Tenants Together Hotline

call

(888) 495-8020

Email

Contact on Website

Website

https://www.tenantstogether.org/tenant-rights-hotline

Location

474 Valencia St #156, San Francisco, CA 9410

Description

The Statewide Tenants’ Rights Hotline provides counseling and information about tenants’ rights. They are a group of tenants’ rights advocates, counselors, and community members, but do not provide legal advice. The hotline is voicemail-based, which means that in order to connect, you will have to call, leave a voicemail, and one of their hotline counselor volunteers will reach out to you with resources as soon as possible, either by phone or other electronic communication. For the time being, they are only able to provide counseling in English and Spanish. Please follow these steps to get in touch!
  1. Before calling the hotline, please go to the Tenant Defense Toolkit to look up more information on your issue.
  2. Text “HELPLINE” to 650-600-7821, which can help inform you of your protections right away, if you still have doubts or questions about your rights.
  3. Call the Statewide Tenants’ Rights Hotline at (888) 495-8020 
    *If you are calling from East Palo Alto, Oakland, San Francisco, Los  Angeles, Berkeley, and Richmond, please refer to the information  below in “Resources for Residents of East Palo Alto, Oakland, San  Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Richmond” before contacting the hotline.
  4. Press the corresponding number to leave a voicemail in either English or Spanish – select the number that corresponds to the language that you would like them to call you back in.
  5. Leave a voicemail, speaking as slowly and as clearly as you can, with your
    1. Name
    2. Phone number
    3. City and county that you live in
    4. Description of your issue, including a brief summary of any written documentation or notices that you have received (including dates received) from the landlord 
The hotline is experiencing a large increase in calls and have limited volunteer capacity, so unfortunately, longer than usual response times should be expected (average of about one month). They are currently prioritizing returning live calls for urgent eviction cases. When hotline counselor volunteers return your call, it will show up as “Blocked Number” or Spam, because of the platform used to return calls, so please answer any call you receive with this in the weeks after you leave a voicemail. Most other issues will be addressed either by an automated call from Tenants Together or detailed text messages explaining your rights.
Additionally, the hotline is unable to field calls if your question only relates to help paying rent. The Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) website explains the process for applying to statewide rental assistance regardless of immigration status or you can contact their Call Center at 833-430-2122 between 7am – 7pm. If you are having trouble reaching the Call Center, search for your county on the Local Partner Network page to find organizations near you that are helping with applications!

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