top
San Francisco
San Francisco
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

2015 SF Tenant Rights Fair – Tenants speak out on eviction fights

by Rubble
A tenant’s rights conference was held at the Tenderloin Community School all day last Saturday, April 25. The event was sponsored by the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, which is a joint collaboration of most or all of the housing rights organizations in the city. The Coalition is together to continue a multi-pronged campaign to turn around the escalating epidemic of big money-oriented evictions aimed at driving the price of housing out of reach of mostly everyone except wealthy people (22 min).
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
Hear three renters speak out on their collective campaigns. In each case, building tenants are successfully allying with their neighbors to fight speculator-driven evictions evictions. In these and many others rental buildings around the City, speculators have created phony legalistic reasons to try to clear out whole buildings of rent control tenants to raise their profits on the buildings.

The first speaker is from 1049 Market Street. These renters are part of an escalating gentrification on upper Market and SOMA property brought about by the misguided payroll tax breaks handed to Twitter and other high tech companies taking over this section of town on the cheap. While the tax giveaway has reportedly cost the city estimates of well over 50 million dollars, it has also created open season on conversions of lower and moderate income housing and lower profit small businesses which serve the community.

I believe the next two speakers are from housing units in the North Beach/Chinatown area, another central city neighborhood in which profiteers are pushing out lower income residents and businesses at an alarming rate. Rent controlled private market rate tenants, disabled and other groups of people in low-income subsidized units, and the cheaper residential hotels are all targeted. The Asian population including non-English speaking tenants are allying themselves with renter’s rights organizations and direct action approaches to fight to stay in their homes.
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
A tenant’s rights convention was held at the Tenderloin Community School all day last Saturday, April 25. The event was sponsored by the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, which is a joint collaboration of most or all of the housing rights organizations in the city. The Coalition is together to continue a multi-pronged campaign to turn around the escalating epidemic of big money-oriented evictions aimed at driving the price of housing out of reach of mostly everyone except wealthy people (5 min).

Sarah Shortt gave an inspiring talk early in the program, very effectively framing the current rental environment and the need to fight back personally and collectively against all evictions. She describes dynamics of the real estate speculator-driven climate. While Ellis Act evictions were way down in the second half of 2014 as a result of all the political and direct action to fight back against the corrupt process, these evictions are up sharply this year at a rate, suggesting 2015 might be yet another record year for SF evictions.

Additionally, Sarah points out the short-lived drop in Ellis Act filings had not at all part of an overall drop in evictions. Landlords have simply shifted tactics to what are being called “no fault” and “fake fault” evictions – either just evicting for no reason or using high-priced legal help to just fire out 3-Day eviction notices for tiny little perceived or purely made up reasons to void the lease. Renters have tended to flee either because they don’t know their rights and think these procedures are legal and binding; don’t have money or access to take legal actions against big money real-estate lawyers; or flee due to fear and stress over the types of sustained harassment they are forced to take.

Speculators are using coerced buyouts on the cheap – under both and phony threats that the landlord will take the property under the Ellis Act. Buyouts have been used to quietly eliminate rent controlled stock without record of eviction, and have often resulted in the landlord simply re-renting the building at escalated market rents or moving towards “tenancy-in-common” condos.

Sarah was clear and inspiring in her message to tenants to know your rights and to stand up and fight evictions and join the collective housing movement. Many of these evictions threatened and initiated aren’t even legal and often don’t stick under legal scrutiny and sustained direct action. Direct actions to fight and expose “serial evictors” (corporations buying up and clearing out multiple units for profit) and pressure city hall into taking appropriate action to take responsibility to create a climate in which affordable housing is available to meet the needs of people at all income levels.

Residents who take personal and collective actions to fight to retain their units and buildings using a combination of legal and direct action are increasingly stopping their evictions, while driving up the actual costs and economic and legal risks involved in these big-money displacement maneuvers.
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
A tenant’s rights conference was held at the Tenderloin Community School all day last Saturday, April 25. The event was sponsored by the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, which is a joint collaboration of most or all of the housing rights organizations in the city. The Coalition is together to continue a multi-pronged campaign to turn around the escalating epidemic of big money-oriented evictions aimed at driving the price of housing out of reach of mostly everyone except wealthy people (5 min).

Local labor is firmly involved in the SF housing movement against evictions. While rents continue to escalate out of control due to a manufactured artificial scarcity of homes and landlord price gauging, SF rents are increasingly out of reach for city employees. Over at least the last decade, city hall has presided over a hostile labor climate in which wages have been purposely stagnated, sending actual and real quality of wages way downward.

Union workers and housing activists are in alliance in this fight, with national real estate money flooding in to oppose every little thing that is needed to obtain justice. Mike Casey gives a rousing speech on the need to stand up and fight speculator-driven evictions and turn the political climate around.
Add Your Comments
Listed below are the latest comments about this post.
These comments are submitted anonymously by website visitors.
TITLE
AUTHOR
DATE
c in SF
Mon, May 4, 2015 4:53PM
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network