Rent-stabilization referendum heads to November ballot after council repeal
Farm workers stoop over neatly lined rows of crops off Highway 101 to harvest more than half of the nation’s supply of lettuce and nearly a third of its strawberries. The soil here is so rich that author John Steinbeck made the Salinas Valley the promised land in his literary depictions of people chasing the American dream: immigrants, farm workers, westward-moving hopefuls, hungering for a better life. The same valley, often called the “salad bowl of the world,” is now the least affordable metropolitan area in the United States for the middle class, according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis. The study, overseen by Brookings senior fellow Andre Perry, defines the middle class as the middle 60% of income earners and finds that nearly 60% of middle-class households in the Salinas area — those earning between $38,000 and $193,000 — cannot afford basic necessities, double the national rate.
For Salinas’s Latino middle class, which makes up 40% of all middle-class households in the area, three-quarters struggle to afford everyday life, the analysis found — a higher share than the nearly 60% figure for the middle class as a whole. The Guardian described Salinas as being “at the sharp edge of a national affordability crisis that is reshaping politics across the US, and much of the rest of the world.”
Perry said the findings raise basic questions about what middle-class status now means. “It really calls in question: what is the middle class?” Perry said. “People go to Salinas as a reprieve from San Francisco and some of these high-priced cities, but in actuality, they’re finding it more difficult to live.”
It’s a story that continues to capture the American imagination: Netflix has adapted Steinbeck’s 1952 blockbuster novel, East of Eden, into a limited series starring Florence Pugh, released 1 October.
Steinbeck, who was born to a solidly middle-class family in Salinas and raised in a turreted, Victorian-style house that still stands a few blocks from downtown, made the surrounding valley the literary backdrop for immigrants, farm workers, and westward-moving hopefuls chasing the American dream. “This will be a valley of great richness one day,” Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden. “And happy people will live here, thousands and thousands.”
But Steinbeck also understood how difficult the dream could be to achieve. Even after some of his characters found their way to Salinas and other parts of California’s agricultural valley, many remained stuck in low-paying jobs, making barely enough to scrape by, let alone own their own land.
Gavin Jones, chair of Stanford University’s English department and a Steinbeck scholar, said the author had long reflected on the gap between the valley’s promise and its reality. “It’s kind of the promised land. It’s this realm of richness,” Jones said. “But then of course, it’s also a fallen paradise … it’s not quite Eden, it’s east of Eden.” Jones added that Steinbeck “would have likely been outraged at the affordability struggles many still face in the US, accentuated by the increasingly ‘K-shaped economy’ with the rich getting richer as the poor slide down the other side,” and said he wondered whether conditions for agricultural workers in the central valley differ much today from those Steinbeck depicted in the 1930s. “If life in places like Salinas becomes too expensive for American families, where do they go next?” the Guardian asked.
Gaye Freedman, 75, and her husband moved to Salinas in 2017 after years of searching for an affordable place near their son, who was raising a baby as a single parent. Freedman, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Southern California, said she could not find work in the area that paid much more than minimum wage; she now works part-time at a school. Between her part-time jobs and Social Security, she said, the couple makes about $75,000 a year and pays $1,850 for a one-bedroom apartment that became rent-stabilized in 2024. After rent and Medicare payments, they don’t have much left to spare on groceries, gas and unexpected maintenance on their 14-year-old car. The balance on their credit card, she said, keeps climbing.
“This is the first time in my life I’ve actually had to think about what I’m cooking, because I can’t afford to cook what I usually would,” Freedman said. “We’re eating a lot more stews and spaghetti and chicken. I’m definitely thinking of what lasts more than one day.” Freedman and her husband have considered moving, but many of the affordable cities nearby lack medical care facilities or infrastructure that will be crucial for the couple as they get older.
Salvador Herrera, 52, a former construction worker who grew up in Salinas, said rising housing costs have changed family life in the city. “Everything’s changed. Especially the housing, it’s way too expensive. And the pay is cheap nowadays,” he said. Herrera, who supports his family on disability payments after a workplace injury, said rising rent has left him with as little as $50 some weeks to spend on groceries for himself and his two children. He described garages partitioned with curtains, single bedrooms shared by parents and young children, and bathrooms used by dozens.
The Salinas area’s proximity to Silicon Valley, combined with surrounding farmland that constrains expansion, has created a persistent housing shortage that housing experts link to the Bay Area’s price pressures. The median household income in Salinas is just shy of $90,000, compared with about $150,000 in San Jose or San Francisco. “We got caught up early on Bay Area economics,” Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue said. “You have all the economic challenges of the Bay Area impacting Salinas and this area without corresponding economic opportunities.”
All of this pressure comes even as California is home to some of the most progressive housing policies in the US, with rent caps on most households statewide and further protections at the local level. Still, residents face the highest median monthly housing costs in the country, according to the latest census data. Nationwide, the latest census data show that half of all renter households and about a quarter of homeowner households spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Critics on both sides of the political aisle have in part criticized Governor Gavin Newsom for the state’s cost-of-living crisis, including housing costs; Newsom, who is considering a presidential run, has blamed President Trump.
In 2024, the Salinas City Council passed a rent-stabilization ordinance capping annual rent increases on certain multifamily rental properties at the lesser of 2.75% or three-quarters of the annual inflation rate. Freedman says she’s saved thousands of dollars already because of the caps her landlord now places on her rent increases each year. Advocates of the ordinance say it applies only to buildings built before 1995, so newly built units can still be listed at market price. A new council that took office the following year repealed the policy, arguing it unfairly penalized property owners and would discourage housing construction. A referendum vote is scheduled for November after advocacy groups gathered enough signatures to put the measure back on the ballot. Rent stabilization will remain in effect until the vote.
“It’s a deeply emotional issue for Salinas,” said Tony Barrera, a longtime resident and city council representative who was among the minority who voted to keep rent stabilization in 2025. His district is overwhelmingly supportive of keeping the measures in place: 70% are renters and 80% are field workers, he said. About a third are undocumented, which means they won’t be able to vote in the fall. But he also raised concerns that landlords in his district would not be able to afford their mortgage or property maintenance with the ordinance. If they sell their homes, he added, that could end up driving rents up further for his constituents. “I’m caught in the middle,” he said.
Those fighting against rent stabilization say that the law would exacerbate the town’s housing crisis, because it could disincentivize investors or developers looking to build in the area. But advocates argue that the city’s rent-stabilization ordinance only applies to buildings built before 1995, so newly built units can still be listed at market price.
Matt Huerta, an affordable housing expert in Salinas who supports rent stabilization, said the ordinance includes a process for landlords to seek exemptions when costs exceed inflation. “We recognize that sometimes costs are higher than inflation. Sometimes tariffs come in, and all of a sudden you can’t get that refrigerator or water heater,” Huerta said. “There’s an application process for that.”
Amy Salmina, a Salinas property manager, said middle-class homeowners who own rental properties have been selling out of the market as property taxes and insurance climb. “We have so much help [for] the low-income, which is great,” she said. “But we’re forgetting about the middle class.” Salmina, whose family has lived in Salinas for four generations, said she is doubtful her children will be able to stay. “My son’s a firefighter. I don’t even know how they’re going to be able to buy a house,” she said. “I told all my kids: ‘Look, unless you have two incomes, you guys won’t be able to stay here.’”
The city’s housing supply has lagged demand for years. A 2008 plan to build 11,500 new residential units stalled after the Great Recession dried up financing, and new construction was further delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and has been slow to pick up even six years later, Donohue said. With mortgage rates surpassing 7% — a 20-month high — and the Federal Reserve poised to raise interest rates further, borrowing costs are compounding the crisis.
Donohue said he remains optimistic about the future of the town, which he says exports “vegetables and too many of our kids.” He pointed to a recently approved down payment assistance plan for first-time homebuyers and efforts to bring more jobs to the region. “I’m the mayor of the hometown of John Steinbeck,” Donohue said. “If any city should know how to tell a story, it should be this one. I’m confident the city, the book, will have a happy ending.” He just can’t tell you how long it will take.