“There were very few places that allowed pets, and the places that allowed pets required pet rentals, pet deposits, and only allowed one pet,” she said. “At some point, I thought I would be living in my car with my pet.”
Goolsby went so far as to create a resume listing the small dog's behavior classes and vaccinations to win over owners. When she finally found someone to adopt her, she put down an additional $500 pet deposit and had to pay $120 a month in pet rental fees.
“The rent was already high and the pet rent definitely didn’t help,” she said.
Goolsby currently has four dogs, seven cats, one fish, and one bird. However, Haney said his bill would likely limit the number of pets a landlord must accept and allow landlords to require pet liability insurance. Details of the number of pets covered by the bill are still being worked out.
“Too often, what we see is just blanket bans on pets for no good reason, no necessary justification, and pet owners, who are the vast majority of California renters, We don't have the same protections to have access to housing like everyone else, otherwise,” Haney said.
Jenny Berg, California state director for the Humane Society of the United States, said the additional fees and outright bans are contributing to the overcrowding crisis at animal shelters in California and across the country.
“One of the reasons people give up their pets is because they just can't find affordable housing or housing to accommodate them,” she says.
Gulbransen was relieved to hear that the law only applies to domestic pets (he heard an anecdote about a tenant who tried to disguise a tabby as a big cat), but he is concerned about the possibility of further regulation. I'm disappointed in sex.
She said property owners are upset by the accumulation of new local and state laws passed in recent years.
“If you put everything in a package, there's a lot of potential for error on the part of the landlord,” Gulbransen said. “So people will think twice about renting out that vacant space.”
Additionally, he said the state already has laws in place that protect renters with disabilities or mental health issues who rely on emotional support or service animals.
But Julia Howard Gibbon, chief attorney at Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, believes there is room for improvement. Many renters with service animals are unaware of their right to request an exception to the no-pet policy.
“Or sometimes you know and the landlord actually refuses to do it,” she says, adding that property owners sometimes ask for unreasonable documentation or make the process unnecessarily cumbersome. He pointed out that.
In many cases, homeowners refuse service animals outright, Howard Gibbon said. According to a 2021 study (PDF) by Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, 55% of properties surveyed with “no pets” policies provide reasonable accommodations to people who require assistance animals. It turned out that there was a reluctance to do so.
Haney's proposal could solve that, Howard Gibbon said. “This removes any barriers they face in obtaining reasonable accommodation, even though they have a right to it under current law.”
