SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- The San Diego Tenants Union urged San Diego's City Council to add rent control to the 2019 work plan Monday night.
A workshop on rent strikes was held at the East African Community and Culture Center Monday evening.
In 2018, the union requested that the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee enact an emergency rent control ordinance.
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Since the request was made to the committee, the union said rent has increased by eight percent.
"We are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. We challenge our progressive City Councilmembers to stop the suffering and pain that our working families continue to endure,” a statement from the union read.
Those against rent control say it’s just a Band Aid on a growing problem.
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"We don’t have the middle market type housing. We need to be doing things in the city to make it easier to build that kind of housing," Councilman Scott Sherman told 10News in 2018. "Rent control has failed everywhere it's been tried. Trying to bring back something that has been shown to be detrimental to housing stock is not something we want to be doing."
