NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — Some National City residents are still struggling to recover from last month's historic rains, which led to destructive flooding.
Some of those victims who lost everything were also given eviction notices from their landlords.
The fierce storm on January 22 flooded dozens of homes in National City, forcing the relocation of at least 48 households, who are now receiving two months of rental and utilities assistance.
"On January 22, I lost everything," said Luis Vazquez Gamma, who lived at the Highland View Apartments for the past 15 years until last month's floods destroyed his apartment.
"Water rushed in... dirty water, four to five feet of dirty water rushed in and drove all of us out," he added.
Like so many of his neighbors, he now does not have a permanent home, and instead, was told by property management to leave.
"We were given eviction notices," he said at Tuesday night's National City city council meeting. "We were told that within ten days we all had to be gone."
While the County passed a 60-day ban on both no-fault evictions and rent increases for National City, as well as other impacted areas, residents here are demanding that city leaders do more
"I'm 26 and I've never experienced anything like this before," said another Highland View tenant named Jocelyn. "This has shown me we need protections from greedy companies that try to benefit from our crisis."
"The residents of National City deserve better," added National City resident Eric Vargas, who is also a member of ACCE. "They deserve permanent protections. Renters need protections from evictions, high rent prices and from bad actors whose business model it is to screw over hardworking people even after they lost everything."
"Some of the things that the residents are asking for are very reasonable," said National City city council member Jose Rodriguez.
While the details are still being hammered out, Rodriquez asked that National City move forward with its own set of renter protections..
Rodriguez is requesting that evictions be banned due to the flood, the right of refusal for tenants who want to return to their homes, and for rents to remain the same.
"I think it is important for us as local government to act during these times of crisis," he added.
While the city council discussed the need for stronger renter protections Tuesday night, those protections would still have to be be voted on at a future meeting. National City's next council meeting is scheduled for February 20.