A Marina apartment complex’s rent increases by over 60 percent, forcing some tenants out.

On a Friday afternoon, two men carrying a headboard from an upstairs unit of 176-182 Palm Ave. in Marina stop for a quick break. They wipe the sweat from their foreheads before continuing to carry the piece of furniture onto a moving truck. The sight of such trucks, according to some residents of the apartment complex, is only going to become more frequent in the months ahead.

Fifty-eight-year-old Robert Morris was a resident of this building until he moved out on Oct. 28 because of a rent increase. According to Morris, their new landlord Brad Slama came knocking in September, notifying them of the change of ownership.

A few days later a team from Cardinalli Realty and Property Management came knocking – and handing out new leases informing tenants of a monthly rent increase from $900 to $1,475 that would take effect in January 2018.

It was a spike of nearly 64 percent, and would put the property well out of the terms of Morris’ voucher assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Morris, an Army veteran, was homeless for 10 years until he found the Veteran’s Transition Center in Marina. The center helped him get HUD assistance through the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program, a voucher known as a HUD-VASH.

Morris found his unit on Palm Avenue in Marina in 2012 at $900 a month; he’d pay $330 and HUD-VASH would cover the rest. He lived there for five years until the property sold quietly.

Slama, who bought the property in September for $3.1 million, says he understands the rent spike is severe, but also says the old rate was under market, with one-bedroom apartments in the area going for around $1,650 a month.

Slama says and the increase is necessary for improvements like a new roof and fresh paint. “It’s a snowball effect the ends up costing the consumer,” Slama says. “It’s not my intention to push anybody out.”

Slama offered current tenants monthly rents of $1,475 – a 10-percent discount off the new market rate – if they wanted to stay. (For units that are vacant, he’ll rent them out for $1,650 per month.)

Meanwhile, Morris is scrounging around the internet for places that fall within his voucher’s terms. “I love this community,” he says, “but you can’t find anything anywhere here for $1,200.”

Morris doesn’t yet know where he’ll go. He’s looked at places as far away as King City and Greenfield, and says the competition is fierce and affordable rentals go fast: “Sometimes I’m in the running against a hundred or so people at once, for one place,” he says.

Though Morris knows he’s been hit hard, he wonders about his eight or so low-income neighbors, like his friend and fellow veteran, Fred Boumeester, who paid only $5 per month out-of-pocket for his Palm Avenue unit because of his Section 8 voucher.

“I’ve lived in this area all my life,” says Boumeester, a Pacific Grove native who’s now 59. Boumeester doesn’t blame Slama for raising the rent on a valuable coastal property.

“It’s the American way,” he says. “It’s just sad that it’s pushing us further and further from our homes.”