Effie's House tenants brace for major rent increases and displacement

Effie's House tenants brace for major rent increases and displacement

January 11, 2012

Oakland -- The tenants at Effie's House are bracing for some major rent increases that are soon expected to occur to cover the expenses of more than $2.5 million in loans, for a building renovation scheme that further enriches the landlord.

Nonprofit developers (501c3 charity organizations) are exempt from rent control in Oakland, after doing major renovation work at their residential buildings.

The low-income residents at Effie's House are concerned that they will be stuck paying off the more than $2.5 million loan in the form of higher rents, and are outraged that the East Bay Asian Local development Corporation (EBALDC) planned to skim around $105,000 from the $2.5 million loan in what is called administrative or developers fees.

Since early July 2011, the major $2.5 million renovation scheme taking place at 829 E. 19th St., has filled the building and hallways with construction crews, tools, electrical cables on the floors, excessive noise, construction debris, toxic dust, including toxic lead-based paint dust being spread throughout the building.

The old building (built around 1908) is covered in dust, and the dust can clearly be seen on the wooden stairs along the edges of the stairways, and areas of the building hallways that have not been vacuumed for weeks.

The tenants at the 21 unit residential building have been abused and bullied by the extreme activities of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), and it's hired contractors that have been pushing the tenants around, and exposing them to toxic materials during the on-going renovation scheme officially known as the "Effie's House Project."

Day after day, at times the noise levels have been deafening in the building due to the men with hammers pounding away, and the high speed powered drills being used to drill hundreds of holes throughout the building that can be heard from the basement, all the way to the third floor.

With as many as ten to twenty construction workers wandering around on a daily basis at times, and tearing up the building for days on end since last July, the lives of the tenants have been totally disrupted, abused, and their right to privacy and the quiet enjoyment of their homes has been shredded over, and over, and over again.

During the past 9 days, with jackhammers loud enough that they could be heard half a mile away, a 5 man concrete construction crew has torn up the front steps of the building and the concrete sidewalk in front of the building, in an effort to install new entranceway stairs and a wheelchair ramp, despite the fact that no one lives on the first, second or third floor of the building with a wheelchair. The apartments are not built in such a way as to be wheelchair accessible, in the building.

One tenant complained about the expected excessive rent hikes that the tenants will receive, when EBALDC passes along the construction costs to the low-income renters of the building. The tenant said that the new wheelchair ramp is expensive, and is as useless as the building elevator, that goes to nowhere.

The building has a very expensive elevator that opens onto the street, but when in use, it only opens up to the back yard of the property. It can not be used to go from one place in the building, to another place in the building. An elevator to nowhere.

EBALDC borrowed over $2.5 million from the City of Oakland for the renovation scheme, and stands to make a minimum of $105,000 in developers fees alone, that it is skimming from the $2.5 million loan.

The tenants are concerned that EBALDC will raise the rents to cover the cost of the loans, and believe that EBALDC may be trying to harass tenants into moving from their housing, so that higher income tenants would be replacing those that are being harassed from their housing.

Making Life Hard For The Tenants

Since the $2.5 million renovation scheme began, nearly a third of the building's tenants were threatened with eviction and were falsely accused of denying management access into their rental units by building manager Danny Chen, and property manager Lynn Newton.

Additionally, during the past 9 days the front entranceway of the building has been blocked from use, and for several days the tenant's mail failed to be delivered due to the on-going front entranceway/stairway blockage.

The tenants continue to experience an extreme loss of services such as the loss of the building intercom system that has been blocked from use because the front entranceway has been blocked, including the loss of the garbage chutes that were recently torn down. The tenants recently have also been forced from their housing for up to 5 days or more, because of construction work being done in their apartments that allegedly involved the disturbance of hazardous materials.

Making matters worse, with the front entranceway being blocked during the past 9 days at the building, EBALDC has ordered the tenants to use side doors and side entrances to the building to come and go, but EBALDC refuses to give the tenants keys to the locks of the side doors, that would allow entry into the building, and property.

Instead, EBALDC opted to keep the doors unlocked, thus allowing anyone at anytime to enter the building, whenever they choose, placing the tenants safety at risk because there no longer is any security at the building.

Haradous Materials Notices

One of the tenants in the building is still being dogged, bullied and harassed by EBALDC and it's attorneys, in the effort to force the tenant out of the building for as many as 5 days or more, due to some work that EBALDC wants done that may disturb hazardous materials in the tenant's apartment, making it uninhabitable.

All the tenants in the building have received "Hazardous Materials Notices" from EBALDC, in the effort to force the tenants out of their apartments recently, for up to 5 days or more per rental unit.

Before being illegally forced from their apartments (no court order), the tenants were also ordered to remove all personal belongings from their closets, and to make room throughout their apartments for the construction crews that would be making their apartments uninhabitable.

Some tenants could be seen crying in the hallways after being forced from their apartments, and others were screaming and yelling at one another in the hallways at times after getting so stressed out by the tactics being used, to get the tenants to go along with EBALDC's brutal activities.

EBALDC Seeks Subsidized Funding To Pay Off The $2.5 Million Loan

In an effort to secure some funding to help partially pay off the loans for the $2.5 million renovation project, EBALDC worked out a deal with the Oakland Housing Authority to convert at least 10 one-bedroom units into Section 8 Project-Based Voucher (PBV) housing units.

Once converted, EBALDC would then be able to charge more than market rate rents for the PBV rental units during a 10 year period from the federal government, but ran into a problem.

Three of the rental units already had tenants with Section 8 vouchers that were blocking the PVB deal, because you can not subsidize the same rental units with more than one federal Section 8 voucher at a time.

In a brutal despicable action, EBALDC then tried to pressure the tenants into giving up their Section 8 vouchers, in hope of securing funding for the rental units through the federal PBV program, in an effort to pay off the loans.

The three Section 8 tenants still remain in their housing today, and all three of them refused to give up their housing vouchers after repeatedly being harassed by EBALDC to do so.

Some tenants are known to have waited for as long as ten years to receive a Section 8 voucher, and it was unreasonable of EBALDC to try to pressure the tenants into giving up their vouchers.

As "phase 1" of the $2.5 million renovation scheme nears an end, and shifts into "phase 2," the tenants expect to be facing some major rent increases in the near future to pay off the $2.5 million loan to EBALDC, a 501c3 charity organization.

The tenants are also expecting EBALDC to use more dirty tricks to force them from their housing units in an effort by the 501c3 charity nonprofit housing developer to replace the low-income tenants, with renters that can pay much higher rent payments on a monthly basis.

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

Note: Lynda Carson is a longtime tenant at Effie's House.


For more details, click on the link to "Oakland tenants harassed over $2.5 million renovation scheme."


Oakland tenants harassed over $2.5 million renovation scheme

By Lynda Carson - July 28, 2011

Oakland -- On July 7, 2011 the tenants at 829 E. 19th St., had their water shut off for hours after contractors finally began work on a $2.5 million renovation scheme meant to enrich the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) by as much $105,000 or more, just in developers fees alone.

The $2.5 million massive renovation scheme that threatens tenants with displacement is known as the Effie's House Project, and EBALDC is one of Oakland's largest non profit housing developers with well over 1,000 residential rental units.

Click below for full story...

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/28/18686307.php