Housing activists set up tent camp outside Healdsburg City Hall

Activists pressing for relief from Healdsburg’s high housing costs “camped out” Monday night in front of City Hall prior to the City Council meeting to dramatize the lack of affordable housing in one of Sonoma County’s more desirable places to live.

The Healdsburg Fair Rent Group, which organized the demonstration, said the “Rent Stabilization Advisory” that the City Council approved over the summer doesn’t go far enough, because it simply asks landlords and property managers not to raise rents by more than 10 percent per year.

Robert Nuese, a spokesman for the group, said that during the last three months more than 50 families have been evicted or had their rents dramatically raised to the point that they have been, or are about to be, driven from their homes.

He said the Rent Stabilization Program “so far as we can tell ... has turned out to be ineffectual.”