This fact sheet provides a comprehensive overview of housing affordability in Redwood City, highlighting the housing and economic challenges renters face. It highlights an upcoming ballot measure, including a proposed fair and affordable housing ordinance, and underscores the importance of local policies that protect renters and stabilize housing costs.

Key Findings

• More than half (52 percent) of households in Redwood City are renters, a proportion that has grown significantly over the years.
• With rents increasing at a rate much faster than incomes, many renters are struggling to afford their housing costs.
• As a result, nearly half (49 percent) of the city's renters are now considered rent-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
• Rent affordability is a racial and gender equity issue, with people of color, especially women of color, more likely to be renters and rent-burdened.
• If renters only paid what they could afford, each rent-burdened household would save a yearly average of $15,300. 

About the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance

Faith in Action Bay Area leaders and community allies are working to pass the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance for the November 2024 ballot. If passed, this grassroots ballot measure will:
• Implement reasonable rent stabilization,
• Provide protections against arbitrary and unjust evictions,
• Ensure healthy living conditions for renters,
• Prevent tenant harassment, and
• Establish a city-run rent program for transparent oversight.

Additional Information

• Learn more and get involved at affordableredwoodcity.com.
• Follow the campaign on Instagram at @affordableredwoodcity.

Partners

This fact sheet was created by the Bay Area Equity Atlas — a partnership between the San Francisco Foundation, PolicyLink, and the USC Equity Research Institute. It was developed to support the housing advocacy efforts of Public Advocates, Faith in Action Bay Area, and Affordable Redwood City.