The new owners of a 21-unit, low-rent apartment complex in Healdsburg are evicting all the mostly Latino tenants with plans to fix it up and in some cases more than double the rents, prompting a community outcry as well as highlighting the challenge of providing affordable housing in a hot real estate market.

The issue burst into full public view this week at a packed City Council meeting, in which speakers complained that families were being put into the street due to skyrocketing rents. Longtime renters despaired that they will be next, priced out of a town where they also can’t afford to buy a home.

But the recent acquisition of the Prentice Apartments off March Avenue and wholesale eviction of the 21 families there by the new landlord was especially disturbing to some residents, who said it smacked of racism and gentrification.

“This town is built on the backs of those people, and those people who trusted me for 30 years to teach their children,” said Judy Sanderson, a retired teacher and self-described “privileged white woman” who said it feels like the new owners are “targeting Hispanic families.”