these types of notices are often intimidated or uncertain about their legal rights, face intimidating deadlines, and have not been able to successfully be able to find to find new housing in their budget in Marin County. They also lack immediate access to legal advice or professional relocation assistance – barriers that Canal Alliance and the coalition is working to address.
The ‘buy-out’ letters are not a lawful notice of eviction—renters are not required to leave their home, though they could be in the upcoming months. Rather, the new owners are trying to get tenants to self-evict, a tactic that speaks to a large-scale and systemic problem: lack of affordable housing, the threat of gentrification, and an urgent need for adequate tenant protections for low-income renters.
As Rose Costello, Civic Engagement Senior Manager, shared in a recent Channel 48 interview, “you have the right to organize with no retaliation, and you have the right not to be harassed. The City of San Rafael has communicated to us that the laws in San Rafael offer more protections to tenants.
Housing is the most important issue facing immigrants in Marin County. We will continue to work with residents of 400 Canal through this process and to advocate for tenants’ rights and expand affordable housing so no other building and Canal renters face being forced to take their children out of local schools and leave their homes and community because of the inaccessible housing costs in our area.
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