Oakland City Council Attacks Low-Income Renters

Oakland City Council Attacks Low-Income Renters

By Lynda Carson July 22, 2003

In a fit of contempt for low-income renters, on July 15, 2003 the Oakland City Council declared in a 5-3 vote that Oakland tenants and smaller landlords now have a special relationship with one another, and they then followed through to pass some introductory resolutions making these declarations into a new law once it's passed into a final version and voted upon for a final passage at the July 29, 2003 City Council Meeting. It's known as agenda items #20 and #21 of July, 15, 2003.

If I wanted to make it known that I have a special relationship with my landlord, I certainly do not need some dumb ass Oakland Councilmember to pretend to make that declaration for me, and it would never be the sort of relationship where I would be willing to give up all of my rights as a renter, said Donavon Wilson who was run out of town by greedy Oakland landlords a few years back.

In an effort to promote this odious declaration while sitting in the council chambers, Councilmember Danny Wan pubicly tried his best to sell it to resistant Oaklanders, and stated that Oaklands rent control laws were never meant to protect the renters from small landlords, and that the laws were meant to go after the large landlords, Wan said.

Not so, says Wilson Riles Jr., who made a recent run to become Oaklands Mayor. This knocks a hole into an already weak ordinance. It's starting with one group of tenants, and moves onto the next group and needs to be stopped dead in it's tracks before this injustice goes on any further, Riles said.

Sirena Cardenas, an Oaklander who is a self described talented14 year old singer and dancer, says; I don't think that this is fair. People have alot of kids and the rents are so high that they can't pay them off as it is, Cardenas said.

In another quote from long time Oakland renter Yesenia Rios. I do not believe that landlords should have total control over tenants. It scares me to think of someone else having total control over my bank account just because they become a landlord, and no one should have the right to raise the rents to an unlimited amount which is what this new ordinance allows the landlords to do, said Rios.

Oakland renter, Corrine James, who recently had a lengthy battle fighting off an eviction is in total shock by what is going on and claims that she is too depressed to make a decent comment. I can't think of any thing to say, and I'm too depressed from thinking about it, said James. Why do they think that they can do this to us? It will only cause more displacement, homelessness and higher rents, said James. The rent cap has always been there to protect us since it began. I worked so hard for the passage of Measure EE along with so many others in Oakland, and now it only takes a handfull of Councilmembers to believe that they have the right to sell me down the river to some rich landlords? I'm in total shock, said Corrine James of Oakland. What was the point in any of us working so hard for the passage of Measure EE, if the councilmembers can turn around and strip us of our hard fought rights, said James.

Councilmembers Quan, Nadel, and Brunner voted against the declaration and new proposed rent laws, and local tenants were not surprised to see John Holmgren of the Oakland Realtors Association and Steve Edrington of the Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County (RHANAC) lurking about the council chambers to make sure that this all went their way. Oakland tenants know the smell of dirty money when it's around and they know trouble when these fellows show up to make sure that the city council stooges do their bidding.

In part, the absurd result of this draconian declaration, is that the special relationship being declared by the council results in the affected renters being totally stripped of all of their rights to defend theirselves from rent increases or evictions when the new ordinance becomes fully implemented by the landlords involved. Adding insult to injury, the council vote also amounts to a huge money grab for an extra $465,000 in rent control fees allegedly to be used to operate the Rent Adjustment Program. Tenants know that eventually the annual $24.00 fee will be passed along by the landlords to them in the form of higher rents, or they may face a 3 Day Notice to Pay Up or Quit if they resist.

According to a city staff report, Measure EE covers 19,000 rental units that do not have to pay the $24.00 annual fee for the Rent Adjustment Program because the renters in those units are not protected by the rent cap laws of Oakland, presently set at 3.6% annualy, and they have not used the Rent Adjustment Program to fight rent increases. If the new proposed ordinance passes, the 19,000 rental units will be charged the annual $24.00 fee even though the tenants are still being deprived of the rent cap laws to protect them in Oakland. This sceme alone will raise $465,000 in revenues for Oakland after they grab the $24.00 per 19,000 rental units, and making matters worse for other low-income renters, Section 8 Renters will also be forced to pay into this new scheme even though they are also exempt from Oaklands rent cap laws!

This was all pushed through so fast that tenants were barely aware of it. Adam Gold of Just Cause, and Eddie Ytuarte and James Vann of the oakland tenants union were available to speak out against it along with councilmembers Nadel, Quan and Brunner.

John Holmgren of the Oakland Association of Realtors who is helping to push this deal through the city council along with Steve Edrington of RHANAC spoke up in favor of the passage of the ordinance and declaration, and Holmgren was one out of only two people in support of the Dick Spees Taskforce Proposals that abolished the 3% rent cap 2 years back, and despite the hundreds of people being opposed to the measure, the council vote went Holmgrens way. Many questioned whethor or not the fix was in no matter what they said to save the rent cap, but, they went ahead and tried their best regardless.

According to local wealthy multi-millionaire Ronald Zimmerman of 74 Castle Park Way in Oakland; all you have to know is who to pay to get things done in Oakland, and the real players of Oakland always know who to pay when they want some laws passed to make a profit, said Zimmerman.

Indeed, if thats the case and explains how Oakland really is doing business, the tenants can certainly look forward to getting the shaft in more ways than one if these new ordinance proposals and declarations come to pass on July 29, 2003.

Oakland politics seem real murky at times and is so scandal ridden that quite often one does not know what to expect next or may be revealed in the papers about the latest back room deals going down in this town that constantly seem to fuck over the local population in favor of big business.

It was Ron Zimmerman who sued Councilmember Ignacio De la Fuente for election fraud during 2000, after digging up De la Fuentes original Declaration of Candidacy which was actually signed by Lupe Valdez on March 26, 1996. Under penalty of perjury, the Declaration of Candidacy was required under local Election Codes to have the signature of the one running for office on it, being Ignacio De la Fuente in this case, but, the declaration was signed by someone else for mysterious reasons that were never fully publicly revealed. In other words, any thing goes in Oakland if you know how to grease the squeaky wheel.

Oakland tenants are outraged by these latest assualts being heaped upon them by a hostile Oakland City Council that continues to disrespect the voters and renters of Oakland that have desperately fought so hard to bring about a system of fairness in the existing rental housing laws with the passage of the voter initiative Measure EE.

Agenda items 20 and 21 which both were passed by the council vote upon July 15 2003, does the following to screw the renters. First, it partially guts Measure EE and circumvents the will of the people who voted to pass the measure because when rent control fails to exist, the landlords may evict by merely raiseing the rents above the renters ability to pay. No point in having Measure EE if the landlords may evict by just raiseing the rents.

In essence, the scheme promotes displacement of tenants by unscruulous landlords that want to raise the rents as high as they possibly can dream of, and the existing tenants at the properties will have to pay up or face eviction. It's a scheme meant to circumvent the will of the people who voted for Measure EE, and is being pushed forward by the Realty Industry along with their counterparts at the Rental Housing Association and is being passed along to their stooges in the City Council to vote on to make it all nice and legal.

The new ordinance will exempt all properties in Oakland containing 3 rental units or less after the landlord moves in for a one year period. The staff report reveals that at a minimum there are at least approximately 3,000 rental units in buildings with 3 rental units or less in Oakland, but, Oaklanders know that there are thousands of other rental units in the market that have never been noticed to city officials or planners. Once exempt from Oaklands rent cap laws these unknown rental units probably will never be discoverd by the Rent Adjustment Program.

Presently, these same units whethor they are known or not, have been covered by rent control laws of Oakland since 1984 even if the landlords did move in, and if the new ordinance being proposed comes to pass it could result in a loss of 5% of the existing $24.00 per unit rental fee income ($72,000 loss) needed to run the Rent Adjustment Program once it's been fully implemented. Furthermore, it allows landlords owning 33% of the property to move in and raise the rents as much as they want (no limit) while at the same time the tenants would also lose all of their protections offered by Measure EE. It's set up to be a two-pronged attack against the renters and meant to make them totally defenseless as the landlords rob their bank accounts.

Oaklands rent cap presently sits at 3.6%, and landlords are allowed to apply for capital improvement rent increases when necessary to cover expenses for as much as a 22% rent increase for the monthly rents at all of the rental units in that affected property.

Housing activists claim that this is more than enough to provide a fair return on a landlords investment in a property and that further profits above that are nothing more than an exibition of pure greed and extortion on the landlords part.

The following declaration proposed by the Oakland City Council on July 15, 2003 is what has outraged the tenants of Oakland. In essence it says:

Whereas; The City Council believes that the relationship between landlords and tenants or smaller owner-occupied rental properties involve special relationships between the landlord and the tenants residing in the same smaller property. Smaller property owners also have a difficult time understanding and complying with rent and eviction regulations. The Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance recognizes this special relationship and exempts owner-occupied properties & small landlords from it's coverage.

It appears that the council is saying that they are convinced that the landlords are too dumb to grasp the meaning of rent control laws or how to follow them, but, at the same time they believe that the renters must be wise enough to grasp the significance of the rent laws and follow them completely.

For starters the people that drafted Measure EE never felt that landlords were too dumb to understand the rent laws. To the contrary, Measure EE was written simple enough to instruct everyone as to the 11 reasons why a landlord may evict. It's written for all to understand, including the dumb landlords.

It's clearly a double standard for the councilmembers to claim that the landlords are too dumb to follow the rent laws, but, the laws must be enforced rigorously against the renters and at best it is a totally absurd concept that is absolutely unbelievable.

This new declaration by the Oakland City Council takes all of the rights away from the tenants and gives total power and complete control over the tenants to the landlords involved in this scheme, and they have the nerve to call it a special relationship. One can only believe that someone must have dosed their champagn bottles with a few thousand mics of LSD .25 lately.

Theres no doubt that this is really a special relationship for the tenants and landlords, tenant activist Sue Doyle said. The tenants get fucked while the landlords are allowed to legally empty the tenants bank accounts during the process before dumping them out upon the streets! It's totally outrageous, and I can't believe that this is really happening, Doyle said. It's terrible, and I see no reason why small landlords should be allowed to raise the rents as high as they want. Does'nt the City Council understand what happens to tenants that are being ripped off by unscrupulous landlords? If this is allowed to pass into law, not only will it affect the tenants presently residing in the affected units, but, this will set into motion a whole cycle of rent scams and evictions that will occur for many years ahead down the road, over and over again in those very same properties, Doyle said.

Indeed, the city staff report submitted to the full council before the vote took place precisely spells out what occurs when the housing market becomes deregulated from a regulated market, and it offers a bleak assesment of it's effects on the tenant populations where and when such activities have occured.

The staff report advised Oaklands City Council that all major studies of the effects of rent regulation demonstrate that the results are lower rents, and conversely, when deregulated the rents tend to rise and in some cases dramaticaly. Studies have shown that in Boston, the rents rose 50% when deregulated, and 36% in Cambridge when deregulated from 1994-1997. Homelessness became a huge issue in both of those cities after the rental housing market became deregulated, according to homeless activists in the Boston area.

In a nut shell, the scheme is a full blown working-model plan meant to gentrify the flatlands of Oakland by the displacement of low-income renters. The staff report concludes that the majority of the ordinance targets the low-income renters of the flatlands of Oakland who will be most affected once it's been fully implemented. It says; the exemption will increase the rental cost of lower-income units, and increase the profits of the rental units, thus allowing the purchasers of property to qualify for higher loan amounts based upon the increased cash flow. The report goes on to say that, this will, in turn, be likely to increase the sale price of the properties involved.

In other words, the declaration and new ordinance is good for realtors, bankers, and landlords, but, bad for the renters getting fleeced during the never ending process once it's set into motion. This scheme does not produce more housing units, and only further exploits the renters that lose their rights to fight against unfair rent increases or unfair evictions.

Furthermore, the report states that of concern; this new ordinance provides a legal means for the unscrupulous landlords to evade rent control by creating sham occupancy or ownership at the properties. Despite these expressed concerns clearly stated in the staff report, the council willingly with full knowledge gave the nod for the unscrupulous bastards to rob the renters blind while they (councilmembers) are willing to look the other way, and ignore the cries of the victims being fleeced down the road by the landlords.

In conclusion, the staff report concludes that deregulated rents will rise to market levels, and exemption will result in a loss of lower-income rental units. In addition, according to the staff report, there is no evidence that rent control in Oakland has ever led to blighted conditions. One can only assume from the staff report that slumlords are to blame in Oakland when slumlike conditions appear to exist at many rental properties and are known to be wide spread throughout most areas of West and East Oakland, as the councilmembers look the other way.

When considering that San Francisco does not exempt such properties (3 units or less) from rent control, and in Berkeley the properties must have been owner-occupied since 1979 to seek an exemption from rent control, Oaklanders feel that this City Council is way out of line on this one and can never justify their horrendous actions in a million years to the average renter.

Oaklanders already are demanding that the council must dump these proposals to the way side immediately before they have a full blown riot on their hands at City Hall on July 29, 2003 for the next council meeting to vote on the above measures and declarations.

Oakland renters are already making calls to one another, and are planning to show up at Oakland City Hall to put up a fight, and they hope that there is enough time to get the word out about what is going on to their fellow renters of Oakland.

For more information feel free to call; 510-763-1085