In 2015 over 700 families displaced by no-cause evictions in San Mateo

In 2015 over 700 families displaced by no-cause evictions in San Mateo

By Lynda Carson - September 20, 2015

San Mateo - During 2015 over 700 families were displaced by no-cause evictions in San Mateo, that can be verified by an attorney. The rising rents and no-cause evictions in San Mateo, have created an unrelenting housing crisis for renters throughout the city, that can be address with renter protections, including rent control, and just cause eviction protections.

The current housing crisis is to be addressed at a Public Hearing Monday, September 21, at 7:00PM at San Mateo City Hall, 330 W. 20th Avenue, San Mateo.

Tenant activists are urging as many people as possible to appear at the September 21 hearing to support renter protections, including rent control, and just cause eviction protections.

Click on link below for more…

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/19/18777861.php

Below is a letter to the San Mateo City Council from attorney Daniel Saver of Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. The letter was prepared and submitted as a resource for the Council in advance of the September 21 public hearing on the housing crisis. Mr. Saver an attorney who defends renters from evictions, requests that the letter be submitted in the agenda packets for the Council Members.

In brief, Mr. Saver discloses that during 2015 over 700 families have been displaced by no-cause evictions in San Mateo. Mr. Saver writes: “The data presented in my letter demonstrate that the rental housing market in San Mateo is fundamentally broken and that the consequent displacement epidemic is rupturing the social fabric of the local community. Middle and working class families are bearing the brunt of this market failure, and we urge the Council to consider the full spectrum of renter protections that can provide immediate and effective relief to the community.”

Safe Harbor Shelter is a 90 bed emergency shelter in San Mateo County, and it does not have enough beds for the homeless in San Mateo County being evicted from their housing, especially when considering how fast the rents are increasing in San Mateo County because of the heartless greedy landlords and the members of the CAA, and SAMCAR, involved in the eviction-for profit-system.

As reported in The Daily Journal: Rent increased $227 during the 4th quarter in the past year, leaping to $2,572 (according to Real Answers, a group compiling apartment data). “During the fourth quarter in San Mateo, studio apartments increased by an average of $193 from last year, to $1,762 per month, marking a 12.3 percent increase. One-bedroom apartments with one bathroom increased by 10.3 percent on average to $2,332 per month, up $218 from 2013. And two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments increased $181 per month, to $2,593, a 7.5 percent increase from the previous year, according to the report.”

If that is not enough to make people scream, some renters faced rent increases of $600 during the past year, according to Josh Hugg, the program manager at the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, according to The Daily Journal.

In the September 16 letter to the San Mateo City Council from Daniel Saver, Housing Attorney, of Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, he writes: “Dear Mayor Freschet and Honorable Members of the City Council, I write on behalf of Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (“CLSEPA”), a nonprofit law firm that provides pro bono legal assistance to hundreds of renters throughout San Mateo County each year. Our agency has been on the front lines of the recent displacement crisis, and we thank the City Council for considering a range of policy options to address the current situation.”

“In light of the Council’s desire to obtain more facts about the severity of the crisis, we offer this letter to provide the Council with data and factual analysis grounded in our unique position as a social safety net provider for renters in crisis. Specifically, this letter will (1) begin to quantify the number of no-cause evictions thus far in 2015; (2) describe the spike in incidents of mass displacement, which are often linked to recent, speculative land sales; and (3) report the results of a preliminary survey conducted by CLSEPA and Stanford University which found that more than 50% of families evicted in San Mateo County experience homelessness at some point after their displacement. We hope that this information will assist the Council to make an evidence-based evaluation of renter protections such as rent stabilization and just cause for eviction, and of their potential benefit for San Mateo families.”

1. Quantifying the Number of No-Cause Evictions in San Mateo: More than 700 Families Estimated to Suffer from Potential Forced Displacement Thus Far in 2015

As a preliminary matter, it is important to recognize several challenges to quantifying the number
of families forced out of their homes through no-cause evictions. The main difficulty is that there is no
preexisting public or private database that could provide an exact count of the number of evictions in the
City of San Mateo. This is due to the fact that there are no reporting requirements when a landlord serves
a tenant with an eviction notice, nor are there any reporting requirements when a landlord initiates legal
proceedings against a tenant who fails to vacate by the date prescribed in an eviction notice. Given the
lack of a central database, our analysis is based on the combined case records of CLSEPA and the Legal
Aid Society of San Mateo County (“Legal Aid”). The analysis below includes only eviction cases in the
City of San Mateo that have been verified by an attorney.

Importantly, the number of eviction cases handled by our agencies represents a drastic undercount
of the total number of evictions that have actually occurred. Our data reflect only the subset of displaced
tenants who contacted our offices to seek legal assistance. The majority of renters who receive eviction
notices do not seek services from CLSEPA or Legal Aid. The recent trend of building-wide evictions
that has gripped the City make this fact abundantly clear. For example, at Park Royal, a well-publicized
mass displacement in May 2015, all or nearly all residents in the 73-unit complex received no-cause
eviction notices. Yet only a single household took steps to affirmatively contact our agencies for legal
advice. By the time CLSEPA first heard about Park Royal, more than 50 tenants had already vacated and
the remainder were within a month of losing their homes.

To resolve the undercounting issue presented by our case records, CLSEPA and Legal Aid have
developed a data-driven methodology to estimate that we serve approximately 10% of the total number
of households in San Mateo that have received no-cause eviction notices. We derived this number by
analyzing the percentage of households in entire buildings facing eviction who contacted our agencies.
We have documented seven apartment buildings where the owners have evicted or are in the process of
evicting all the tenants. By comparing our case records against the total number of potentially affected
units at these buildings, we found that roughly 10% of displaced or potentially displaced tenants
contacted our agencies. This finding is consistent with the professional opinions of our housing attorneys
who have years of experience assisting families facing eviction throughout San Mateo County.
Since the start of 2015, CLSEPA and Legal Aid have assisted 73 distinct households that received
no-cause eviction notices in the City of San Mateo. However, based on the methodology described
above, we believe that the actual number of households faced with eviction during the same time period
could exceed 700. The following table summarizes our efforts to quantify the scope of the displacement
crisis and its impact on San Mateo residents thus far in 2015.

Displacement from No-Cause Evictions in San Mateo in 2015:

Confirmed Impacts from CLSEPA & Legal Aid Records

Estimate of Actual Impacts

No-cause evictions: 73 evictions.

Estimate of Actual Impacts: 730 people affected.

No-cause evictions per month: 8.6 evictions per month. Affecting 86 people per month.

Number of residents affected: 238 confirmations. Affecting 1,825 people.

As the data show, the number of San Mateo families that have been displaced due to no-cause
evictions since the beginning of the year is staggering. The scale of the displacement crisis is even more
alarming when one considers that the data only capture part of the story; the data do not include any
cases in which a family is displaced by a massive rent increase.

2. New Trend: Building-Wide Displacement Often Tied to Speculative Land Sales
One trend that has emerged due to the explosive housing market in San Mateo has been an
increasing number of mass displacement events. Since the beginning of 2015 alone, CLSEPA has been
informed about ten buildings undergoing large-scale displacement. We have observed two triggers for
such displacement: a landlord either implements drastic rent increases on current tenants or serves
current tenants with no-cause eviction notices so that units can be re-rented for considerably higher
amounts to new tenants. This often occurs after buildings are marketed and sold to investors as
opportunities to turn quick profits by taking advantage of the housing crisis and significantly increasing
current rents.

The ten buildings that we have identified consist of 180 total rental units. The tenants in these
buildings represent 180 San Mateo families who either have already been displaced or who are presently
at risk of being displaced due to no-cause eviction notices and predatory rent increases. In several of
these buildings, any residents who have not yet received eviction notices have been informed by their
landlords that they will be evicted in the near future, and they live under the extreme stress of daily
housing insecurity. In at least two of these buildings, dozens of families have received exorbitant rent
increases, which in numerous cases raise the tenants' current rent by more than $1,000. These massive
increases are unsustainable for many working families, and will likely result in large-scale displacement
from these buildings. Under current law, tenants in these buildings often have no legal basis to challenge
massive rent increases or no-cause evictions.

CLSEPA is concerned that the trend in building-wide displacement has not even reached its peak.
We have obtained real estate records showing that over 140 multifamily properties have been sold in San
Mateo during an 18-month period spanning 2014-2015. These properties contain more than 800 units.
While it is unclear how many of these purchases have or will result in mass displacement, the sheer
volume of recent transactions evidences the substantial level of speculation that is distorting the rental
housing market. Predatory practices at even a fraction of these properties could place hundreds of San
Mateo families at serious risk of imminent displacement. Unless and until additional protections are put
in place to limit these practices, we anticipate seeing a continued trend of speculation in the housing
market and increased large-scale displacement of working and middle-class renters from San Mateo. The
scale of the danger posed by unfettered real estate speculation and the incidents of mass displacement
that frequently result underscore the urgency with which the Council must take action to protect the
City’s residents.

3. Measuring the Impacts of Displacement: Homelessness and Childhood Trauma

No-cause evictions and enormous rent hikes that displace families have real and disastrous
consequences for San Mateo families. There are relatively few studies that track the impacts of
displacement on individual families, and in order to begin to fill this research gap CLSEPA developed a
pilot project in collaboration with an undergraduate course at Stanford University to identify the social
costs of displacement in our region. In early 2015, CLSEPA partnered with Stanford students to survey
tenants from San Mateo County who faced eviction in 2014. All tenants had eviction lawsuits filed
against them, and most tenants had to move out of their homes for financial or legal reasons. The
Stanford researchers called roughly 200 tenants and received responses from 51 people.

In the current housing market in San Mateo County, the most notable consequence of
displacement is homelessness. The survey found that instead of immediately moving to less expensive
areas far from their schools, jobs, and support networks, 90% of families who were evicted at least
initially stayed on the Peninsula, the majority in San Mateo County. However, 52% of families
experienced homelessness at some point after their eviction. At the time of the survey, 49% were either
homeless or living with friends or family. We believe that many of the tenants who were living without
stable housing at the time of the survey will eventually be forced to relocate to other less expensive
regions, but the survey results indicate that the majority of displaced tenants suffer homelessness or
extreme housing insecurity within our own communities. In addition to the extreme trauma imposed on
the families, the survey results also suggest that displacement could impose substantial financial costs on
city and county governments due to increased demand for social services by families who have been
forced into the social safety net.

The survey also began to identify how displacement can have numerous collateral consequences
for children. Approximately 26% of families with school-age children had to change schools during the
school year. The true number is likely to be significantly higher, given that at least some of the 49% of
families who were living without stable housing at the time of the survey will eventually seek housing
outside of their school district. The data reveal how displacement can interfere with a child’s education,
and they also suggest a disruption of other place-based services and activities that may be linked with a
particular school district.

4. Conclusion

The data presented in this letter demonstrate that the rental housing market in San Mateo is
fundamentally broken and that the consequent displacement epidemic is rupturing the social fabric of the
local community. Middle and working class families are bearing the brunt of this market failure, and we
urge the Council to consider the full spectrum of renter protections that can provide immediate and
effective relief to the community. While more affordable housing must be built in the long term, policies
such as rent stabilization, just cause for eviction, and relocation assistance are the only tools that can
provide immediate and effective results for families teetering on the brink of displacement. We hope that
the Council will recognize the urgency of the crisis and act swiftly to consider these policies. If the
Council chooses to do so, we look forward to engaging with the City to ensure that any such renter
protections are crafted in a manner that is appropriate and responsive to the local circumstances in San Mateo.

Sincerely,
s/ Daniel Saver
Daniel Saver
Housing Attorney
cc: Sandra Council, Neighborhood Improvement and Housing Manager, City of San Mateo

Click on link below to find letter from attorney Daniel Saver.

https://cosm.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2460905&GUID=4A23C90C-4635-4AA1-9565-46D8C1E61FBF


SAMCAR & California Apartment Association (CAA) Oppose Renter Protections

On the opposite end of the spectrum, San Mateo County Association of Realtors (SAMCAR) and the 13,000 member California Apartment Association (CAA) oppose any renter protections, and are urging their members to appear at the September 21 hearing to defend their actions resulting in the evictions, displacement and homelessness of many San Mateo renters during 2015.

At the SAMCAR website they have a whole page dedicated to getting their members to the September 21 hearing.

Click on link below for SAMCAR appeal to it’s members to appear at the September 21 hearing to defend their actions that may have resulted in so many families being evicted from their housing in San Mateo.

https://www.samcar.org/posts/defend-property-rights-at-san-mateo-housing-crisis-public-hearing-516.htm

The 13,000 member California Apartment Association (CAA) is also urging its members to appear at the September 21 hearing to defend its actions that may have caused so many families to be displaced from their housing in San Mateo.

Click on link below…

http://caanet.org/san-mateo-to-consider-rent-control-at-meeting-next-week/

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