VENTURA, Calif. – As housing costs continue to challenge renters and aspiring homeowners across Ventura County, the City of Ventura is launching a new series of workshops aimed at helping residents better understand their rights, responsibilities, and available housing resources.
The free Housing Connections Series is designed for both renters and property owners. City officials say the workshops will cover topics including tenant rights, landlord responsibilities, housing standards, rent increase regulations, and changes to state housing laws.
For Ventura resident Sky Coggeshall, housing affordability remains a constant concern.
"I do have to have a roommate," Coggeshall said. "I'm really lucky. The person who owns that building has owned it for many years and hasn't raised the rent."
Still, he worries about what the future may hold.
"We know it's going to go up," Coggeshall said. "We can see they're building new apartments and refurbishing a lot of the older apartments on Main and Poli, so that always makes us nervous."
Like many residents, Coggeshall hopes to become a homeowner someday, but says rising housing costs have made that goal difficult to achieve.
"With me being a teacher and hopefully a first-time home buyer, I can only afford maybe a one-room condo or something like that," he said. "I wouldn't be able to afford a house."
According to city officials, the workshops are intended to help residents navigate a housing landscape that can often be confusing.
"Laws are really hard to interpret, and they are also constantly changing," said Rachel Wess, a management analyst with the City of Ventura. "These workshops are kind of a way to help the community learn about the changing laws."
Wess pointed to a recent state requirement that property owners provide refrigerators in rental units as an example of a change that many renters and landlords may not know about.
"What is the proper amount to increase rent? How often can you do it?" Wess said. "As a tenant, are you getting too many increases or too high of an increase? It's just to make sure both sides know all the information."
Longtime Ventura renter Kathy Hillis says uncertainty about housing remains a concern, especially as she approaches retirement.
"We started looking around because we went from being a year-to-year lease to a month-to-month," Hillis said. "That got us a little bit nervous."
While many of her friends own homes, Hillis says renting brings unique challenges when thinking about the future.
"Most of our friends own their house, and that is a concern as we move into retirement," she said. "Housing is not really affordable right now for everybody, and that's really unfortunate."
Others are still working toward making Ventura their permanent home.
Allie Ruhde, who works in Ventura, says she and her family are preparing to move to the city in the coming months and are currently in the process of purchasing a home.
However, she believes many workers continue to feel the strain of rising costs.
"Companies just aren't raising wages as much as they need to," Ruhde said.
City leaders hope the Housing Connections Series will provide residents with practical information and resources to help them better understand their options in today's housing market.
The workshops are free and open to the public. Additional information, including workshop dates and registration details, is available through the City of Ventura.
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