This past weekend, the organization gathered feedback and support from residents in Delano for their housing campaign.
Gathering in front of Delano City Hall, they had flyers for residents to sign to uplift the hardship tenants have and are facing during the pandemic.
“Today we are here asking the city of Delano to pass rent control for the city of Delano so that tenants have protections and everyone has a home they can afford,” said Marivel, a member of Loud for Tomorrow.
According to the organization, historically, communities of color have been the most impacted by the housing inequities in California. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most detrimental times for communities, especially during an exacerbating housing and homeless crisis.
Loud for Tomorrow also said that in just two years, Kern County’s housing prices jumped 27 percent. Despite the alarming results from Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative’s (BKRHC) recent Point in Time (PIT) Count Report reflecting an increase in Kern’s houseless population and the fact that a majority of Delano households are considered low-income under HUD guidelines, the City of Delano has failed to create housing policy that protects tenants from displacement and housing insecurity. Now, youth organizers and residents are demanding action and rent control protections from the City Council to aid the growing housing crisis in the Central Valley and keep Delano’s community housed.
“We are out here getting community input from all our members, anyone in Delano who rents or knows someone who rents, and get their input on how raising rent has been affecting them. A lot of people don’t know that they can have support for rent so we are starting that conversation with our city and helping out the city,” said Yuliana Munoz, a member of Loud for Tomorrow.
Loud for tomorrow is a youth organization in Delano that focuses on civic engagement.
“Our main work is teaching students like Yuliana to become involved in whatever issue they are passionate about. Today it’s rental control, but tomorrow it can be LGBTQ rights or immigration rights or any issue that matters,” said Marivel. “We are going to be doing a lot of work this summer during voting registration so if anyone wants to vote or has any questions we are the people to talk to.”
One of the members of Loud for Tomorrow said they are trying to get people to sign the petition to get the city to have rent control because there are a lot of people who are moving from places like Los Angeles or San Diego and it lets landlord raise prices and they don’t care because they know people from there have money. So with that, it’s having locals get kicked out of small towns like Delano and they have to leave the community they love and grew up in.
With the petition Loud for Tomorrow is having residents sign, they can tell the city that they need to have control over rent and limit the ability of others to raise the rent.
Biviana Camacho, a member of Loud for Tomorrow, said her family went through hardship with rent during the summer of 2021.
“My family reached out to the housing authority in Bakersfield and asked for help for housing assistance and they made it really difficult for us to get the help they were offering and even though we sent all the qualifying paperwork they would get back to us and say we did not qualify even though we did need the help,” said Camacho. “My mother has a lot of coworkers and friends who have gone through the same issue who have applied and a lot of them have lost their loved ones to COVID-19 and it has been really difficult for them to pay rent.”