On April 28, Novato passed the Tenant Protections Ordinance, marking an important win for renters in Marin County. The ordinance was shaped by months of research, legal drafting, community engagement, and tenants speaking directly about what displacement had done to their lives. As a Partnership for the Bay’s Future (PBF) Fellow supporting this work in Marin County, I saw how much those tenant voices mattered in shaping the final policy.
Earlier this year, a group of Novato renters were ordered to leave their homes after their buildings had been deemed uninhabitable. With little notice and nowhere to go, families were forced to abandon the lives they had built. One tenant described the experience: “The trauma of suddenly finding oneself evacuated with nowhere to go overnight; forced to abandon everything we have worked so hard to build.”
The Tenant Protections Ordinance that Novato passed is the strongest just cause policy in Marin County.
That crisis exposed a critical gap in Novato’s protections for renters facing evictions through no fault of their own. Unlike some other jurisdictions, tenants were not entitled to adequate relocation assistance from the property owner or the right to return to their home if and when repairs were completed. Just cause protections are meant to prevent arbitrary or retaliatory evictions by clearly limiting the reasons a landlord can evict a tenant, such as lease violations, owner move-in, removal of a unit from the rental market, or substantial renovation or demolition. Strong local protections can also include anti-retaliation safeguards so tenants can report unsafe or uninhabitable conditions without fear, as well as relocation assistance and the right to return after certain no-fault displacements.
In Novato, the absence of those protections made the stakes painfully clear. We knew stronger policy was needed, and the stories from tenants made it clear that the people most affected by displacement were essential to shaping a stronger response.
From Crisis to Policy Action
Marin County had already developed background research on just cause eviction ordinances, including how they work and how other jurisdictions have implemented them. Community-based organizations (CBOs) including Community Action Marin, Legal Aid of Marin, Canal Alliance, and North Marin Community Services have a long history of advocating for policies like this across the county. But after Novato tenants were displaced, the issue became urgent. City staff reached out to the County for support in developing a stronger local response.
In my role as a PBF Fellow, I supported the effort within the Community Development Agency of Marin County and worked closely with our community partners, Community Action Marin and California Center for Movement Legal Services. I reviewed 44 local just cause ordinances across California, analyzing the range of protections cities had adopted and how they applied in different housing markets. At the same time, Movement Legal drafted a model ordinance grounded in both legal precedent and the lived realities of tenants facing housing instability.
My role also included helping our community partners prepare tenants to engage directly with the policy process. That meant working alongside organizers to break down complex policy into accessible language, supporting grassroots leaders as they prepared tenants to speak at public meetings, and helping create opportunities for tenants to meet with staff and City Council members in smaller, more personal settings to share their stories and make their case directly.
Building a Process Rooted in Community
I supported Novato in convening two rounds of community engagement involving over 100 participants, including tenants, advocates, property owners, and city staff. Separate sessions were held for landlords, CBOs, and tenants, creating space for each group to speak candidly about their concerns, priorities, and experiences.
Stronger protections came from listening to the people who had lived through the consequences of not having them.
Those conversations surfaced both tension and clarity. The landlord sessions were at times contentious, especially as misinformation about how the ordinance would function fueled resistance. CBOs and housing attorneys brought a different perspective, grounding the discussion in what happens after displacement, how specific provisions would play out in practice, and identifying where stronger protections were needed.
That process helped sharpen the ordinance, while also laying the groundwork for the most important piece: tenants speaking for themselves about what displacement had done to their lives and what protections they needed moving forward.
When Lived Experience Shifted the Conversation
Tenants showed up to the first public hearing and spoke as individuals whose lives had been directly shaped by the absence of protections. One renter stated: “We the renters are the basis for the economy of Novato. I am here to ask that we renters be considered and that we have good protection.”
That testimony changed the conversation by grounding the debate in the real experiences of tenants who had already lived through the consequences of inadequate protections. Where opponents warned of potential risks, tenants described actual harms of displacement, housing instability, and the fear of not knowing where they would go next. It became much harder to dismiss the need for action when the human cost of inaction was articulated directly to decision-makers. As a direct result, the ordinance grew stronger.
What This Work Produced
The Tenant Protections Ordinance that Novato passed in April is the strongest just cause policy in Marin County. The ordinance includes relocation assistance and the right to return, protections that address both the legal process of eviction and its human impact.
Policy research and legal drafting were critical to getting this ordinance right, and political advocacy through the CBOs enhanced our ability to ensure the ordinance had a tangible impact on tenants. But what moved it across the finish line was a process that treated community members as partners and experts in what the policy needed to do. In Novato, stronger protections came from listening to the people who had lived through the consequences of not having them.
