Many South Bay community groups gathered in San Jose Wednesday for a protest march on renters' rights.
The groups are joining forces to fight no-cause evictions and to push the city to protect renters with a controversial proposal.
The City of San Jose will be considering a proposal on April 18 to provide some protection for renters, including making it difficult for landlords to kick out tenants who have not done anything wrong.
Wednesday's protest kicked off with a small gathering of organizers and evicted tenants at San Jose City Hall.
Groups making up the Silicon Valley Renters Rights Coalition began trying to whip up public support for the march, as well as a proposal from the city's housing department to provide some guidelines for evictions.
For many of the rally participants, the focus is on no-cause evictions, which they call financially and emotionally devastating.
"With evictions now they can evict anybody at anytime, with no real reason," former tenant Danielle Pirslin said. "That's why I feel just-cause evictions are needed."
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The group Working Partnerships USA is presenting a report that says, in essence, no-cause evictions have gone up 270 percent since 2010.
"Other reports shows that the majority of these no-cause evictions are not even reported to the city," said Jeffrey Buchanan, policy director for Working Partnerships USA.
Property owners have said the policy could make it difficult to get rid of so-called bad tenants.
