More than 400 West End Alameda Residents Face Eviction - Update 8/02

Tenants and Supporters are going to the Alameda City Council meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday August 3 at City Hall, 2263 Santa Clara Avenue, City Council Chambers (3rd floor). The public comment section of the
City Council meeting is the 6th item on the overall City Council Agenda. More will be posted soon from Tenant's of the Harbor Island Apartments. For now please read news articles about the evictions posted below.

http://www.ci.alameda.ca.us/gov/city_council_meetings.html
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Saturday July 31, 2004 - Alameda Daily News

Today's Harbor Island Apartments Tenant Association's Meeting on Eviction Notices Was Well Attended

Last week, hundreds of tenants at the massive Harbor Islands Apartment complex on Buena Vista Avenue received eviction notices giving them 90 days to vacate their apartments. This morning, at about 11:00 a.m., hundreds of tenants showed up for a tenant association meeting near the swimming pool of the complex.

The tenants were given information on the evictions, such as, "If you are staying to fight the evictions, the owners will have to take ALL of you to court. This can take up to 2 months." Volunteers distributed sign-in sheets which requested the tenants' name, race - ethnicity, number of children, age, and asked whether there were any disabled in the household. The tenants were asked to mail that information to Sentinel Fair Housing, 510 16th Street, Oakland. They were told that the information given by the tenants may help in actions to try to stop the evictions.

Alameda's Vice-mayor Tony Daysog was present at the meeting and told us,

"I think its important for the City of Alameda to take a stand on behalf of the residents here at Harbor Isle. They are an important part of the west end of Alameda. With all of the new homes we are building here off Alameda Point, I think there is enough room to have pricey homes as well as homes for low income and working class families. We want a community for everybody, not just those who can afford it. In the final analysis, that's what we think about America, a place of equal opportunity."

During the meeting, some tenants, who did not attend, were loading their furniture and other personal possessions into U-Haul vans to move out of their homes in the Harbor Islands Apartment complex.
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On July 22, 2004, hundreds of tenants at the massive Harbor Islands Apartment complex received eviction notices - see photo at left. They were told that they have 90 days to vacate their apartments. One disabled tenant who has lived there for 30 years said, "I have no idea where I can get another apartment. I receive Section 8 assistance."

We phoned Harbor Islands Apartments yesterday, and after we said we were with Alameda Daily News, the phone call was disconnected. We immediately phoned again. The phone was not answered, but instead we were connected to an answering machine. There has still not been any reply to our message asking for information on the evictions.

Speculations are rampant that, rather than merely refurbishing the existing apartments, the property may be demolished and replaced with upscale single family housing or other uses.

The Harbor Island Tenant Association has distributed a flyer to all tenants titled "Harbor Island Tenants Know Your Rights":

"Have you received a notice to vacate? As residents we do have rights and options.


You have rights in the eviction process. You can decide to move out within the 60 day period or to stay and go to eviction court to fight the eviction.

If you do not leave by the time the 60 day notice is up, the landlord has to give you a SUMMONS and COMPLAINT. You will have five days to answer the summons. YOU can get help with the summons from a number of legal services agencies. The numbers are at the bottom of this paqe.

In the meantime, if you decide to stay, you should pay your rent.

http://www.alamedadailynews.com/
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More than 400 West End renters to be evicted

Just as jangled nerves are calming after the threatened loss of hundreds of Section 8 housing vouchers, almost all of the 400-some households at the beleaguered Harbor Island apartments -- about half of them Section 8 recipients -- have received eviction notices.

Management informed tenants Tuesday that they had 60 or 90 days to vacate via official notices taped to apartment doors and mailed.

Management of the 640-unit complex at 433 Buena Vista Ave. says the evictions are to renovate the buildings.

"Our goal is to transform Harbor Island into the preeminent multifamily community in Alameda," property management company president Ian Sanders said in a prepared statement.

Many tenants don't believe it and officials of Miami-based Fifteen Group Asset Management didn't return the Journal's calls for clarification.

Rumors are circulating that their intention is to gentrify the 10 buildings beyond the reach of the 1,200 mostly low-income residents or to raze the property and build single family homes, similar to Bayport, the new development under construction across Atlantic Avenue from Harbor Island.

"It was real sheisty," said Harbor Island resident Lisa Mitchell-Reed. "I think this was a long-planned situation. I've gone to the owners and managers with ways to solve problems and have always been ignored."

"I feel totally discriminated against," said 25-year Harbor Island resident Lorraine Lilley. "I'm a professional, I get up very early and go to work. I pay market rent."

Lilley said she has heard the plan is to raise rents to the equivalent of new development in the area.

Moving will mean she doesn't have to live with vermin and other hazards, she said.

"I'd like to move in my own time," Lilley said. "Today we're having family meetings about whether everyone should drop out of college," she said.

City, school district and social service officials are moving quickly to avert a crisis.

"This is horrible, after what we just went through with Section 8," said Mayor Beverly Johnson. "The city needs to work with the owners to phase (the upgrades) so they are not evicting 400 households at one time."

City Manager Jim Flint directed the Housing Authority to work with the owner so tenants aren't displaced all at once and to help those who are evicted to find a new home.

"It's an unbelievable set of circumstances," said Mona Breed, executive director of Sentinel Fair Housing, an advocacy and support organization. "We have been inundated with calls."

If evictions have a disproportionate effect on protected classes -- people of color or with disabilities, seniors, families with children -- they could be illegal under the Federal Fair Housing Act, Breed said.

Sentinel and other housing organizations are informing tenants of their rights and trying to stave off the evictions.

The Alameda School District will lose more than $1.5 million if all 320 students leave the Island, said Lorenzo Legaspi, the district's chief financial officer. Most Harbor Island students attend Encinal High School, Chipman Middle School or Longfellow or Woodstock elementary schools.

Among Alameda Red Cross director Jim Franz's many concerns about the consequence of possible mass evictions is the effect of sudden school changes on children.

Habitability has long been an issue at Harbor Island, with tenants, the Housing Authority and the city complaining about raw sewage, leaky roofs, units without smoke alarms and fire extinguishers not being recharged.

After repeated attempts to fix the hazards, the Housing Authority stopped approving Section 8 leases at Harbor Island in March. Tenants on rental assistance could stay on a month-to-month tenancy.

Renovation "could be positive," said Housing Authority Executive Director Michael Pucci. "It could reduce the high concentration of Section 8 tenants in one complex in one neighborhood and reduce the number of vacancies (elsewhere) in Alameda."

Pucci is one member of a task force comprised of Harbor Island management and city staff people from public safety, recreation, development services and the Housing Authority that has been working for a couple of years to improve living conditions there.

A major impetus for creating the task force is that calls to Alameda Police from Harbor Island Apartments are about three times as high as the rest of the city.

The task force process was very frustrating because of frequent changes of managers, Pucci said in February.

The city Planning Department doesn't have a building permit application for Harbor Island. Management officials did speak with the department Thursday, saying they proposed to spend significant money on major interior and exterior renovations and landscaping, said planning review manager Jerry Cormack.

Reach reporter Susan Fuller at 510-748-1659 or sfuller [at] cctimes.com.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/counties/alameda_county/alameda/9280207.htm
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Online overview/advertisement for the Harbor Islands Apartment Complex
http://www.apartmentguide.com/Property/property.asp?wsv_qsGeoKey=1,6,120&wsv_psPropertyID=10806