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On Monday, November 17, 2025, the San Mateo City Council voted to pass two local ordinances dealing with policies extending state law provisions to include relocation assistance for no-fault evictions for tenants with a tenure of less than a year from 12 months to 11 months and adhere to requirements for property owners to notify tenants displaced due to substantial rehabilitation when the new or substantially remodeled unit becomes available. Thank you to all the SAMCAR members who made your voices heard, calling on the council to direct staff to focus instead on building on the successful emergency rental assistance program, align ordinances to what is already found in State law, increase housing supply, tackle restrictive permitting, and educate both renters and housing providers on the numerous resources available in the community.

The City of San Mateo City Council unanimously passed an emergency rental assistance program at its Monday, July 28 meeting. The call for such a program came from recent community outreach and engagement meetings that the city conducted, study session testimony, and input from SAMCAR and the California Apartment Association (CAA).

On Monday, April 21, SAMCAR and the California Apartment Association (CAA) mobilized members to attend City Council proceedings in San Mateo and Foster City to speak on behalf of housing providers in opposition to city proposals to increase rental regulations in excess of state law. While both cities moved to advance some new rental regulations, SAMCAR presented a comprehensive case in defense of property rights and found common ground on the need for rental assistance and better education about the plentiful resources already available to support the needs of both tenants and housing providers.