Midtown Apartment Tenants Mark One Year Anniversary of Rent Strike

Midtown Park Apartments, home to 139 families, is located at Divisadero and Geary in San Francisco's historic Western Addition /AKA Fillmore District.

At today's gathering I met Weera Lai, who told me he has lived at Midtown for 28 years. He said he works as a handyman in the city. “They raised the rent too much,” he told me, “so we had to go on rent strike.. We used to have rent control.” Mr. Lai told me he knows many of his neighbors, and can't afford to move anywhere else.

Signs displayed at the rally read “Justice, Fairness For Midtown,” Black Homes Matter,” “Honk For Rent Control,” and “Midtown Is #Last 3 Percent.”
The latter sign refers to the predominantly African American residents at Midtown, who are part of a black SF population estimated to have shrunk to only 3% of city residents due to racism, displacement and gentrification.

A press release at today's action stated:

Facing Draconian Rent Increases, Long Term Fillmore Tenants Seek to Halt the Largest Displacement of Western Addition Residents Since the Times of Civic Redevelopment—Demand Rent Control Restoration.

San Francisco, June 1, 2016-Residents of the embattled Midtown complex, engaged in a longest rent strike in San Francisco rare efusing to pay what they allege are unlawful rent increases averaging 102%, are rallying for rent control restoration.

Midtown is owned by the Mayor's Office of Housing, which faces charges of constructive eviction based on rent increases in an ongoing lawsuit that residents allege are intended to banish long-term African-American tenants from San Francisco. In 2013 the City terminated a master lease with a tenant run non-profit board, and awarded the contract to Mercy Housing that immediately implemented draconian rent hikes ranging from 30% to over 300%.

Locked in a struggle with the City and Mercy for over two years, Midtown Park Tenants Association has recently rejected a MOH proposal to codify rent increases in return for tenants signing a lifetime lease, saying that the proposal does not address community demands.

“They want us to sign away our rights, we were promised ownership in 2007, but that promise has been broken as well. My neighbors will be displaced under MOH's proposed scheme because the rent hikes are so high,” said a long term Midtown community leader, Donald Griggs, referring to the 2007 Board of Supervisors resolution325-07 that calls for the city to return the property to the tenants once the mortgage has been satisfied.

Tenants call the Mayors Office of Housing and District 5 Supervisor London Breed to restore rent control for petitioners. “I have piles of letters from property managers that date back to the early 1980s stating that my rent increases are done according to the San Francisco Rent Board. How can the city now claim that we are now not under rent control? I'm a foster mom and this rent increase will put my family out on the street,” stated long-term Midtown resident Pat Smith.