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SECTION 2 FINDINGS Download

The People of the City of Anaheim find and declare as follows:

A shortage of decent, safe, affordable, and sanitary housing exists in the City of Anaheim, which has resulted in a quickly gentrifying city that is pushing out valuable, long-term residents. Because of this shortage of moderately priced rental space, freedom of contract and the ability of tenants to bargain in the setting of rents have become illusory.

The City of Anaheim’s 2024-2034 Strategic Plan’s^¹ mission aims to provide a high quality of life for all Anaheim residents.

High rental housing costs make it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for renter households in the City of Anaheim to become first-time homeowners. According to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), Orange County has had its largest decrease in homeownership in the last decade.^² According to the 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates, the City of Anaheim has a homeownership rate of just over forty-seven percent (47%), compared to a homeownership rate of over fifty-six percent (56%) in Orange County generally in 2024^³.

Tenants should not have to worry constantly about losing their home for no reason. Common-sense protections against unfair evictions are needed in the City of Anaheim to safeguard long-time and low-income residents from landlords who attempt to exploit the system to capitalize on record-high rents.

The People of the City of Anaheim believe that housing instability is a public health emergency. Rising housing costs and an unpredictable housing market create an unstable economic and housing fabric, as many lower-income households face higher rates of housing cost burden. Research from Health in Partnership, a public health research, organizing, and policy collective, highlights that a 10 percentage point increase in rent burden correlates with an 8 percent higher rate of death. Rent stabilization ordinances, when paired with Just Cause protections, create predictable rent increases while ensuring a fair rate of return for landlords. Slowing rent growth and helping people remain in their homes for longer periods promotes housing affordability and stability. These benefits can lead to health improvements due to potential reductions in financial strain, reducing risks of homelessness, improving housing stability, and creating stronger, cohesive communities.^⁴

The City of Anaheim is the largest of the 34 cities in Orange County. In 2024, according to the 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimate, the City of Anaheim’s estimated population of 344,579 residents represented approximately 11 percent of Orange County’s total population, ranking the City of Anaheim as the most populated city in Orange County^⁵. As of the 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimate, the City of Anaheim has approximately 108,465 housing units. Multi-family housing comprises 44 percent of all housing, of which 11 percent are duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes^⁶.

The People of the City of Anaheim recognize the value of homeownership, and specifically the value of local ownership of rental housing. As such, the Ordinance seeks to balance tenant protections with the rights and interests of residents in the City of Anaheim who own their homes.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimate, residents in the City of Anaheim have a median household income of just over $101,145, compared to a median income of more than $115,229 for Orange County^⁷. According to the 2025 report by the California Housing Partnership Corporation, asking rents in Orange County, which includes the City of Anaheim, increased 27 percent, approximately $609, since 2019, while renters need to earn 3.3 times the state minimum wage to afford the average asking rent of $2,857 for a two-bedroom apartment in the County. Moreover, the majority, 81%, of Orange County’s extremely low-income renters spend more than half of their income on housing costs, leaving very little to meet other basic human needs such as food and health.^⁸

Reports from prominent rental sites where residents commonly search for vacant apartment units demonstrate high average rents and cost of living reports in Anaheim. For example, Redfin Group, Inc., a major housing real estate platform for rentals and property sales, reports that the average rent in Anaheim is $2,720 as of August 2025. They reported $46 increase compared to the previous month, July 2025, demonstrating increasing average rents.^⁹ Apartment List, another major rental and property sales platform, shares in their ‘Cost of Living in Anaheim, CA 2025’ report^¹⁰, according to Best Places, the cost of living in the City is 64.9% higher than the U.S. average and 10% higher than the California average.^¹¹

Renter households are more likely to be lower income than those of homeowners. The 2021-2029 Housing Element for the City of Anaheim states that more than fifty percent of households (57%) in the City of Anaheim have incomes that are less than 80 percent (80%) of the Area Median Income (AMI), the low-income threshold as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development^¹².

In 2024, 10 percent of Anaheim families had household incomes below the poverty level. This is a 2 percent increase from 2023. Approximately 15 percent of Anaheim households received Food Stamps/SNAP benefits in 2024.^¹³

A household is rent-burdened if it spends more than 30 percent (30%) of its gross income on housing costs. According to the 2018-2022 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) data, approximately 54% of all renter households in the City of Anaheim are low-income and rent burdened, which is approximately 30,270 households in the City of Anaheim. Approximately 31% of Anaheim renters spend 50% or more of their household income on rent^¹⁴.

The increasing housing rent burden and poverty faced by many residents in the City of Anaheim threaten the health, safety, and welfare of its residents by forcing them to choose between paying rent and providing food, clothing, and medical care for themselves and their families.

In 2018, the Economic Roundtable and Occidental College published ‘Working for the Mouse: A Survey of Disneyland Resort Employees’ that identified that the majority of Disneyland employees do not earn enough money to cover basic expenses every month and worry about housing instability, like being evicted from their homes. Approximately more than 1 out of 10 Disneyland employees reported having been homeless in the past two years of this report’s publishing year. Half of Disneyland employees reported living in overcrowded housing conditions.^¹⁵ In 2024, Disneyland reached a settlement of 233 million dollars for allegedly evading Measure L, the City of Anaheim’s minimum wage law for Anaheim Resort employers that receive a city tax rebate.^¹⁶ The People of Anaheim anticipate that these numbers have only increased post-pandemic despite increases in wages given that to afford to live in Orange County renters have to earn at least $54.95 an hour to afford current asking rents.^¹⁷

According to the official Orange County Affordable Housing List, there are approximately 73 deed-restricted government affordable housing buildings available in Anaheim.^¹⁸ As of 2023, the Orange County Housing Authority’s Waiting List is closed, signifying that it is not currently accepting any applications for affordable housing units in the City of Anaheim.^¹⁹

The State of California’s Housing Element Law (Gov. Code §§65863, 65580-65589.8, and §§65751-65761 (including the State of California’s Housing Accountability Act, Gov. Code §65589.5, §65598.6, as those sections may be amended), requires that the City of Anaheim encourage the production of a variety of housing types; and identify adequate sites for affordable housing for persons at extremely low- very-low, low-, and moderate-income levels. Further, as of January 1, 2019, through Assembly Bill 686 (amending Gov. Code §65863, and adding Gov. Code §8899.50, as those sections may be amended), the California Legislature now requires all its jurisdictions to affirmatively further fair housing in their cities.

The City of Anaheim was designated a 2021-2029 Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) totaling a need for 17,453 units during the planning period, including 3,767 very low-income units, 2,397 low-income units, 2,945 moderate-income units, and 8,344 above-moderate income units.^²⁰ Given the current challenges in meeting the existing and projected housing needs of lower-income residents in the City of Anaheim, regulating and stabilizing rents serves as a vital tool to maintain the affordability of a significant portion of the housing supply within a reasonable period. It is also a tool for community preservation and protection against displacement. According to the Urban Displacement Project, a University of California, Berkeley research project team, identifies the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metropolitan area as one of the top ten most housing precarious metros, meaning that these communities have higher risks of post-pandemic eviction, displacement, and long-term poverty.^²¹
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) identified that approximately 53% of Anaheim residents experience overcrowding, overpayment, or incomplete kitchen and/or plumbing facilities. Approximately 36% of residents in the City of Anaheim live in severe levels of the aforementioned housing conditions.^²²

In the 2024-2025 academic school year, there were approximately 41,970 enrolled students in the Anaheim Elementary School District (14,740^²³) and the Anaheim Union High School District (27,195) combined. Of the 41,970 combined student population, in 2025, 73.4% at Anaheim Elementary School District and 81.9% are considered economically disadvantaged, meaning they were eligible for free or reduced lunch, or their parents did not graduate high school. Additionally, in the 2024-2025 academic year, 1,868 Anaheim Elementary School District students, 12.6%, were identified as homeless.^²⁴ The Anaheim Union High School District had 2,022, 7.4%, enrolled students identified as homeless in the 2024-2025 academic year.^²⁵ Evictions and displacement impose an especially high burden on school-aged children and their families, including increased absences from school and other educational disruptions that can have long-lasting effects, such as impacts on mental and physical health, as well as school and social hardships for the children and their families.^²⁶

Additionally, homelessness in Orange County is rising at a rapid pace. The most recent publicly available Point-In-Time Count & Survey, a federally mandated snapshot of the homeless population, conducted in 2024, revealed approximately 7,322 homeless persons living in Orange County. In 2024, Anaheim had the second-largest reported population of homeless individuals in Orange County, at 1,417 persons. This makes up more than 19.3% of Orange County’s homeless population.^²⁷

In 2020, the U.S. Government of Accountability describe in their Homelessness: Better HUD Oversight of Data Collection Could Improve Estimates of Homeless Population Report, in their statistical analysis, that a median rent increase of $100 per month are associated with a 9 percent increase in homelessness.^²⁸

According to findings by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, “[l]aws that stabilize rents and prevent unjust evictions . . . directly address the underlying causes of housing instability and homelessness.”^²⁹ The People of the City of Anaheim seek to promote the development of affordable housing and to provide robust and effective services to residents experiencing chronic homelessness. The People of the City of Anaheim further recognize that policies designed to prevent individuals and families from losing their housing by stabilizing housing costs and prohibiting unjust evictions are critical tools for addressing homelessness in the City of Anaheim.

The California Legislature has found that some landlords report (or threaten to report) their tenants’ immigration status to harass or intimidate those tenants.^³⁰ Other landlords carry out such reports or threats as a way of retaliating against tenants who have reported habitability issues or who have exercised other tenant rights. Reports and threats based on immigration status are also used to pressure tenants into leaving their homes, a problem that is particularly salient in rapidly gentrifying cities such as Anaheim, where some landlords might be motivated to illicitly push out lower- and moderate-income tenants in favor of more lucrative projects. Arrest by ICE can lead to detention and deportation, ripping families and communities apart. For more than a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized deportation as a deprivation of liberty that “may result . . . in loss of both property and life, or of all that makes life worth living.” Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276 (1922).

Landlords have greater incentives to induce tenants in rent-stabilized units to vacate. In jurisdictions with rent stabilization ordinances, many landlords offer cash buyouts in exchange for tenants vacating rental units. Many of these buyout negotiations are not conducted fairly, and landlords sometimes employ high-pressure tactics or intimidation to induce tenants to sign agreements. Legislation is needed to promote fairness in buyout negotiations and agreements by requiring landlords to provide tenants with a statement of rights and allowing tenants a 30-day period during which they may rescind the buyout agreement in order to give tenants sufficient time to seek advice. This Legislation will help ensure that the City of Anaheim meets its goals to increase opportunities for extremely-low, very-low, low-, and moderate-income individuals and families to find diverse and quality housing in the City of Anaheim.

Furthermore, tenants who are displaced by landlord actions are subject to serious adverse impacts. Such actions can include evictions, which impose unfair burdens on tenants when they are evicted through no fault of their own. The financial implications of displacement include, but are not limited to, packing, moving, temporary housing, application for new housing, and storage costs, as well as lost wages and time due to taking time off work. Additionally, landlords often require prospective tenants to pay the equivalent of three months’ rent upfront to secure a lease—generally representing the first and last month’s rent, as well as a security deposit. The total accumulated cost imposed on a displaced household generally exceeds $10,000 and can frequently reach $20,000 or greater. Tenants who are seniors, persons with disabilities, or have children incur even higher costs due to their particular circumstances. School-aged children who are evicted from their homes often miss school; transitioning to new schools also interrupts their education. Low- and moderate-income tenants cannot afford such sudden and costly expenses, and they often experience homelessness as a direct consequence of eviction, which itself imposes further financial, social, health, and emotional costs. The severe financial impacts of displacement on tenants pose a threat to the public health, safety, and welfare of the residents in the City of Anaheim.

The City of Anaheim does not currently restrict rental increases or grounds for eviction. Residents have been unfairly evicted so that landlords can take advantage of the current housing shortage in Anaheim and raise rents. Many tenants do not understand what their rights are in an eviction case and how they may get help if they believe their landlords are violating their rights. Gentrification is rapidly rising in Anaheim, with dozens of estimated new luxury buildings developed in the last five years, while simultaneously, landlords can currently evict tenants to make way for newer buildings without any compensation to renters.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is an accepted measure of the general change over time in prices and, therefore, the cost of living and doing business. Since 1984, increases in the CPI (All items, All Urban Consumers, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim region) have been modest, generally under four (4%) percent per year, with the latest increase at 3.6% for November 2025.^³¹ Meanwhile, the counties of Los Angeles and Orange are experiencing a rapid rise in the rent index. The cost of renting in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area rose 2.7% when comparing January 2025 to November 2025.^³² Wage increases have trailed rather than stimulated general cost increases. A cap on rent increases tied to the change in the CPI generally will protect low-wage tenants without limiting landlords’ fair return on investment.

In unusual cases where a cap on rent increases poses difficulty for a particular landlord, the legal requirement for a fair return is satisfied so long as an adequate process is established for the landlord to seek an individualized adjustment. Courts in California have long upheld the constitutionality of the maintenance of the net operating income (MNOI) standard in these individualized determinations. The MNOI standard typically indexes increases to those found in the CPI, including indexing the MNOI standard at less than 100% of the change in the CPI. One reason is that such indexing accounts for the fact that a landlord’s return on investment is not limited to the revenue from rent rolls, but also includes increases to the landlord’s equity in the property and overall appreciation of the property. Another reason is that a major component of the CPI is determined by increases in housing costs, which are often driven by speculation rather than maintenance costs; thus, these costs unduly influence the rise in the overall CPI. Over the last 40 years, the change in the CPI for the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim region for “All items less shelter” was approximately 80% of the change in the CPI for “All items.” The People of the City of Anaheim find that indexing the MNOI standard at 80% of the change in the CPI for “All items” is reasonable and will guarantee that landlords will obtain a fair rate of return on their investments.

The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482) caps the statewide rent increases to 5% in addition to CPI, which does not greatly benefit Anaheim residents who are at risk of displacement, even with increases at or below this level. Additionally, AB 1482 excludes many Anaheim residents from just cause eviction protections, including new tenants who have resided in a new apartment for less than a year. Furthermore, it exempts from rent stabilization renters who reside in mobile home parks and duplexes, who comprise 5% of Anaheim’s population.^³³

In the City of Anaheim, Mobile home Parks comprise approximately 3% of all housing in the City of Anaheim.^³⁴ According to the Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance (MHPOA), a mobile home resident-led association, report, as of August 2025, a total of 26 Mobile Home Parks totaling 3,527 spaces with an average rent of $1,540 excluding HOA fees.^³⁵

Housing costs continue to escalate in Orange County, and Mobilehome Parks serve as an important affordable housing option for residents in the City of Anaheim.

Since a Mobile Home is affixed to the property on which it resides, it is generally not cost-effective to move it, often resulting in the Homeowner losing the Mobile Home if he or she cannot pay the rent imposed by the landlord.

According to the Mobile Home Park Owners Allegiance (MHPOA), approximately 106 jurisdictions have enacted Mobile Home rent stabilization ordinances (RSOs) in California. The most recent Mobile Home adopted RSO was in National City, CA, in 2023.^³⁶

Absent the adoption of this Ordinance, due to the economic conditions and recognized housing shortage in Southern California, significant rent increases will continue to affect a substantial number of Mobile Home residents in the City of Anaheim and constitute a threat to their public health, safety, and welfare.

Manufactured housing and mobile homes can provide housing opportunities that are deemed to be more affordable to lower and moderate income households. Further, mobile homes provide an important form of affordable housing for a substantial number of mobile home Owners/Residents who reside in the City of Anaheim.

The City of Anaheim’s Housing Element’s Policy Program contains five core strategy areas including the Housing Conservation and Preservation Action aiming to “establish policy actions for the conservation of the existing housing stock and preservation of housing opportunities for Anaheim residents”, of which affordable Mobile Home Park spaces are typically an example. It is in the City of Anaheim’s interest to preserve Mobile Homes as affordable housing and facilitate the displacement of residents affected by mobile home Park conversions. To this end, protections against Mobilehome Park conversions are necessary to protect what is, for many, their most prized and valued asset. To illustrate the need for protections regarding Mobilehome Park conversions, Mobilehome Owners.^³⁷

Studies undertaken in surrounding areas have shown that typical moving costs for Mobile Homes from one Mobile Home Park to another (if vacant spaces could be located) can be several thousand dollars, depending upon the age and size of the Mobile Home. In many instances, removal requires a separation of the Mobile home unit from appurtenances, which have been made permanent, thus causing severe damage and depreciation to the Mobile home.^³⁸

Mobile Homes and manufactured housing have represented an affordable form of shelter to the residents of the City of Anaheim with low- and modest incomes. Because senior citizens often own Mobile Homes, persons on fixed incomes, and persons of low- and moderate-income, rent increases for these spaces can have a significant impact on these individuals and families.

The City of Anaheim has already witnessed momentum in Mobile Home Park protections, like the case of the Rancho La Paz Senior Mobile Home Park. In this case, senior residents organized for a years long fight for rent stabilization in which they received state law protections from rent spikes.^³⁹ Prior to receiving temporary state protections, the City failed to adequately provide relief when Rancho La Paz residents advocated for local rent stablization for mobile home parks to which they received substantial rent increases the next day.^⁴⁰ While these protections provide relief for only Rancho La Paz Mobile Home Park residents, they are temporary and sunset in 2030^⁴¹. This case demonstrates that there is a current issue with Mobile Home Park rent affordability among mobile home residents relying on fixed incomes or lower incomes. Anaheim Mobile Home Park residents need and deserve permanent rent stabilization and just cause protections.

It is desirable to provide Prospective Mobilehome Owners/Residents of Mobilehomes with the understanding that Landlords do not require multi-year leases that would render protections under this Ordinance meaningless.

The City of Anaheim does not currently restrict rental increases or grounds for eviction. Further, many tenants do not understand or know their rights in the eviction case process. Most tenants also do not know of the limited, existing resources that can support them during their eviction case, or if they believe their landlord violated their rights.

The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (California Civil Code Section 1954.50, et seq.) currently limits the applicability of local rent stabilization policies, including prohibiting local jurisdictions from applying rent stabilization to certain residential rental properties. This Ordinance intends to comply with the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and all other applicable state and federal laws. However, if the California Legislature repeals, amends, or if a court invalidates the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, this Ordinance will apply to residential rental properties that the Costa-Hawkins Rental Act had previously exempted from local rent stabilization.

The City of Anaheim finds that the protections provided in this Ordinance are more restrictive, or provide greater benefits, than those outlined in California Civil Code sections 1946.2 and 1947.12, in areas relating to annual rent increases, evictions, relocation assistance for displaced Tenants, protection against harassment, discrimination of Tenants, and residential applicants. The Ordinance further provides other Tenant protections not subject to preemption or otherwise precluded by any other provision of law.

Because of the numerous concerns noted herein related to the adverse impacts that result from a lack of affordable housing within the City of Anaheim, the People of the City of Anaheim determine that it is in the interest of its residents to preserve the public health, safety, and general welfare to adopt this Ordinance. Accordingly, the People of Anaheim seek to put into place, among other things, just cause for eviction, rent stabilization, and a process to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants and to ensure that landlords continue to receive a fair rate of return.

1 City of Anaheim, 2024-2034 Strategic Plan Anaheim, 4 ARCHIVE

2 Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), New Data Release from 2020 Census (2023) ARCHIVE

3 American Community Survey (ACS), 2024 1-year Selected Housing Characteristics Estimate (Table DP04)ARCHIVE

4 Health in Partnership, The Health Benefits of Rent Control: A Policy Brief for Public Health Practicioners (2025) ARCHIVE

5 American Community Survey (ACS), 2024 1-year ACS Demographic and Housing Estimates (Table DP05)ARCHIVE

6 American Community Survey (ACS), 2024 1-year Physical Housing Characteristics for Occupied Housing Units (Table S2504)ARCHIVE

7 American Community Survey (ACS), Income in the Past 12 Months (Table S1901) ARCHIVE

8 California Housing Partnership, Orange County 2025: Affordable Housing Needs Report, 2-3 ARCHIVE

9 Redfin, Rental Market Trends for Anaheim, CA ARCHIVE

10 Apartment List, Cost of Living in Anaheim, CA 2025 ARCHIVE

11 Best Places, Anaheim, CA Cost of Living (2025) ARCHIVE

12 City of Anaheim, 2021-2029 City of Anaheim Housing Element, Section 2 – Anaheim Community Profile, 2-14 ARCHIVE