Bay Area Legal Aid’s Tenant Rights Initiatives in Alameda County, part two
Defending the Right to Liveable Housing
BayLegal’s housing attorneys and advocates fight for our clients’ rights to housing free from discrimination, protection from unlawful evictions, and maintenance of housing vouchers and subsidies to which they are entitled. Maintaining housing can also mean defending a tenant’s right to live in safe, healthy conditions that meet legal standards for an adequate living space. This is called habitability.
In a recent habitability case at BayLegal, our client’s stove had broken through no fault of his own, but the landlord was charging him for a new one. Our client was on a fixed income and could not afford to pay for the stove. We advocated that he should not be charged for the new stove under the lease agreement and the warranty of habitability. In response to our advocacy the landlord agreed not to charge our client for the stove, preserving the client’s ability to live in a habitable unit without jeopardizing his economic stability.