Dear Mayor Mueller and City Councilmembers,
I encourage you to support the tenant relocation assistance ordinance at your January 29th meeting.
In 2018, one of my friends and former colleagues who had resided for five years in Menlo Park was hit with a 40% rent increase. It
took three months of intensive searching to find an apartment she could afford that was no further than an hour and a half commute
away from her workplace. In those three months, she paid over 70% of her income in rent. She was lucky to be a single woman in her
late twenties with enough savings to weather the situation. Most Menlo Park renters are not, and evictions are now a leading cause
of homelessness in the Bay Area.
As we all know, the rapidly increasing cost of housing affects many citizens of Menlo Park. The ultimate solution to this can only
be building new housing, and I encourage you to prioritize the topic of housing policy as a priority for the year. However,
requiring landlords to provide three months of relocation assistance at a sharp rent increase or a no-fault eviction is a moderate
and sensible response to mitigate the worst of the housing crisis for Menlo Park residents.
Thank you,Bob McGrew
Resident of Menlo Park
