Calling all Berkeley residents! We are on the precipice of passing a powerful anti-displacement housing policy in Berkeley called the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, also known as TOPA.
TOPA prevents displacement by empowering tenants to determine the future of their housing when the owner is ready to sell the property. (For more information, please visit yes2topa.org.)
Can you send an email today asking the City to bring TOPA to a vote?
Source: East Bay Community Law Center
TOPA has been implemented successfully elsewhere; In Washington, DC, TOPA has helped to preserve 3,500 affordable homes since 2002 and those numbers are only growing.
It’s past time to bring this policy to Berkeley! Community members, including the Northen California Land Trust, East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley Tenants Union, and members of EBHO, have been fighting to implement a local TOPA policy in Berkeley since 2017. With 75% of Berkeley’s low-income census tracts at risk of displacement according to the Urban Displacement Project, and the continued loss of thousands of Black households, there is no more time to wait.