More than a dozen Black seniors who receive HUD subsidies were recently given eviction notices at their historic Fillmore district co-op, which they say is due to their management company’s poor bookkeeping and lack of communication.

A group of seniors at the Martin Luther King-Marcus Garvey Square Cooperative Apartments in the Fillmore say they were suddenly told they owed thousands of dollars in back payments connected to their HUD subsidies and were threatened with eviction, as the SF Standard first reported.

They say their management company, Domus, neglected to recertify their assets each year, as required by law, and property managers weren’t communicative about how much they owed each month — or they provided inconsistent numbers, according to ABC 7.

The 211-unit property became a cooperative in the late 1970s, after federal intervention took over the site and restructured it under a HUD-subsidized ownership model. The idea was to turn low-income Black tenants into shareholder-residents with a pathway to equity and intergenerational stability. Per the Standard, only a few dozen of the remaining residents at the co-op are Black — as the Black population in San Francisco has shrunk to single digits in recent years.

Nikki Love, of Open Door Legal, which represents seven of the residents, said she’s still sorting out how much her clients owe. She's also still determining what grounds the management company is using to evict them.

“We’re still trying to figure out what’s happening,” Love said, speaking to the Standard, “but it’s a mess.”

Open Door Legal’s attorneys say the evidence they’ve collected points to administrative breakdowns tied to HUD recertification requirements, including high management turnover and failures to properly communicate rent changes and paperwork needs to residents.

Residents are urging city officials to intervene before more evictions proceed, while calling into question an all-too familiar pattern affecting longtime Black residents who have built up equity over decades.

San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said his office is investigating concerns about Domus Management’s handling of the property and is considering a potential hearing.

Domus did not respond to the media's requests for comment.

Related: Tenants at Uptown Oakland Building That Just Suffered a Fire All Receive Eviction Notices

Insult has been added to injury for the estimated 200 people who were displaced by Monday morning’s apartment fire in Oakland’s Uptown, after their landlord issued them all eviction letters.

You may recall the early morning apartment fire in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood at 19th Street and Broadway on Monday of this week, which also damaged the ground-floor Dope Era clothing store owned by local hip-hop icon Mistah F.A.B. There were three hospitalizations from smoke inhalation, and one Oakland firefighter was treated for minor injuries. Though a new Wednesday morning report from KTVU notes that all of those individuals have fully recovered.  

But that same KTVU report also contains some very shocking news about those displaced residents: the displaced residents of those 43 apartment units have all received eviction notices from their landlord, and on top of that, these eviction notices arrived “just hours” after their homes were destroyed in the blaze.

KTVU even obtained copies of the eviction notices, which read, “All leases are hereby terminated. You will receive a full refund of your security deposit after you retrieve your personal belongings from the premises and return all keys."

The building has of course been red-tagged because of its condition after the fire. But legal experts say that this is not cause for eviction of tenants who are current on their rent.

"You can't just terminate a tenancy just because there is a fire in the building," Centro Legal de la Raza managing attorney David Hall, managing attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza told KTVU. Hall also noted that the landlord could be on the hook for relocation payments if the (still-undetermined) cause of the fire turns out to be the fault of the landlord.

I’m no liability lawyer, but it sounds like this fire may not have been the landlord's fault. One evacuated tenant told KTVU that there was a certain apartment in the building where "People were storing scooters in there and charging the batteries, and a bunch of stolen stuff was being stored in there.”

The landlord is Ted Dang, who owns the building along with about a dozen other partners. Dang was not directly quoted by KTVU, but according to that station, Dang argues that “the notice was not intended as a formal eviction, but rather a way to inform tenants of the building’s current uninhabitable status.”

That doesn’t sound like what the notices said! Sidebar: this is the same Ted Dang who ran for Mayor of Oakland in 1994, coming in second to Elihu Harris.

Either way, the displaced tenants are reportedly being offered mere 30-minute windows (through Friday) to come and collect their possessions. Meanwhile several of those tenants apparently worked for nearby Oakland restaurants Jaji and Parche, and those restaurants’ beverage director has started a GoFundMe for the Oakland fire victims to help those employees get back on their feet.

Related: Five Residents and One Firefighter Injured In Apartment Fire In Downtown Oakland [SFist]

Image: @OaklandFireCA via Twitter

A sort of “California Forever” type situation has been brewing in the small Mendocino County town of Point Arena, where a sitting member of city council has bought up about 20 properties through a web of LLCs and chased out long-term tenants.

The Mendocino County city of Point Arena, some 150 miles north of San Francisco, has a population of less than 500 people. And it’s gone through a few boom-and-bust cycles. Once a port town that was leveled by the 1906 earthquake, destroyed by a fire some 20 years later, it rebounded with the 1970s-era popularity of a hippie commune-retreat place known as Oz Farm, and a very bustling illegal marijuana trade for a few decades after that. That marijuana trade has collapsed with legalization, and now Point Arena is best known for the Point Arena Lighthouse seen below, which continues to be a tourist attraction.

But now Point Arena is making some news again, as the Chronicle reports on a series of LLCs that are on a buying spree of Point Arena properties, in a story not unlike the billionaires buying up land for their “California Forever” project, or the mystery buyer who bought up a bunch of Upper Fillmore buildings and was identified by the Chronicle as being tech investor Neil Mehta. In this case, the differently named but affiliated LLCs “gained ownership, control or established an affiliation with” about 20 properties in a town of less than two square miles that doesn’t have many properties in the first place.

The Chron’s reporting identifies the buyer using these LLCs as Point Arena City Councilmember Jeff Hansen, and cites a number of examples of Hansen raising rents by the maximum allowable 10% per year, and displacing many tenants. Hansen reportedly also bought buildings containing an apparel shop, a salon, a diner, a cannabis dispensary, and a general store — all of which shut down after Hansen bought them.

“The whole town’s being bought up and there’s no dialogue about it,” one local business owner told the Chronicle, declining to identify themselves for fear of retribution. “A lot of us have no frigging clue what’s happening.”

Hansen was originally quite well-liked for buying Point Arena’s defunct and dilapidated Sea Shell Inn and renovating it into the very nice and functional Wildflower Hotel. But the Chronicle reports that many locals have grown distrustful as the businesses in his purchased properties seem to always not get their lease renewed, and close down. They report on one former apparel boutique that is now “a ‘pop-up estate sale’ with sporadic hours, owned by the family of one of Hansen’s associates,” plus other properties where Hansen is not the owner on paper, but somehow is still the one collecting rent.

And there were certainly waves made when a restaurant called Amber’s Diner closed earlier this year, and the owner excoriated Hansen in a Facebook post. “We closed because of Jeff,” the post declares. “Dictating hours, Forcing certain conditions on us, bad decisions, and business practices. That was the entire reason. I know he will try and paint a different picture and us as bad people but the rumors are simply not true.”

That owner happened to live in one of Hansen’s rental properties, and Hansen allegedly showed up at another restaurant where that owner worked to publicly announce he was evicting that owner, doing this in front of tables full of diners.

And it’s apparently hurting Point Arena’s bottom line to have so many properties sit vacant. The Chron says that Point Arena’s sales tax revenue went down by 37% last year, forcing the city to pass a sales tax increase this past November.

​​“I know that Jeff Hansen is a controversial figure,” Point Arena City Manager Peggy Ducey told the Chronicle. “But his purchasing of properties, there’s nothing the city can do about that. I’ve had some very frank conversations with Jeff, and we’re gonna continue to have those — but I cannot infringe on his legal rights."

There are certainly conflict-of-interest factors at play with a sitting city councilmember being one of the largest property owners in town. But that arrangement appears likely to continue in Point Arena, as Hansen ran unopposed for reelection this past November. He only received 58 votes.

Related: A New Group of Silicon Valley Techies Are Now Trying to Build A North Bay Village [SFist]

Image: City of Point Arena via LinkedIn

After a billionaire bought up several Upper Fillmore buildings and legacy businesses there were given their walking papers, Supervisor Aaron Peskin just passed his bill adding protections to keep those businesses in place.

There were understandably questions when a mystery buyer bought up the shuttered Clay Theatre and five other buildings in a three-block span earlier this year, and the Chronicle identified the buyer as billionaire tech investor Neil Mehta (Actually, a web of vaguely named LLCs which Mehta is financing). In short order, the lease for 46-year-old sushi restaurant Ten-Ich was not renewed, and the LLCs are reportedly refusing to renew the lease for La Mediterranee across the street.

Adding insult to injury, the day that Mehta got an op-ed in the SF Standard saying he just wanted “committed entrepreneurs who will reinvigorate Fillmore Street,” the Examiner reports that the op-ed in question was “published the same day that Steve Amano, owner of the 46-year old family-owned legacy business Sushi Ten-Ichi, was forced to turn in his keys into his new landlord.” (After publication of this post, SFist heard from Singer Associates Public Relations with a statement saying "No once forced the restaurant owner to turn his keys in; he signed an agreement to terminate his lease and get money.")

Supervisor Aaron Peskin hoped to put a halt to these Legacy Business losses with new legislation that would require SF Planning Department authorization for removing a Legacy Business tenant, or demolishing a building with a legacy business tenant. Legacy Businesses are described as being 30 years old or older, and “contribute to the neighborhood's history and/or the identity of a particular neighborhood or community.”

Peskin’s legislation passed the SF Board of Supervisors Tuesday afternoon with a unanimous vote and no discussion. But there was discussion of the bill at Monday’s Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting.

“After seeing Legacy Businesses under threat on Upper Fillmore, where a billionaire bought many properties on two blocks of Upper Fillmore, Legacy Businesses from across the city have reached out asking for more teeth, more protections, from the Legacy Business Program,” Peskin said Monday.

The legislation is not permanent. It’s an 18-month arrangement, and would expire around June 2026. But it provides a buffer as the city prepares to upzone commercial corridors to build more housing, and aspires to avoid the unintended consequence of evicting local businesses in the pursuit of state-mandated housing goals.

La Mediterranee owner Vanick Der Bedrossian hopes the 18-month buffer is enough.

“This legislation, we feel, is essential to level the playing field for small businesses to remain in the city,” Der Bedrossian said Monday. “Landlords, many have good intentions, and work with tenants. This is a situation we’re facing with billionaire landlords who’ve purchased so many blocks of our beloved street, and who are refusing to engage in any discussion whatsoever.”

Peskin is of course running for mayor, and employed his signature parliamentary maneuvers to get this legislation approved before Election Day. But the legislation is not yet law. Per Peskin's office, it will not require a second reading because it's a resolution and not an ordinance. But it could still face a veto from Mayor London Breed. If it is not vetoed, the interim 18-month rule requiring city approval to kick out a Legacy Business could become law before Election Day.  

Update: After publication of this post, SFist received a statement from Singer Associates Public Relations. "The restaurant Ten-Ichi was not evicted. In fact, the restaurant owner declined an offer to stay. The owner signed a termination agreement which gave him roughly $100,000 in debt forgiveness and cash payments," the statement said. "No once forced the restaurant owner to turn his keys in; he signed an agreement to terminate his lease and get money."

Note: This post has been updated with comments from Supervisor Peskin's office and Singer Associates Public Relations.

Related: 46-Year-Old Sushi Restaurant, Other Longtime Businesses Getting Evicted By Upper Fillmore Real Estate Investor [SFist]

Image: Matthew S. via Yelp

Even though they’d been paying rent, tenants of some 40 units at Potrero Annex are facing eviction proceedings, because they’d been paying rent to a rogue manager who was allegedly just pocketing the money.

The 54-building public housing complex called Potrero Terrace and Annex is planning a grand makeover with many new units, but the remodel has taken a few unexpected detours. Mission Local has been reporting the heck out of this — first when a January 2023 fire there was believed to have been caused by squatters staying in empty units slated for demolition, and then later that year when a city audit found that the property’s management company Eugene Burger Management Corporation was completely ignoring repair and maintenance requests.

But things took an even crazier turn in April, when Mission Local reported a Eugene Burger property manager was illegally renting out units for under-the-table cash payments at Potrero Terrace and Annex. That manager has been identified as Eugene Burger senior property manager Lance Whittenberg. The tenants had no idea that he was pocketing the cash, and they were squatting illegally.

Mission Local noted that the evictions started in August, when three tenants were forced out of their units. And the Chronicle reports that several more evictions are scheduled for Wednesday, with tenants from a total of “about 40” units facing eviction proceedings, even though they had been paying rent to Whittenberg and were unaware they were residing there illegally.

“He was the boss of the housing, the one calling all the shots. He had painters, plumbers. If somebody said, ‘Hey Lance, my sink clogged up.’ He’d be back at the office and send the workers to get it fixed,” Steven Williams, a tenant slated for eviction, told the Chronicle. “I never knew I wasn’t supposed to be in there until recently when they started trying to kick everybody out. And my name was on the list.”

Some of the tenants do have lawyers lined up, through the city’s Tenant Right to Counsel Program.

“Our clients are asylum seekers, working families, elderly people, and disabled children,” an attorney for that program said in a letter to the SF Housing Authority, urging a pause on these evictions. “They have lived in Potrero Hill Terrace-Annex for years and paid rent to disgraced San Francisco Housing Authority property managers who promised safe and affordable housing and instead engaged in a conspiracy to defraud our clients.”

These cases are still making their way through the courts, but may not be resolved before the tenants themselves are served eviction papers. The Chronicle reports that the Eugene Burger property manager Lance Whittenberg “was fired at the start of the year,” and thus has not been collecting that rent on these units since. But it seems pretty heartbreaking that the only people who seem to currently be suffering any consequences from this scheme are the tenants, rather than the city or the property company they hired.

The redevelopment of Potrero Annex-Terrace, called Potrero Hope SF, has been ongoing for the last decade, with the first phases of new construction opened for habitation in 2019 and 2022. When completed, the project will include 1,700 residential units — 619 replacement affordable units, approximately 200 additional affordable housing units, and approximately 800 market-rate units.

The entire project is slated to completed by 2034.

Related: Potrero Hill Apartment Fire Leaves One Dead, Three Rescued [SFist]

Image via Google Street View

Welp, hopes that a real estate investor who has been quietly assembling multiple properties on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights has only good intentions to revitalize the area appear to be dashed.

We're now learning that the various shell entities that have been previously linked to 39-year-old venture capitalist Neil Mehta, which among other buildings have acquired the defunct Clay Theatre, are starting to give eviction notices and warnings  to some of the legacy businesses on the 2200 block of Fillmore.

These include La Mediterranee, a 45-year-old restaurant that received legacy status from the city in 2019, and Ten-Ichi, a 46-year-old Japanese restaurant that is being run by the children of its original founders, who were Japanese immigrants to the city.

As the Chronicle reports today, Ten-Ichi owner Steve Amano says the sale of his restaurant's building is still in escrow, and the new owner, a company called Great Stage LLC, is asking them to vacate by next month. Amano tells the paper that he knew the sale was going on from his landlord, but he just expected that the new owner would try to hike his rent.

As Amano tells the Chronicle, "We’ve been here for 46 years. This is the opposite of what San Francisco does to long-term, legacy business tenants. This guy is displacing us."

Reportedly La Mediterranee has also been told that they will need to vacate their space across the street at 2210 Fillmore Street when their current least expires.

It's not clear how many buildings Mehta and his shell companies own at this point. As of April, The Information had linked Mehta to six recently sold buildings in the area, including the Clay Theatre. These were mostly on the 2200 block of Fillmore, but all within a three-block span, and the buildings had sold for higher-than-expected amounts.

The report included info from a source saying that Mehta planned to spend "tens of millions" of dollars to assemble a portfolio on the street.

And the Chronicle had a source saying that Mehta "plans to elevate the quality of upper Fillmore’s retail offerings," and intends to revive the historic Clay Theatre "as a high-end theater and hospitality concept" — would that be akin to, say, an Alamo Drafthouse? Or higher end than that?

In any event, it is sad that five-decade-old businesses are getting shoved out, and we don't yet know what these "elevated" offerings will be down the line.

Mehta has so far declined to comment on his plans, and nor has his agent in the project, who reportedly is nightlife, entertainment, and real estate entrepreneur Cody Allen.

Previously: Mystery Buyer Who’s Bought Nearly a Block of Fillmore Street — Including the Defunct Clay Theatre — May Be Identified

Photo via Yelp

A tense police standoff was unfolding Wednesday afternoon in Corona Heights, near Buena Vista Park, where an eviction was reportedly taking place by the SF Sheriff's Department and the tenant allegedly fired a gun.

The standoff is underway at 30 Roosevelt Way, where the eviction was taking place. A photo taken by Mission Local at 14th and Castro streets shows a line of police vehicles parked along 14th, and a SWAT situation was unfolding with the subject of the eviction still barricaded inside the building.

Captain Alejandro Cabebe confirmed that the eviction had been taking place at 10:45 am Wednesday when "The subject of the eviction fired multiple rounds of unknown caliber through the door."

Per Mission Local, who spoke to a law enforcement source, two to three sheriff's deputies became trapped inside the multi-unit building after the gunshots were fired, and it was unclear if they were now out.

McKinley Elementary School is next door, and apparently some children were inside at a daycare, but were free to leave if their parents wished.

Video posted to the Citizen app shows a police officer directing traffic on 14th Street to turn onto Castro.

The SFPD and Sheriff's Department have issued an "avoid the area" notice to residents.

The standoff appears to be ongoing as of this writing at 2:25 pm.

Photo via the Citizen app

There’s some community outrage over how the building owner whose rent increase did in Capp Street bar The Uptown is now himself opening a bar there, in what looks like an owner move-in eviction of a nightclub.

It’s a fairly common thing in the San Francisco bar scene “cycle of life” for a well-known, decades-old bar to close down largely because of a hefty rent increase, but several months later, a new bar opens in its place with new ownership. And that’s what appeared to be happening after the 39-year-old Capp Street bar The Uptown announced its impending closure last November, but was slated to soon reopen as a bar called Kiitos.

But that may not be happening, as the SF Planning Department is forcing Kiitos to hit the brakes on its opening. Mission Local reports that may be related to the bar’s prospective new owner Kaushik Dattani, who happens to be the building’s owner who handed the Uptown their crippling rent increase.

And Mission Local describes Dattani as a “serial evictor.” According to the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Dattani has presided over 24 Ellis Act evictions since 2007, in addition to a few other non-Ellis evictions.

“It’s one thing to close the bar after so many years; it’s always gonna be a little traumatic,” former Uptown co-owner Ken Cohen told Mission Local. “But it’s even harder to take the idea that we’d be replaced by a landlord like this.”

While the Uptown was on a lease from 2019, its owners said in a letter to the SF Planning Commission that their rent was “at least 80% above fair market.”

According to Mission Local, the SF Planning Department has “delayed the bar’s opening indefinitely,” with staff asking for more “thorough outreach to stakeholders and neighborhood groups and responding to community input.”

It’s unclear whether a June 13 Planning Commission hearing to review the new bar’s authorization is still scheduled. That authorization would be necessary since The Uptown was a designated SF Legacy Business.

Related: The Halfway Club Opens Today in Crocker-Amazon’s Former Broken Record Space [SFist]

Image: Uptown via Facebook

Sheriff's deputies are facing violent pushback while serving eviction notices in the East Bay this week, and one was shot and wounded Wednesday afternoon in Union City.

Less than 24 hours after a standoff occurred in Oakland's Eastmont neighborhood over an eviction notice being served, an Alameda County Sheriff's deputy has been shot in a separate incident in Union City.

As the East Bay Times reports, the shooting occurred around 1:35 p.m. on the 33000 block of Dowe Avenue, off of Alvarado-Niles Boulevard. The officer was wounded, but apparently not critically, and the suspect fled the scene and was still at large as of 4 p.m.

It was a chaotic scene on Dowe Avenue, as KTVU reports that BART police and other law enforcement agencies rushed to the aid of the wounded officer.

Videos on the Citizen app show multiple helicopters in the air over Union City searching for the suspect.

The eviction notice being served was apparently at a commercial building, and at least one individual was being evicted.

Alameda County deputies were also possibly shot at in a similar eviction-notice situation Tuesday evening. That incident took place near 82nd and Outlook avenues, and as KTVU reports it led to a brief standoff with the individual being evicted from a home there.

Officers said they heard a "pop" that they attributed to gunfire, and they had to retreat.

No one was wounded, and the standoff apparently ended peacefully.

Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

The owner of a 39-unit apartment building in Sausalito is evicting literally everyone in order to renovate the place and jack up the rents, even giving a 93-year-old woman notice that she has to be out in two months.

There is some noticeable difference between what's presented on the website of the Sausalito apartment complex Portofino Riviera, and the reality of what the place actually looks like. The website shows a group of gorgeous homes along Sausalito’s famed coastline. But the video report below from KTVU shows the building as far more ragged, with the “Por” missing from the Portofino Riviera sign, and the detail that one tenant had to be moved out because their unit was “flooded by malfunctioning gutters.”

So it may sound like nice news that the landlord is renovating the whole place. But it’s much less nice that they’ve posted notice to evict the tenants of all 93 units of the building. Per KTVU, last week each unit had an eviction notice taped to its door, demanding the tenants be out by October 31.

One of these tenants is 93 years old, and wearing a neck brace from a severe injury and suffering from hypertension. "I don't know where to get the rent from, where to go, what to do, how to handle it," that tenant Ursula Goldstone told KTVU.

And that rent is heading for a significant increase. KTVU notes that the complex is now offering these same units for “$2,600 for a studio and $3,700 for a one-bedroom,” despite that no renovations have taken place.

The tenant who experienced the flooding in their apartment was relocated to a smaller apartment (though at the same rent), and is now looking at the prospect of having to move twice within a year. “Hopefully, we can stay in the same school,” that tenant Elaina Gunn told the station. “You know, the protections here are not what they are in the city" of San Francisco.

KTVU notes that “Some residents have hired legal representation,” and it’s unclear whether they’ve all retained the same attorney, or whether different tenants have hired multiple attorneys. Either way, that legal representation’s first move is likely a delay on the evictions, so it may just be the beginning of this saga.

Related: 81-Year-Old Woman Being Evicted From Upper Haight Condo Hits Back With Lawsuit. [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

The current San Francisco eviction moratorium will now have a 60-day “wind-down period” beyond the end of the local COVID-19 state of emergency, though it’s still unclear when SF’s state of emergency will actually end.

The various COVID-19 eviction moratoriums in California jurisdictions are in some cases nearing their expiration dates (Alameda County’s ends April 30), and in other cases being extended (Berkeley’s was recently extended until August 31). Two weeks ago, SF Supervisor Dean Preston proposed a 60-day extension of the San Francisco eviction moratorium, saying at the time, “We’ve got to make sure we are not going off an eviction cliff when the local state of emergency ends.”  

And on Tuesday, the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved that 60-day eviction moratorium extension, in an 11-0 vote with no debate or discussion.

When Preston introduced the 60-day extension at the March 7 board meeting, he explained that the measure “will create a 60-day wind-down period after the [city's] state of emergency ends, keeping these eviction protections in place, covering an additional two months of rent after the state of emergency ends.”

The thing is, we still don’t know when the SF COVID-19 state of emergency will end. The San Francisco COVID-19 public health emergency declaration ended on February 28, but the mayor’s separate COVID-19 state of emergency declaration from February 25, 2020 remains in effect.

When will that end? The Chronicle has some informed speculation that “The federal government’s COVID emergency will end May 11; San Francisco could end its emergency at the same time or continue it to a later date.”

Should Mayor Breed end the emergency declaration on May 11, that would extend the SF eviction moratorium to around July 11.

So the SF eviction moratorium figures to stay in place until at least then. And as a reminder, the moratorium does not just ban evictions, but also says “a landlord may not impose late fees, penalties, interest, liquidated damages, or similar charges due to a tenant’s non-payment of rent, if the tenant can demonstrate that it missed the rent payment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Related: SF Extends Eviction Moratorium Through December as City and State Work to Cover Tenants' Back Rent [SFist]

Image: @DeanPreston via Twitter

In a puzzling phenomenon, the city of San Francisco spends hundreds of millions of dollars to house the homeless population. But it also spends millions of dollars evicting some of those same people from the very housing they were placed in.

There is currently an eviction moratorium in San Francisco. Yet the city of San Francisco (or rather, the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing) evicts hundreds of people every year — ironically, evicting the very people they’d housed through their programs, from buildings we call single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels. Supervisor Dean Preston and the Chronicle called attention to this issue in December, and it is gaining some traction with the rest of the Board of Supervisors.

The Chronicle notes in a new analysis of the formerly homeless being evicted again by the city that “The 75 single-room-occupancy hotels, or SROs, used by San Francisco to house homeless people accounted for about a quarter of all court-ordered evictions carried out by the Sheriff’s Department between 2019 and May 2022, even though the buildings housed just over 1% of the city’s renters.”

The SF Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee held a hearing Monday on the seemingly counterintuitive practice of putting people into supportive housing, only to evict them a short time later.

“It’s alarming to me that once someone’s housing is in jeopardy ... the city does not have any real programs to make sure that folks don’t end up back on the streets,” Supervisor Dean Preston told the Chronicle after the hearing. “I mean, my office has stepped in to just rent a hotel room for someone because there’s no city program, which makes absolutely no sense.”

In a further more frustrating paradox, the Chron adds that “Typically, people were evicted for the same issues that qualified them for supportive housing in the first place: poverty, mental illness, trauma and inability to care for themselves.”

It makes little sense that people are evicted for non-payment of rent (during an eviction moratorium!), and the numbers indicate that half of the formerly homeless were evicted from SROs for falling behind on rent. But admittedly, some of these evictions were for matters over which one absolutely should be evicted.

On one hand, the Chronicle reports that “a person was evicted after shooting their neighbor in the back through an adjoining wall.” On the other hand, “a tenant was kicked out for owing less than $1,000 in rent.”

This is obviously a difficult issue; we’re talking about a population where mental illness and drug abuse issues are pretty rampant. But there is some nuance to this. Many advocates for the homeless population pointed out at Monday’s hearing that these SROs are absolutely squalid, and non-payment of rent under these conditions is in many cases justified. Further, the rules at these SROs are often insanely strict, allowing maybe three visitors a month and no visitors after 10 p.m. Some people are being evicted for trifling reasons, others for reasons over which they frankly ought to be in prison.

And so it’s a tricky continuum to legislate. But SF voters did approve a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing oversight committee in November, and the supervisors are set to approve most of that oversight committee tonight. (One nominee withdrew his nomination). And that oversight commission will be expected to help legislate the tricky issues like this.

Related: A Huge Number of SF's Supportive Housing Units Are In Run-Down, Vermin-Infested SROs, and It's Barely Better Than Being Homeless [SFist]

Image: Kevin Y. via Yelp

It's a tale at least as old as the first dot-com boom in SF, as elderly renters face displacement or eviction due to the real estate pressures that make rent control precarious. And now one of the Castro's elder statesmen has fallen victim as well.

There is probably a bit more to the story than what Cleve Jones himself has explained on Facebook and in speaking to the Chronicle this week. But the one-bedroom apartment that he has lived in since 2010, in a duplex on 18th Street, and which he shares with a roommate, is having its rent hiked from $2,393 to $5,200 on July 1. The rise in rent came after Jones's new landlord hired a private investigator, as he told the Bay Area Reporter, and determined that he was not living in the unit, and therefore rent control was no longer valid. Jones calls the new rent amount "just impossible."

The new owner, 30-year-old Lily Pao Kue, claims that Jones's roommate is a subtenant, which is not allowed in the terms of his lease, and that Jones has not been residing there. While Jones could likely prove primary residency to the Rent Board using utility bills, and showing that he keeps belongings in the home, he says he's decided that isn't going to fight the situation through legal means — though he will be leading a protest on Sunday.

"I don't have the stamina to hunker down and have months in a literal construction zone," Jones says to the BAR, referring to construction on the adjacent unit that's already begun. "She can do whatever she wants. ... She bet she could get me out and she did."

Jones has made no secret that he has spent much of the pandemic isolating in Guerneville, at a cottage he bought there with proceeds from his 2016 memoir When We Rise: My Life In the Movement.

"Even during those times when I was away from the city, I was never really away," Jones tells the Chronicle. "I was always coming back. That’s my 'hood."

And, as he tells the BAR, "I don't want to leave. I came to the Castro in the mid-1970s, and I've moved away for work many times, but the Castro: that's where my heart has always been."

Jones also says that he needs to return to the Castro regularly for specialized medical care, as a 67-year-old HIV-positive man.

Previously, Jones spoke to SFist about the potential loss of the "gayborhood" that is the Castro, as more and more straight renters and homeowners move into the area, and as older LGBT residents get priced out.

"I'm a renter, and I'm not a wealthy man," Jones said back in 2016. "When the inevitable eviction comes, I'll have to leave, and I don't know where I'll go. I'm getting old, and I hear horror stories about seniors ending up in senior facilities where they aren't treated with any dignity and may even suffer special abuse for being LGBT."

On Facebook, Jones has called Kue "remarkably aggressive, hostile and greedy," and he tells the BAR that he only found out that the building had been sold when his roommate's car was suddenly towed out of the driveway. The former owner of the building passed away a couple of years back, and Jones says the driveway had been vacant for the entire pandemic, so he and his roommate were using it.

When Jones then had a conversation with Kue, he says she suggested that there would be a tenant buyout, which he said could be handled through the Rent Board. But, he says, Kue then installed cameras on the property to monitor his and his roommate's comings and goings, and then Jones says she decided to invoke the state's Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act and claim that Jones has moved out of the unit and therefore the rent can be raised to market rate and there will be no buyout.

The story may not be over yet. Kue tells the Chronicle that she seeking a hearing on her petition with the Rent Board, and she said in an email, "I want Cleve to continue the tenancy and let the judge determine the petition. I will be gracious and accepting of law."

But Kue also says she feels threatened by the attention brought to the case — and she tells the Chronicle she has filed a police report after seeing some comments on Jones's Facebook post about the situation.

Even if she didn't know who Jones was, and that he would likely make this fight very public, it seems like there were probably gentler ways to go about this.

"I’m going to be just fine, but she’s going to do this to someone else," Jones tells the Chronicle.

And now, Jones will be hosting a rally for all renters on Sunday, March 27 at 11 a.m., at the traditional spot where Harvey Milk led rallies before him, at Castro and Market.

Related: Cleve Jones: We Have To Preserve Gayborhoods Because They Save Lives

Photo via Facebook

Wedgewood, the real estate investment firm that is best known locally for their role in a standoff with a group of homeless Oakland mothers two years ago, has reportedly reached a $3.5 million settlement with the state of California over its eviction practices statewide.

An operation with national reach, Wedgewood's core business involves residential real estate speculation and house flipping — or, as they describe it on their website, "the purchase, revitalization and resale of single-family residences throughout the United States." One of those purchases back in 2017 was a home at 2928 Magnolia Street in West Oakland, which housing activists decided to make an example of after Wedgewood sat on the property and left it vacant for two years amid a regional housing and homelessness crisis.

In November 2019, several homeless mothers and their children moved in and occupied the property, launching an effort they called Moms 4 Housing that was meant to highlight the role that real estate speculation plays in our housing crisis. About seven weeks of legal wrangling ensued in which Wedgewood sought to have the squatters removed, and meanwhile the story gained national attention and the mothers had widespread support across Oakland and beyond.

The company still went ahead and had the sheriff forcibly remove and arrest two of the mothers in a pre-dawn raid in January 2020. But the demonstrators had made their point.

"We’ve been in his house for 50 days of shelter for us and our children," said organizer Dominique Walker at the time, speaking to the New York Times. "That’s a win and it’s a start and people are starting to realize that, ‘Hey, housing is a human right or it should be.’ So that to me, is the absolute success."

About a year after that occupation by Moms 4 Housing, Wedgewood sold the Magnolia Street house to the nonprofit Oakland Community Land Trust, which pledged to use it as shelter for mothers experiencing homelessness.

But in an unrelated case, the state of California sought to crack down on Wedgewood's alleged practices of harassing tenants and evicting them at other properties around the state. And as the East Bay Times reports today, state Attorney General Rob Bonta has reached a $3.5 million settlement with the firm, about $2.75 million of which will go back to tenants who were improperly evicted.

"As we battle this housing crisis of epic proportion, our housing laws, especially our tenant protections, have never been more vital," Bonta said in a statement. “Unfortunately, even amid this crisis, there are some who pursue profits over the interests of families."

Wedgewood remains a major real estate holder in the Bay Area and beyond, and it's not like the state can litigate house-flipping and speculation out of existence. NBC Bay Area sought to track the extent of Wedgewood's local property holdings, and they came up with at least 125 houses that they owned through a web of LLCs across the Bay Area — we know that the company last year offered to sell a portfolio of 100 homes to the Oakland Community Land Trust, but that doesn't sound like something one non-profit can afford.

NBC uncovered over 300 lawsuits across jurisdictions where Wedgewood is an active investor, most of them "unlawful detainers in which the company was attempting to evict a tenant or former owners living in a home it recently purchased." 275 of these suits were in San Bernardino County alone.

"It’s almost like they’re an eviction machine as much as anything else," said Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), speaking to NBC in January 2020. "That’s what they’re selling. They get the properties, kick people out, and sell them empty."

One plaintiff, Maria Hernandez, sued Wedgewood back in 2016 for attempting to evict her from a home she'd rented for many years.

According to Hernandez's complaint, "Defendant Wedgewood has directed its employees and its agents to aggressively clear out foreclosed homes, while concomitantly directing its employees and agents to refrain from repairing the substandard conditions within these properties until all occupants have been vacated and/or been forced to vacate. Where such pressure tactics are unsuccessful, Defendant Wedgewood’s eviction department assigns these tenant-occupied properties to local eviction attorneys who uniformly commence 'no cause' post-foreclosure eviction proceedings that illegally circumvent the just cause eviction protections."

It is likely that these practices were exactly what Moms 4 Housing wanted to bring greater attention to. Dominique Walker, as we learned in the course of that seven-week protest last year, was an employee of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a group that organizes housing protests and issues reports on vacant units in California.

Given the vastness of Wedgewood's investments, this $3.5 million penalty amounts to less than a slap on the wrist. KQED reported earlier this year that Wedgewood went on a "spending spree" during the pandemic, buying up homes in foreclosure and others — a total of at least 276 properties across California.

One of those was a single-family home in disrepair in Pinole occupied by Jocelyn Foreman, a previously homeless grandmother. The home was lost to the bank after the daughter of its deceased original owner failed to make mortgage payments, and Wedgewood purchased it at auction for $600,000. Under a new state law, SB 1079, occupants of homes sold to corporate profiteers, like Foreman, have the right to match winning bids to purchase their homes themselves. The Northern California Community Land Trust sought to help Foreman and raise enough money to buy the home and keep Foreman housed there, but they were skeptical that they'd raise enough to keep payments affordable for her.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner has said she hopes to establish a state fund that will aid homeowners in purchases made under SB 1079. But that doesn't yet exist.

Image via Moms 4 Housing

The owner of Vulcan Lofts and nearly two dozen other East Bay apartment complexes is singularly responsible for nearly a third of all Oakland eviction notices filed during the eviction moratorium.

Some landlords have of course still been trying to serve eviction notices, despite Governor Newsom’s statewide eviction moratorium passed in March. But the San Francisco eviction moratorium technically expired December 1, 2020, and federal and state moratoriums expired January 31. President Biden did an eviction moratorium executive order that still leaves a lot of people exposed, but Newsom signed an emergency extension of the state order last Friday that pushes the California moratorium out until June 30, 2021.

But Oakland’s eviction moratorium is slated to last as long as pandemic emergency orders are in place, so tenants there should be safe, right? Guess again.

NBC Bay Area released a bombshell investigative report Wednesday that Oakland landlords have issued nearly 500 eviction notices since that city’s moratorium passed. That’s not surprising, given the ethics of the landlord racket. What is surprising is that they found nearly a third of these evictions all came from one landlord, Madison Park Financial, whose nearly two dozen East Bay apartment complexes include the Fruitvale artist/maker spot Vulcan Lofts.

Vulcan Lofts alone constitutes nearly 10% of all Oakland eviction notices sent out during the moratorium. “They want to harass people and bully people into thinking that they need to pay them all the money or sign up for a payment plan,” Vulcan Lofts tenant Lili Thomas-Brumme told NBC Bay Area. “It’s exhausting and infuriating.”

The vast majority of these eviction notices have come since September, after the passage of a state bill called AB 3088 that was intended to strengthen renter rights. NBC Bay Area obtained the eviction notices posted on people’s doors or mailed to them, which read, “Within fifteen days of the date of service of this Notice upon you, excluding weekends and judicial holidays, you are required: a) to pay said rent, or in the alternative, b) to quit and deliver up possession of said premises, or in the alternative, c) deliver a signed declaration of COVID-19-related financial distress, and documentation thereof, if applicable, to the Landlord.”

Madison Financial may have seen those newly enacted protections as an opportunity to pounce on tenants who did not understand the protections.

“Madison had no intention of pursuing any eviction for non-payment of rent. Madison was simply issuing the 15-Day Notices to meet the requirements of AB 3088,” their attorney Servando Sandoval told the station, as if eviction notices do not reflect an intention to evict.

Sure, it is still technically possible to evict tenants during the moratorium. Those who want to avoid eviction have a lot of record-keeping responsibilities, and do ultimately have to pay the back rent. But tenant attorneys discourage you from signing payment plans if you’re still unemployed.

“The problem with a payment plan is, for somebody who is not employed, there’s really no telling when you’re going to be employed again,” tenant lawyer Scott Weaver told the SF Public Press. “Promising money that you haven’t earned yet, and you don’t know whether you’re going to earn, I think is not a good strategy.”

Related: Moms 4 Housing Group Evicted and 3 Arrested In Dramatic Pre-Dawn Raid [SFist]

Image: Madison Park Financial