Soli Alpert is running with the Right to Housing Slate to secure a second term on Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.

Alpert has previously served one term as a student representative on the Rent Board after being elected in 2018 and is currently vice chair of the Board. Alpert attended UC Berkeley as a student and has been involved in the Progressive Students Association. He has also worked as a legislative assistant for Councilmember Kate Harrison.

Tenants’ rights issues, Alpert noted, are among his top priorities.

“It is really important that we have a Rent Board majority that is fighting to protect tenants’ rights,” Alpert said. “I’m hoping to elect the whole Right to Housing Slate. All five of us come from a diverse set of perspectives. We are racially diverse, economically diverse – diverse in our backgrounds of where we come from, and religiously diverse and also diverse in our experience.”

The Right to Housing Slate is endorsed by Berkeley Tenant Convention, Berkeley Tenants Union, Berkeley Citizens Action, Berkeley Progressive Alliance, Friends of Adeline, SEIU 1021, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, East Bay DSA and Alameda County Building Trades Council.

Alpert added that he is hoping to pass Measure M which would act as a vacancy tax on vacant units.

“Measure M would tax long-term vacant units to get them back on the market for people instead of speculative assets for those wealthy enough to own multiple homes, or if they are not gonna be put back on the market, we could collect that tax revenue so we could build more affordable housing,” Alpert said.

Alpert said that if elected, he plans to expand rent and eviction control to all units that are eligible under state law in Berkeley, provide more Rent Board services to tenants and hold the city of Berkeley accountable for the services they are allegedly supposed to provide the Rent Board.

Alpert would also like to pass the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act and is interested in looking into tenant unions.

In addition, climate adaptation is also a priority. Alpert noted he would like to ensure that people – especially those in rent-controlled, affordable and low-income housing – have their homes properly insulated, ventilated, heated and cooled.

“We are living with climate change here in Berkeley, it is not a thing that is going to happen, it is a thing that is happening,” Alpert said.