San Diego’s leaders are talking a lot about being “pro-housing.” We hear it in speeches, policy announcements, and campaign platforms. The mayor’s recent State of the City address made commitments to offer up more city land for housing, advance community plan updates, and launch a new Neighborhood Homes policy. We applaud his focused attention to the housing crisis.
But if we’re serious about housing, we need to be honest about something that’s often left unsaid: housing doesn’t exist without landlords. After all, every apartment, duplex, fourplex or backyard unit requires someone to finance it, insure it, maintain it and manage it over time.
Too often, landlords are portrayed as focused only on money. That caricature doesn’t match reality, especially in this region, where most rental housing is provided by small and mid-size owners. These are people who know their tenants by name, who change the light bulbs, who wield paint rollers and climb under sinks to fix leaky pipes. Many of them have bent over backwards to keep people housed during tough times…