Help Save Santa Barbara Housing Committee
Help Save Santa Barbara Housing Committee (HSSBHC) is a group of housing providers, small business owners, residents and renters.
Santa Barbara’s affordability challenges are real. But rent control will not create more rental housing, lower insurance costs, reduce maintenance expenses, or make it easier for small local housing providers to stay in the rental market. That is why the HSSBHC has been formed.
Once the Rent Stabilization ordinance is adopted and attested, the referendum campaign will have a very short window to collect the required signatures from Santa Barbara voters.
Your contribution will help fund:
- Petition preparation and legal compliance
- Professional signature gathering
- Printing and campaign materials
- Voter outreach and public education
- Coalition organizing and communications
This is not just a fight about rent control. It is about affordability, fairness, property rights and whether major decisions affecting Santa Barbara’s future should be made by City Hall alone or by the voters.
We need your help now.
“The council is building a $2.4 million bureaucracy and asking Santa Barbara to sign a blank check,” said Rick Lang, committee spokesperson. “Voters deserve to know what this costs, and who pays, before it becomes law.”
“The ordinance goes far beyond apartment buildings,” the committee said. “Every rental in the city, including single-family homes, accessory dwelling units and properties exempt from state rent control, must register and pay an annual fee, even when the unit sits vacant.
“Owners who fail to register cannot advertise their unit, raise the rent, or recover their property through a no-fault eviction.”
[see Noozhawk article, New Coalition wants Voters to Decide on City Rent Control Law, 9/24/2026]