- “People are living on a knife’s edge because of the lack of affordable housing, because of the lack of stability in the economy and in their own lives.” – Matt Hill, attorney with the Public Justice Center
by Vanguard Staff
As Maryland heads into 2026 grappling with rising rents, shrinking federal support and battles over eviction policy, the challenges outlined by housing advocates there echo familiar—and unresolved—fault lines in California’s housing crisis.
In a recent Maryland Matters report, advocates and lawmakers warned that affordable housing is “needed now more than ever,” even as the state confronts budget pressures and political resistance to reform. The sense of urgency is grounded in lived reality. “People are living on a knife’s edge because of the lack of affordable housing, because of the lack of stability in the economy and in their own lives,” Matt Hill, an attorney with the Public Justice Center and part of the Renters United Maryland coalition, told Maryland Matters.
That description would resonate across California, where housing costs have outpaced wages for years and renters routinely spend far more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Like Maryland, California’s crisis falls most heavily on low-income renters, families with children, Black households, people with disabilities and survivors of domestic violence.
Maryland advocates stress that housing instability is being compounded by cuts to other parts of the social safety net. “People waiting for emergency housing assistance are literally hanging on for dear life,” said Matt Losak, executive director of the Montgomery County Renters Alliance. He warned that reductions in food assistance, Medicaid and HUD funding would “add to the pain and disaster being felt by people on the low end of the spectrum, and the vast majority of them are renters.”
California has already experienced that cascade effect. As federal pandemic-era housing supports expired, evictions climbed while homelessness rose in many regions, even as state and local governments struggled to backfill lost federal dollars. Emergency rental assistance proved effective at preventing displacement, but when funding ended, long waiting lists and unmet need quickly returned.
In both states, eviction policy has become a flashpoint. Maryland lawmakers are debating so-called wrongful detainer legislation, aimed at expediting cases involving people allegedly living on property without authorization. Advocates fear the proposals weaken due process. Hill described the measures bluntly: “We’re calling it the ‘Evict First, Ask Questions Later’ bills, because that’s really what the proposals are. It’s going to allow for either the sheriff or the court to evict someone before they even had a chance to get a fair hearing.”
Renters United Maryland warned that such laws could be misused, calling them “a tool for personal revenge,” and cautioned that “survivors of domestic abuse and their children are particularly at risk, as well as differently abled people.” The group added that “Black women, who are already disproportionately affected by eviction, will suffer most under an evict-first approach.”
California has confronted similar tensions for years, balancing landlord complaints about delays and costs against tenant advocates’ insistence that eviction proceedings demand robust procedural protections. During the pandemic, California’s eviction moratorium and rental assistance programs showed that stronger protections could dramatically reduce displacement, but those safeguards have since been rolled back or narrowed.
Emergency rental assistance is another shared battleground. In Maryland, advocates are pushing to expand funding for a new Community Schools Rental Assistance Program aimed at keeping low-income families with children housed during temporary financial crises. The program, however, was funded at only half of the $10 million authorized by the Legislature. “Kids can’t learn if they slept in a homeless shelter the night before, or have to constantly transfer schools,” Renters United Maryland said, urging lawmakers to fully fund the program to help thousands of residents avoid eviction.
California’s experience offers a cautionary parallel. The state’s large-scale emergency rental assistance program prevented hundreds of thousands of evictions, but its sunset left local governments struggling to maintain even minimal prevention efforts, despite evidence that rental assistance is among the most cost-effective tools to combat homelessness.
On the supply side, Maryland officials say streamlining housing approvals is essential to addressing a shortage of nearly 100,000 units. After a failed 2025 effort, state housing officials say they learned “lessons” and are working earlier with local governments to build support for reforms, including vesting rights for developers once projects are approved.
California has already moved aggressively in this direction, curbing local control through state laws designed to accelerate housing production. Those reforms have increased permitting in some jurisdictions, but they have not, on their own, produced sufficient housing affordable to very low-income renters, underscoring a central concern raised by Maryland advocates.
“Our main concern is that that narrative not be used as a substitute for renter protections,” Losak said. “We are somewhat concerned of this idea that we can build our way into affordable ownership so that people don’t have to rent housing anymore.”
That tension is perhaps most visible in Maryland’s long-running debate over “good cause” eviction protections, which would require landlords to provide a specific reason for evicting a tenant. The policy passed Maryland’s House in 2024 but stalled in the Senate amid amendments that advocates described as “poison pills.” Losak said those amendments effectively forced local governments to choose between good cause protections and rent stabilization. “That just becomes a vehicle to torpedo stable housing programs for renters,” he said.
California enacted statewide good cause eviction protections in 2019, offering a potential roadmap showing that tenant protections and increased housing production are not inherently incompatible, despite opposition from parts of the real estate industry.
With 2026 shaping up as an election year in Maryland, advocates see a narrow window for progress. “The public … are more attuned to good cause now than they’ve ever been,” Losak said. “I think elected officials are aware that the public is concerned and that might have more influence this year.”
California’s experience suggests both the promise and the limits of that moment. Housing reform is politically possible, but only when states resist framing tenant protections and housing supply as mutually exclusive choices. Without sustained investment in affordability, emergency assistance and legal protections, both states risk remaining trapped in a cycle of incremental reform and recurring crisis.
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