Non profit developer pressures renters to obtain free building renovations

Non profit developer pressures renters to obtain free building renovations

By Lynda Carson

Oakland -- Large Oakland developer (East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation/EBALDC) pressures renters to sign up for a federal subsidized program, as a way to seek free building renovations for their properties. EBALDC owns around 1,000 rental units in numerous properties in Oakland, and elsewhere.

On Friday afternoon October 8, 2010, the tenants at 829 E. 19th St., were ordered by EBALDC to fill out an application for the Weatherization Assistance Program that was slipped under their doors by the building manager. A packet of forms slipped under the renters doors including a cover sheet from the developer giving the orders to fill out the forms, shocked the renters throughout the building.

On the cover sheet in a message from the developer, the tenants were ordered to sign and fill out portions of the weatherization program forms, and were ordered to return the packet back to the developer along with a copy of their utility bills, by Monday October 11, 2010.

One of the forms the tenants were ordered to sign and fill out was altered with 2 sections of the form blacked out. Additionally one form already included dated signatures of others, including one of them that was back dated as far back as January 1, 2010.

The scant information provided by EBALDC on a cover sheet stapled to the weatherization program forms failed to disclose that this was a VOLUNTARY federal subsidized program, for homeowners and renters.

The Weatherization Assistance Program is a federal subsidized program that allows low-income renters to sign up for the program as long as they can obtain a landlords consent in advance. In this case, the landlord/developer is trying to pressure the renters to sign up for the program as a way to obtain free remodeling and renovations done in it's buildings.

The concern is that through the weatherization program, EBALDC is actually trying to trick the renters into giving consent for renovations to occur in their rental units, that may end up displacing them from their housing in the near future.

During March of 2009, the Oakland City Council voted to loan EBALDC $1.25 million towards a proposed $3 million renovation project that EBALDC wants to do at 829 E. 19th St. At the meeting people spoke out against the renovation scheme that may result in the displacement of low-income renters, including other renovation schemes being proposed across the city that may displace hundreds of renters.

Currently many other low-income renters are being displaced from the Jefferson Inn Hotel and the Oaks Hotel downtown Oakland, by a large renovation project being conducted by Affordable Housing Associates. People in around 10 occupied rental units in the 65 unit residential Jefferson Inn Hotel are still holding out against being displaced and are seeking assistance from any interested attorneys. 

Tenants in the Oaks Hotel are soon to be forced out of their housing and moved into the Jefferson Inn Hotel, says Michael Dejarmond of the Jefferson Inn Hotel. "On October 1, 2010, Affordable Housing Associates took control of the Jefferson Inn Hotel and the Oaks Hotel, and fired and replaced the staff from both hotels after promising that they would not do that. We were served 90 day notices beforehand and had until sometime in November to move, but most people in the Jefferson Hotel were pressured into moving by early October. Some were moved to the Menlo Hotel, which is infested with bedbugs, and because the Jefferson Hotel is also loaded with bedbugs, where ever the tenants moved to recently they are taking bedbugs with them to their new homes," said Dejarmond.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com