Will Fresno back away from protecting tenants against illegal evictions?

At the start of the pandemic, officials on the local, state and federal levels acted swiftly to prevent renters from homelessness amidst economic collapse. 

Those measures included everything from an eviction moratorium to giving landlords a financial incentive for renting out property to low-income tenants. City officials even used federal and state funds to help tenants out with overdue rent and utility bills. 

A few years later, those programs have either faded away or are about to, despite the burden on renters not getting any lighter in Fresno — one of the most competitive rental markets in the United States.

Last year, funding dried up for the city’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which primarily helped tenants with past-due rent and utility bills. This year, Fresno’s Eviction Protection Program — which provides legal help to renters facing illegal evictions — was not funded in Mayor Jerry Dyer’s 2025 budget proposal.

“I think we’re not going to be able to say with a straight face that we’re doing everything that we can to prevent homelessness in the city of Fresno if we’re not funding the program,” Councilmember Tyler Maxwell told Fresnoland during a recent interview. 

Through city spokesperson Sontaya Rose, Dyer declined an interview request from Fresnoland.

To save the Eviction Protection Program, the City Council will have to negotiate its funding into the budget. Maxwell, who proposed the program in 2021, made a budget motion to put $2 million toward it next year.

Maxwell is among five city councilmembers who think the Eviction Protection Program should be funded and preserved in Fresno. That group includes Nelson Esparza, Mike Karbassi, Miguel Arias and Luis Chavez.

Councilmember Garry Bredefeld and Council President Annalisa Perea did not respond to several requests for comment.

Housing advocates say the mayor and city council should permanently fund existing programs and policies that support and protect renters, like Fresno’s Eviction Protection Program, instead of letting them die — especially as the mayor plans to put $3 million toward litter removal in the city.

“We’re not saying that beautifying the city is not important, but how you look should be one of your last concerns in comparison to how people are actually living,” said Ivanka Saunders, a policy advocate with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. “It’s just like, ‘We’ll keep our dirty laundry in the closet.’”

Marisa Moraza, a policy advocate with Power California Action, said a budget is a moral document — it communicates what elected officials see as important and worth prioritizing. While it may be difficult to cobble together funding during a deficit year, Moraza said already existing renter protections need to be prioritized, especially a city program that prevents landlords from illegally evicting tenants.

“This is the time to be creative,” Moraza said. “This is the time to ensure that we are protecting the most impacted community members in the city of Fresno, and that also means that we need to lean into engagement with community members.”

While campaigning, Dyer pointed to eviction protection program’s success

While running for reelection earlier this year, Dyer pointed to the success of Fresno’s Eviction Protection Program when asked about what the city is doing to support its renters. 

He didn’t have any other examples at the time.

Additionally, he noted a lack of “appetite” from the Fresno City Council when explaining why Fresno’s rent and utility assistance program wasn’t preserved using city resources after federal and state funding ran out last year. 

A proposal to do so would likely have leaned on the city’s general fund, the portion of the city’s budget that Fresno’s elected officials have full control over how to allocate. Most of Fresno’s general fund is made of revenue from local sales and property taxes. 

About 58.1% of the city’s $490 million general fund went to the Fresno Police Department last year. Under Dyer’s 2025 budget proposal, a majority of the city’s general fund would again go toward the city’s police department — which is common with most city budgets across the nation.

One common way for cities to replace temporary funding with city resources is to dip into its general fund. Dyer has proposed just that in the Fire Department.

His administration onboarded dozens of new firefighters last year using temporary funding through the federal SAFER program. When those funds run out, the city has two drastically different options: part ways with the newly hired firefighters or use city resources to cover their payroll costs. 

Federal grant funding will run out in November and Dyer wants $4.9 million of the city’s general fund to keep the new firefighters. In 2026, the cost will increase to $6.9 million from the city’s general fund. 

Dyer also proposed using city resources to clean state freeways on a regular basis, an idea that already has drawn criticism from councilmembers who questioned whether cleaning state and federal property should be their city’s priority.

Dyer’s freeway cleaning proposal is part of increasing Fresno’s curb appeal — something he has prioritized since coming into office. During his first year as mayor, he established Beautify Fresno, which works to clean public property of trash and graffiti. 

Beautify Fresno has gotten more than $12 million in funding since 2021, Rose, the mayor’s spokesperson, confirmed. In 2024, it got a $3.5 million allocation from the city’s general fund.  

Saunders, the policy advocate with Leadership Counsel, said investing in renter protections — to at least the same level as Beautify Fresno would go a long way. Additionally, she said beautification efforts meant to impress transplants and businesses eyeing Fresno aren’t more important than the crucial issues vulnerable communities in Fresno are facing. 

“They prioritize the look more than they do caring for the residents that live in the city,” Saunders said. “So if you follow where the money is going, you will see that we are not prioritizing the citizens.”

Moraza, the advocate with Power California Action, said Maxwell’s advocacy for Fresno’s Eviction Protection Program is meaningful, but Fresno’s elected officials need to be doing more, especially after traveling overseas to learn about solutions elsewhere. 

She added that the current budget proposal demonstrates how out of touch Dyer’s administration is with community members struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living in Fresno.

“This all goes back to how are we engaging community members to really have a transparent and transformative, inclusive budget process?” Moraza said. 

Another pandemic-era program set to sunset

Eviction protection isn’t the only initiative the city could lose — Fresno’s Voucher Incentive Program is also expected to run out of funding this year. Through the program, the city has been giving financial incentives to landlords renting out property to low-income individuals since 2023.

The Voucher Incentive Program was created in response to a record-low housing voucher redemption rate in Fresno. In 2023, the Fresno Housing Authority received $1 million in federal relief dollars from the city to run the program, which is expected to sunset by the end of 2024. 

“If funds were available, Fresno Housing would be interested in continuing the program due to its positive impact on the community,” Kristine Morgan, a spokesperson for the Fresno Housing Authority, wrote over email. “Based on the success of this program, Fresno Housing is interested in pursuing ways that it could be expanded throughout Fresno County.”

Morgan noted that the program was financed with one-time federal funds, and that future funding was never guaranteed. She did not speak to whether the Fresno Housing Authority lobbied the city to continue funding the program. 

“We have shared the positive outcomes from this program, and all agree on the impacts,” Morgan said. “With that said, we are very aware that a challenging budget forecast is requiring the City to prioritize investments and make some difficult decisions.”

Could eviction protection meet the same fate as rental assistance?

Just last year, another program was on the chopping block: the city’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Primarily meant to help tenants with past-due rent and utility bills, the program got more than $60 million in state and federal funding. 

The city distributed some of the rental assistance funds to a handful of community organizations to reach underserved communities. Only two of the six organizations responded to Fresnoland’s requests for comment and both said they would still be providing rental assistance if there was more funding available.

“We absolutely wished the program had continued so that we could support those that were most in danger of evictions,” said Naindeep Singh, the executive director of Jakara Movement, which received about $1.6 million in rental assistance funds from the city two years ago. 

Even though the funding ended last summer, community members were still reaching out to Jakara Movement for rental assistance as much as nine months later. 

“In the Punjabi Sikh community the program was essential in keeping families safe and in their homes during the pandemic,” Singh said. “Many members of the community shared that they were appreciative of being seen by the City for the first time thanks to the support by councilmembers.”

Two years ago, another $5 million in funds went to the Education and Leadership Foundation, a local Fresno nonprofit focused on immigration and education issues. 

Vianey Barraza Chavez, director of education programs and special projects, said the foundation heard from people who had to choose between paying rent or buying food and groceries

Chavez said the rental assistance program distributed so much aid that at one point, it became the foundation’s largest program. The local need for its aid didn’t disappear when funds were depleted.

“Unfortunately, we saw people come in with eviction letters after the funding was over and there was nothing that we could do,” Chavez said. 

Maxwell said his motion for $2 million toward eviction protection is a modest allocation out of a $2 billion budget proposal. He also said the Eviction Protection Program is a preventative measure that will end up saving city resources down the line. 

“It’s absolutely true — preventative measures are more cost effective in dealing with the outcomes of homelessness,” Maxwell said. 

Now that Maxwell’s motion is on the table, it comes down to whether a group of councilmembers can advocate for its funding during negotiations with the mayor’s administration later this month. 

“This is obviously pretty important to me,” Maxwell said, “I would hope that my colleagues realize the importance of this program as well because it’s benefiting everybody’s constituents.”