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Trump’s pick Scott Turner to run HUD may hate the poor
Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump Picked Football Player Scott Turner To Be The Next HUD Secretary:
Trump’s pick Scott Turner to run HUD may hate the poor
By Lynda Carson - December 24, 2024
The convicted felon Donald J. Trump, picked former football player Scott Turner, a man who may hate the poor and opposes welfare assistance for the poor, to be the next HUD Secretary.
Reportedly back around the mid 2000’s, during football off seasons, Scott Turner worked as an intern for the disgraced Representative Duncan Hunter, a rabid right-wing Republican from California. After Turner retired in 2004, he worked full time for the congressman as an intern. In 2006, Turner ran unsuccessfully as a right-wing Republican in California’s 50th Congressional District.
During the period that Turner was an intern for the disgraced Duncan Hunter, Hunter expected his interns to follow the GOP party line and support massive budget increases for the Pentagon, while supporting budget cuts for our nation’s federal domestic programs assisting the poor, including HUD’s subsidized housing programs.
Additionally, under former president George W. Bush, there were massive budget cuts to HUD’s subsidized housing programs during 2004 through 2006, and Duncan Hunter was not a supporter of public housing or the Section 8 voucher program a.k.a. Housing Choice Voucher Program. Reportedly, with the support of Duncan Hunter, the “Bush Administration’s annual budgets accorded priority to tax cuts and large funding increases for defense and homeland security. When sizeable federal budget deficits emerged in 2003 and 2004, caused in part by the deep tax cuts, the Administration and Congress began to squeeze domestic discretionary funding.”
Things were so bad, according to the County of Los Angeles Housing Authority in 2004, there was an $8 million funding shortfall to the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program.
According to a story by the LA Times called , “Cut in HUD Funds a Blow to Poor.”
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart - Feb. 29, 2004 12 AM PT - TIMES STAFF WRITER
It states, “The suspension of a federal housing subsidy for about 1,500 low-income families has caused a deep fissure in Los Angeles’ already shaky structure for helping the needy, leaving many families with little hope of finding safe housing and forcing officials and advocates to respond to what one advocate called a “housing catastrophe.”
As officials, including the mayor’s office, appeal to the federal government for help, families cut off from the Section 8 program are in a desperate search for spaces in shelters, motels or in the homes of friends and relatives. Phone lines at social service agencies have been flooded by those seeking help.”
Click here, for details about the local effects of the proposed budget cuts in federal housing assistance in California, reported in 2004.
As An Intern, Scott Turner Supported Duncan Hunter, While Duncan Hunter Supported Massive Budget Cuts To HUD's Subsidized Housing Programs:
Indeed, while Scott Turner supported Duncan Hunter as an intern, and the massive budget cuts to HUD’s subsidized housing programs that Hunter supported, many organizations locally and all across the nation including thousands of dedicated housing activists fought back against the massive HUD budget cuts occurring nationwide that Scott Turner supported while he was an intern for Duncan Hunter.
As the thousands of blind and disabled people were being forced into homelessness onto the streets of America by the grim policies of HUD's Alfonso Jackson and the War Monger, George W. Bush, communities around the country were astounded by the major disaster unfolding before their very eyes.
In 2005, reportedly in the County of Marin, “The group Save Section 8 of Marin held a rally opposing recently proposed federal budget cuts that will affect those who need assistance most: local housing programs and the services they provide to extremely low-income working families with children; fixed-income people with disabilities; and senior residents.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, was the keynote speaker at the rally. She was joined by Supervisor Charles McGlashan; Stephen Willard, program manager for Section 8, Marin Housing Authority; the Rev. Carol Hovis, executive director of Marin Interfaith Council; and activist Lynda Carson. Marion Brady, coordinator for Save Section 8 of Marin and herself a voucher-holder on disability, will bring her message to residents to "get mad and get organized."
ProPublica Article About Scott Turner:
https://www.propublica.org/article/scott-turner-hud-nominee-trump-public-housing-texas
According to a recent article by ProPublica, reportedly Scott Turner supported a bill ensuring landlords could refuse apartments to applicants because they received federal housing assistance.
https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/History.aspx?LegSess=84R&Bill=SB267
He also opposed a bill to expand affordable rental housing.
https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB3350
He also voted against funding public-private partnerships to support the homeless
https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/Actions.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2887
And he voted against two bills that called merely to study homelessness among young people and veterans.
https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/Actions.aspx?LegSess=84R&Bill=HB679
Scott Turner has also declared that welfare is “dangerous, harmful” and “one of the most destructive things for the family.”
https://wellversedworld.podbean.com/e/opportunity-zones-authentically-raising-the-poor-w-scott-turner-and-kevin-mcgary-%E2%80%93-6112023/
When one interviewer said receiving government assistance was keeping recipients in “bondage” of “a worse form to find oneself in than slavery,” Scott Turner agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRPRjBhI53w&t=367s
Scott Turner also opposed legislation to help public housing authorities replace or rehabilitate their property
https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB1888
He also sought to require drug testing for poor families applying for government assistance, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/drug-testing-welfare-applicants-popular-but-can-4416545.php
Additionally, further research reveals that while in office in Texas, Scott Turner voted against Obama Care, and spoke out against Obama Care (A.C.A.), claiming, “If left unchecked, Obama Care has the potential to bankrupt Texas. Texans should be able to choose their own health care provider and make their own medical choices, not have our health care decisions micromanaged by Washington, D.C." Turner also supported an anti-gay bill to oppose marriage for gays in Texas.
Former HUD Secretary Under Trump, Ben Carson Endorsed Scott Turner:
Recently, Ben Carson, former HUD Secretary under the convicted felon Donald J. Trump, endorsed Scott Turner as the next HUD Secretary, which as a very bad omen for HUD, and the poor subsidized HUD housing tenants.
That’s right! Poor people cannot possibly expect to be treated fairly by Scott Turner if he becomes the next HUD Secretary, and they can only expect tyranny, threats, homelessness, and misery if Turner becomes the next HUD Secretary.
Presently, Scott Turner is working for a company (JPI Construction) that has been cited as recent as 2021, for alleged wage theft violations of over $1.7 million dollars.
Reportedly, "SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A San Diego-based construction company has been fined more than $1.7 million by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office for allegedly failing to properly pay its workers, resulting in minimum wage and overtime violations.
JPI Construction allegedly didn’t properly pay employees working on commercial and residential construction projects, leading to wage theft violations affecting 265 workers, according to the Labor Commissioner’s Office.
The Labor Commissioner’s Office alleges an audit of the company’s payroll showed “illegally modified time sheets that removed record of the overtime hours the workers should have been paid.”
The owners have appealed the citations, which total $1,771,133, with $1,610,527 payable to the workers. Under the appeal procedure, the Labor Commissioner’s Office will hold a hearing before a hearing officer who will affirm, modify or dismiss the citations.
“Paying workers a flat rate is not an excuse to deny them the overtime hours they earned and should be paid,” California Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower said in a statement. “The laws in California protect workers. It is critical that workers keep track of their hours and pay so they can defend themselves.”
Click here https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2021/2021-104.html for more about JPI Construction for allegedly cheating their workers with wage theft, a company that Scott Turner works for.
JPI Construction Was Also Involved In $10.5 Million Settlement:
Additionally, the JPI Construction website blurb for Scott Turner forgot to mention that Scott Turner is working for a company (JPI Construction LP.), that was involved in a landmark $10.5 million settlement to resolve a disability-based housing discrimination lawsuit back in 2012 with the Justice Department.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-obtains-landmark-105-million-settlement-resolve-disability-based-housing
Reportedly, on June 25, 2012, "The Justice Department today announced its largest-ever disability-based housing discrimination settlement fund to resolve allegations that JPI Construction L.P. and six other JPI entities (collectively “JPI”) based in Irving, Texas, discriminated on the basis of disability in the design and construction of multifamily housing complexes throughout the United States.
Under the settlement, which was approved today by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, JPI will pay $10,250,000 into an accessibility fund to provide retrofits at properties built by JPI and to increase the stock of accessible housing in the communities where these properties are located. The settlement also requires JPI to pay a $250,000 civil penalty.
This is the largest civil penalty the Justice Department has obtained in any Fair Housing Act case.
“Today’s historic settlement demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to protecting the fair housing rights of persons with disabilities,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “Builders of multifamily housing must consider accessibility at the outset, or they risk significantly greater expense to retrofit properties. As a result of this settlement, multifamily housing complexes will be retrofitted to comply with the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and persons with physical disabilities will be afforded an equal opportunity to live in and visit these properties.”
“Equal access to housing for persons with disabilities is an important right protected by federal law,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Sarah R. Saldaña. “This settlement will help eliminate barriers and send a clear message that disability discrimination will not be tolerated. Disabled residents should know that this district remains committed to protecting their fair housing rights.”
Apparently, if the convicted felon Donald J. Trump believes that Scott Turner is qualified to be the next HUD Secretary because he works for a company that allegedly ripped off it's workers with wage theft, and works for a company that screwed over people with disabilities at their many rental properties, then this may be of some extreme concern to HUD's employees, and HUD's subsidized housing tenants.
Being picked by the disgraced convicted felon Donald J. Trump to be the next HUD Secretary after being an intern for the disgraced Duncan Hunter, it speaks volumes about the integrity and character of Scott Turner.
Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com
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Scott Turner's Opportunity Zones Displace The Poor
Further evidence appears to show that Scott Turner may hate the poor, while he shows a lot of love for the rich.
Scott Turner is the Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council for opportunity zones.
Considering that the rich want to get their hands on our nation's public housing under the guise of using the opportunity zone program, resulting in the displacement of the poor, it appears to be a conflict of interest for Scott Turner to become the next HUD Secretary under the convicted felon Donald J. Trump.
Where I reside in Oakland, CA, it is in a large area designated as an opportunity zone, which is very disturbing.
Map of federal opportunity zones in Oakland, CA
https://properties.zoomprospector.com/california/community/Oakland-CA-/0653000/profile
https://properties.zoomprospector.com/california/community/Oakland-California/0653000/emsiadvanced
See more links and information below....
Lynda Carson
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YouTube, Scott Turner & Opportunity Zones
In the YouTube link below, Scott Turner offers plenty of "mumbo jumbo" to confuse people about the reality of whats happening with opportunity zones, and he fails to mention that opportunity zones end up evicting and displacing the poor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVC954wCSfM
Scott Turner - Opportunity Zones
Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council:
Scott Turner is the Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council
https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/
OZ_One_Year_Report
https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/sites/opportunityzones.hud.gov/files/documents/OZ_One_Year_Report.pdf
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Opportunity Zones are Displacement Zones
Opportunity Zones are intentionally designed to displace tenants and extract wealth from low income communities to benefit the country's richest investors.
https://www.saje.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SAJE_DisplacementZones.pdf
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(2019 Letter to some members of Congress about Opportunity Zones)
Dear Chairman Richard Neal, Chairman Al Green, and Chairman Raja Krishanmoorthi,
I am writing to request that your respective committee/subcommittees hold an investigative hearing into whether political campaign contributions have influenced the designation of so-called opportunity zones in my district and across the country.
On October 24th, 2019, ProPublica published an article titled “How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert.” 1 The article contained disturbing details that suggest that opportunity zones have been designated in census tracts that did not meet the legal criteria, and that political donations and influence have overridden the law to reward donors with generous tax breaks supposedly intended to benefit the poor.
According to ProPublica, billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Quicken Loans company donated $750,000 to President Trump’s inaugural fund, hosted Ivanka Trump in 2017 for a panel discussion, and last year Gilbert watched the midterm election returns at the White House with President Trump, who has called Gilbert “a great friend.” In return, three census tracts in downtown Detroit, where Gilbert owns valuable real estate, were selected as opportunity zones.
According to ProPublica, multiple studies have found that property values in opportunity zones increased because of the tax break, and Gilbert has poured more than $3 billion into real estate in Detroit – the vast majority of which is now in opportunity zones. At least one of the Gilbert tracts did not meet the poverty requirement for being an opportunity zone and appears to have been designated solely due to political influence. Email exchanges revealed Quicken executives working in concert with the White House to designate tracts with Gilbert’s investments as opportunity zones. Quicken lobbyists were enmeshed in the selection process at every level, lobbying City, State, and Federal officials to include Gilbert’s investment zones in the opportunity zone law.
According to the City of Detroit’s recommendations, one of the Gilbert tracts – where he owns more than 10 buildings – was ineligible for the program because its median family income was almost 1.5 times the eligibility requirements. Yet when the Treasury Department released a revised list of eligible tracts, it had transformed that tract into a “low-income community.” I am deeply concerned that the Treasury Department has approved opportunity zones as political favors to donors, and Congressional hearings must be empaneled swiftly to root out abuse and corruption.
Click below for the full letter…
https://www.novoco.com/public-media/documents/oz_2019_letter_concerning_campaign_contributions_for_opportunity_zones_110619.pdf
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Treasury watchdog to investigate Trump opportunity zone program
by Justine Coleman - 01/15/20 9:09 PM ET
The Treasury Department’s internal watchdog is planning to investigate the “opportunity zones” program after three Democratic lawmakers called for a closer look at the initiative, acting Treasury Inspector General Richard Delmar told NBC News.
Delmar’s announcement came a few months after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) sent him a letter requesting an investigation after news reports indicated that friends of the administration were benefiting from the program. The acting inspector general told NBC News that the report is expected to be completed by early spring.
Click below for the full story...
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/478521-treasury-watchdog-to-investigate-trump-opportunity-zone-program/
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Opportunity Zones: Improved Oversight Needed to Evaluate Tax Expenditure Performance
GAO-21-30 Published: Oct 08, 2020. Publicly Released: Nov 09, 2020.
Congress created Opportunity Zones to spur investment in distressed communities. About 10% of Americans live in the nearly 9,000 zones.
In these areas, certain business investments can bring significant tax benefits to the investor. Unlike other, similar tax incentives, there is no limit on the amounts investors can claim for tax breaks.
But how will opportunity zone investments actually affect these communities? Congress should consider having the Treasury Department collect whatever data is needed to find out.
Click below...
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-30
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[SIX98 Irolo is being developed by Vukota Capital Management, an “alternative investment firm” based in Colorado and the Bahamas. According to the company’s website, the development aims to take advantage of the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program, which grants developers tax breaks for investing money in lower income areas. A $12.3 million opportunity zone fund called VCM Irolo Opportunity Zone Fund, LP has also been created, Security and Exchange Commission records show.]
‘Where should I go?’: Developer evicting Koreatown tenants to build new apartments
The developer is using the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program
By Zoie Matthew Feb 3, 2020, 10:35am PST
https://la.curbed.com/2020/2/3/21120475/opportunity-zones-development-displacement-koreatown
Nicole Donanian has spent much of her life in the plaza at the corner of Seventh and Irolo streets in Koreatown. In 1995, her parents opened Falafel Corner, a Middle Eastern hole-in-the-wall known for its affordable and plentiful portions of falafel, kabob, and rice. Three years later, the family moved into one of the apartments on the complex’s second floor, making it easier for them to manage the restaurant.
These days, 31-year-old Donanian still resides in the beige stucco strip mall at 698 Irolo. She now rents her own apartment above the complex’s Korean noodle house and dry cleaner. The apartment has a room for her 12-year-old son, and it’s easy for her to help at the restaurant, which she’s been doing more often since her father fell ill two years ago.
But last year, Donanian’s future in Koreatown and the fate of her family’s business became uncertain, when a developer announced plans to replace the handful of mom-and-pop restaurants and apartments that occupy the strip mall with a 17,290-square foot mixed-use building.
Named SIX98 Irolo after its address, the new complex would include 139 market-rate and 18 affordable units, along with 3,200 square feet of ground floor retail space. The development would increase the stock of affordable housing in an area where it’s sorely needed.
But it will very likely displace residents in the plaza’s six existing units. They were served 60-day eviction notices earlier this month, and they say they have not received offers to live in the new building. Donanian, who pays $1,100 a month for a two-bedroom in an area where similar apartments have a median rent of $2,900, expects she will have to leave the neighborhood.
“I’ve started looking to see if I can find an apartment close to [the area] I know, where my son goes to school, and the family restaurant. But I can’t afford anything here,” says Donanian. “I’m pretty devastated. I’ve been here my whole life.”
SIX98 Irolo is being developed by Vukota Capital Management, an “alternative investment firm” based in Colorado and the Bahamas. According to the company’s website, the development aims to take advantage of the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program, which grants developers tax breaks for investing money in lower income areas. A $12.3 million opportunity zone fund called VCM Irolo Opportunity Zone Fund, LP has also been created, Security and Exchange Commission records show.
Messages to Vukota Capital Management were not returned.
Launched in 2017, the Opportunity Zone program is under investigation by the Treasury Department, and has been criticized by Democratic lawmakers for spurring gentrification while lining the pockets of wealthy investors. Earlier this month, the first city of Los Angeles-approved project to take advantage of the program broke ground in Hollywood, and more are expected to crop up in LA and beyond now that clear regulations have been set.
The Koreatown development also falls under the city of LA’s “Transit Oriented Communities” plan, a measure passed in 2016 to give developers incentives to build multi-family housing near bus and train stations.
A spokesperson for Los Angeles City Councilmember Herb Wesson, whose district includes Koreatown, said staffers have been in contact with the tenants at 698 Irolo. They plan to send a letter to the building owner “expressing our disapproval of the evictions and trying to come up with a solution to protect the current tenants,” the spokesperson said.
“We have been and always will be against the displacement and eviction of tenants in our district,” Wesson wrote in an email to Curbed. “With tens of thousands of Angelenos living on our streets, our collective focus should be on keeping people in their homes, not kicking them out.”
Desperate to find a way to stay, Donanian has formed a tenants’ union with her neighbors, who are also feeling the stress of relocating. Resident Basel Sultan says his multi-generational family has lived in two units in the building since they immigrated from Syria in 2013. He fears they will now be separated.
“I’m thinking about my mom, she’s an old woman. I have to care for her, she’s in a wheelchair,” he says. “My kids are also having bad feelings right now because they are going to miss their grandma, aunt, uncle, cousin, and also our community.”
The group is also urging the Los Angeles City Council to pass a motion that would implement rules set in place by Senate Bill 330, a state housing package passed last year to help tenants who lose their homes to new residential developments.
Under the new law, residents have the right to remain in their units until six months before the start of construction. The motion, introduced by Councilmember Mike Bonin in January, stresses the need for the city to implement these measures quickly.
“Unless the city has clear protocols and strict enforcement, it is easy to imagine that developers may secure their project permits and fail to follow through with the requirements that protect and benefit tenants,” Bonin wrote in the motion.
In the meantime, Donanian and her neighbors are scrambling to decide what to do next. She says she’s nervous about the idea of taking the battle to court, but she also doesn’t want to have an eviction on her record, which could make it even harder for her to rent a place in the future.
“I literally dream about it every night—what should I do? Where should I go?” Donanian says. “I have no idea, and I’m really trying to figure out what our next step is going to be.”
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Marin Voice: ‘Opportunity zones’ paving the way for displacement, not prosperity
https://www.marinij.com/2024/02/09/marin-voice-opportunity-zones-paving-the-way-for-displacement-not-prosperity/
In the first week of 2024, 17 families at 400 Canal St. in San Rafael opened their mailboxes to find eviction notices.
Tesseract Capital Group, owners of the building, are evicting families to renovate the units. Not only will the existing families be forced out of their homes and into a brutal rental market, the renovated units will be unaffordable to most residents of the Canal neighborhood. While heartbroken to learn of this news, unfortunately, I am not surprised. This crisis has been building for years.
Now the main question is whether San Rafael’s leadership, which has often said they support Canal residents and the cause of racial justice in our city, will use their power to stop this from happening.
The threat of displacement in the Canal has been steadily growing since our community was designated as an “opportunity zone” in 2018, the only one in Marin County. Opportunity zones were created by the Trump Administration to stimulate economic growth in underserved areas by encouraging outside investment via tax incentives.
We were concerned from Day One that the designation in the Canal would incentivize displacement, mostly through the sale of aging residential buildings — home to low-income and Latino families — to more aggressive investor owners, whose business plans would involve evicting tenants, renovating buildings and renting them at prices unaffordable to neighborhood residents.
We worked with city officials to proactively create a tenant relocation assistance program in 2019. This program, designed to provide financial assistance during involuntary relocation due to development projects or renovations within the zone, has unfortunately proven insufficient to stem the tide of displacement fueled by speculative investment and massive rent increases.
At Canal Alliance, we didn’t need to wait for the latest round of evictions to know that current protections weren’t working. We’ve been urging Mayor Kate Colin and the City Council to take action for years, to provide real anti-displacement protection for residents in the opportunity zone — protections strong enough to prevent the displacement we are seeing.
Canal residents have appeared before the City Council several times, sharing personal stories about how recent rent hikes and “no fault” evictions are negatively impacting families, children and seniors.
In November 2022, we collaborated with local partners to urge the City Council to stop this displacement, including concrete recommendations on “just cause” eviction, rent hikes, relocation assistance and “right to return” policies that would have helped prevent displacement in the first place. While we sparked concern and interest among some council members, they did not act. The council failed to prioritize crucial protections for vulnerable residents facing potential displacement.
Colin and city staff recently indicated that they take this threat seriously and are prepared to take action. The City Council can still intervene to stop the mass displacement of 400 Canal St. tenants and the thousands of other Canal residents made more vulnerable by the opportunity zone designation.
They can and must establish the necessary protections to prevent these evictions and the ones that will come next. This ordinance can focus only on the opportunity zone, much like enhanced renter protections were during the COVID-19 pandemic. They can be temporary, but must be enacted by the council before more Canal families are displaced.
These protections would not solve the long-term problem of displacement in the Canal or the opportunity zone, but it would buy us time to work together on a long-term housing plan that sees our older buildings renovated without displacing the community that provides so much critical labor to our city and county.
With time, we could work with Rep. Jared Huffman on needed reforms to the legislation of opportunity zones, which were renamed “Displacement Zones” in a 2019 report by the Steering Committee of Strategic Actions because of the program’s impact on neighborhoods where people of color live, like the Canal.
The time to act is now. The displacement of low-income residents, many of whom are essential workers, will generate detrimental ripple effects throughout the community. Continued displacement will exacerbate the crisis of homelessness, cripple the ability of local businesses to hire and retain staff and ultimately erode the very tax base necessary to sustain vital programs and activities benefiting all residents.
Omar Carrera is CEO of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit based in San Rafael.
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[The law amends the city’s cause for eviction code and relocation assistance program for the designated “opportunity zone,” which covers two census tracts in the Canal where residents have been disproportionately displaced.
Opportunity zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The city adopted a relocation assistance program for the neighborhood in 2021 to discourage gentrification.]
San Rafael OKs urgency law to halt evictions in Canal area
APRIL 18, 2024
https://www.canalalliance.org/media/san-rafael-oks-urgency-law-to-halt-evictions-in-canal-area/
SAN RAFAEL HAS APPROVED TEMPORARY PROTECTIONS FOR RENTERS IN PARTS OF THE CANAL NEIGHBORHOOD FOLLOWING A RECENT WAVE OF EVICTIONS.
The law amends the city’s cause for eviction code and relocation assistance program for the designated “opportunity zone,” which covers two census tracts in the Canal where residents have been disproportionately displaced.
Opportunity zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The city adopted a relocation assistance program for the neighborhood in 2021 to discourage gentrification.
Under the new urgency ordinance, landlords will no longer be able to evict tenants for health and safety renovations in most cases. If a home must be vacated, landlords must provide the tenant with temporary relocation assistance and the right to return to their dwelling after work is complete.
Since October 2022, 31 tenant households were evicted on grounds of “substantial rehabilitation for health and safety within the Canal opportunity zone,” Alexis Captanian, the city’s housing manager said.
The urgency ordinance, which took effect immediately following a unanimous City Council vote Monday, is designed as a stop gap to prevent more displacement while city officials examine citywide tenant protections, Captanian said.
“Due to the tight rental market in San Rafael and Marin County, it is extremely difficult for displaced tenants to secure housing,” Captanian said. “Staff has received reports of displaced opportunity zone tenants moving out of Marin, doubling up with other families, or becoming unhoused and moving into their cars.”
Captanian said the urgency ordinance will expire at the end of 2026, which is in line with the end of the opportunity zone tax benefits. Officials expect to bring forward proposals for citywide tenant protections before the urgency ordinance expires, she said.
At the center of the issue is a 99-apartment complex at 400 Canal St. where dozens of tenants have been displaced for renovations. Tesseract Capital Group, a San Francisco private equity firm, began a multimillion dollar renovation of the complex two years ago, and have since asked several tenants to voluntarily relocate and evicted others.
Representatives of the company did not respond to requests for comment.
The issue of skyrocketing rent in the densely populated neighborhood has been ongoing for years. Last year, renters and their supporters formed a coalition begging San Rafael city officials to enact rent control, or provide some sort of protection to keep families from being forced out of their homes.
While the city has recorded 31 “no-fault evictions,” coalition members say the number is actually much higher because many tenants didn’t know their rights and left out of fear.
“Too bad this ordinance wasn’t approved before, because it could have helped a lot of people who were displaced … who didn’t know where to go,” said Cruz Vargas, a volunteer with the Voces Del Canal advocacy group.
Vargas, who addressed the council in Spanish on Monday, said she hopes the city will develop a permanent ordinance to protect families beyond the two years.
Captanian said there are approximately 1,800 dwellings in the opportunity zone of the Canal neighborhood, and about 1,500 of those are apartments, making it one of the most concentrated areas of rental housing.
The neighborhood has higher rates of severe housing cost burden, meaning rent is equal to more than 50% of the household income. There is also more overcrowding in the Canal than in other areas of the city, Captanian said.
In cases where a substantial remodel is needed for health and safety, the landlord will be required to provide daily temporary relocation payments to the tenant or offer a comparable dwelling on the property if one is available.
Relocation payments would be $250 a day during the first 29 days of displacement, which is an average based on the cost of a hotel room or short-term rental, staff said. Starting on day 30, the rate would be based on the tenant’s monthly lease or fair market rate, whichever is greater.
The ordinance will require staff to review the plans during the construction permit process and is subject to administrative fees.
Tenants who choose not to move into temporary digs will be eligible for the city’s existing permanent relocation assistance payments, which is equal to three months of rent, plus estimated moving expenses. If the tenant household includes a person under the age of 18 or over 62, or a person with a disability, the household is eligible for an additional month’s rent.
The amount is calculated based on the tenant’s current rate or fair market rate, whichever is higher.
Lucie Hollingsworth, senior policy attorney with the nonprofit firm Legal Aid of Marin, said while she supports the ordinance, there needs to be strong language for enforcement.
“As currently written a tenant only has a private right of action for wrongful eviction,” Hollingsworth said. “In reality, a tenant can only enforce their rights under this ordinance after they have already been displaced and that is if they have the time and the courage to do that. To truly work towards creating a more equitable city, San Rafael must add that noncompliance with this order is an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer.”
Hollingsworth said San Rafael has approximately 20% of the county population but in 2023, more than 42% of housing cases for the firm were residents of San Rafael.
Omar Carrera, chief executive officer of Canal Alliance, told the council he is ready to work with city officials on programs for tenant protections, and housing production and preservation.
“Because that’s what we need to solve the housing crisis,” Carrera said. He said that includes creating a tenant registry so officials can have the data they need to make the right decisions.
“I know that it has not been easy. I know a lot of people expect more, but we also understand that there is a process together and that’s what I really encourage all of you to support,” he said.
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[The coalition said the recent eviction of residents is the result of the “opportunity zone” designation given to the Canal area.
Opportunity zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment.]
San Rafael eviction wave in Canal area revives pleas for help
FEBRUARY 7, 2024
https://www.canalalliance.org/media/san-rafael-eviction-wave-in-canal-area-revives-pleas-for-help/
By ADRIAN RODRIGUEZ | Marin Independent Journal
Another eviction of renters from an apartment complex in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood has spurred a renewed call for tenant protections.
Renters and their supporters amassed at City Hall on Monday to urge the City Council to enact rent control in the area after the latest displacement of tenants in 17 households at the 99-apartment complex at 400 Canal St.
“Our families here are suffering and we need your help,” said Marina Palma, a community leader in the Voces Del Canal advocacy group. “People are leaving to other cities. Please stand up for us. We need you.”
Glendy Barrios said she is among the tenants who were previously evicted from the same complex, and now at her new apartment she is already facing a $1,000 rent increase.
“Where do you expect us to live and work?” Barrios said. “Do you want us to live in the streets of San Rafael? I don’t think so.”
Tenants of the 17 apartments were notified last month by the Tesseract Capital Group, a San Francisco private equity firm, that their residences required substantial repairs because of dry rot and they would need to vacate.
The Voces Del Canal group is part of a coalition of renters and nonprofits that has been campaigning for stronger tenant protections in San Rafael since tenants of the same complex were asked to voluntarily relocate in September 2022. Letters encouraging the tenants to move were delivered as a multimillion remodel launched over a year ago.
A couple of months later, just days before Christmas, tenants were displaced after a fire connected to the renovation work ravaged the low-income complex. More tenants were displaced in January 2023 following the discovery of water damage.
Since August 2022, the property owner has requested building permits to renovate 64 apartments at the complex, said Angela Robinson Piñon, assistant city manager.
Fifty permits have been approved following city official verification that the landlord had provided relocation assistance payments to the displaced tenants, as required by the city, she said.
The coalition said the recent eviction of residents is the result of the “opportunity zone” designation given to the Canal area.
Opportunity zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment.
In 2021, the city adopted an ordinance requiring landlords evicting a tenant living in San Rafael’s opportunity zone to provide a significant amount of relocation assistance in an effort to discourage gentrification.
Omar Carrera is chief executive officer of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit that serves the immigrant community and member of the coalition advocating for rent control. Carrera said opportunity zones are supposed to engage the community to provide benefits such as job opportunities and new housing.
“The only thing we have seen is displacement of essential workers, of our families,” Carrera said. “This council needs to respond to those families.”
Carrera said the council stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting a temporary residential rent freeze and an eviction moratorium in the Canal area, the neighborhood that had the highest rate of coronavirus cases in the county. He said the community needs the council to step up again.
Robinson Piñon said that in the city’s updated housing element, a state-required housing plan approved in 2023, officials directed staff to evaluate tenant protections.
“We are listening to the community’s concerns and recognize the urgency,” Robinson Piñon said in an email Tuesday. “Therefore, the City will be evaluating what type of temporary anti-displacement measures could be implemented in the Opportunity Zone in the coming months.”
San Rafael Mayor Kate Colin added that “due to the ongoing community input and being several years into the opportunity zone program, we believe that now is a good time to examine whether additional anti-displacement protections could be beneficial within the opportunity zone.”
“We look forward to continued collaboration with the local community organizations and our residents,” Colin said.
“It sounds encouraging, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lucie Hollingsworth, an attorney at Legal Aid of Marin, said about the city’s response. The nonprofit firm is another member of the coalition calling for rent control.
“This has been an ongoing conversation with the city for years,” Hollingsworth said. “We’d like to see it on an agenda.”
Most displaced renters are forced to move out of the county. Marin is already one of the most segregated counties in California, Hollingsworth said.
San Rafael has about 20% of the county population, but in 2023, more than 42% of the firm’s clients were San Rafael residents, Hollingsworth said.
“That’s definitely disproportionate, and it’s taking up a lot of our resources for low-income tenants,” Hollingsworth said. “When we’re try to preserve housing, we can’t usually do that because we don’t have the policies in place that could help us, and that’s what we’re asking for.”
A Tesseract Capital Group representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more posts in: Media
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The False Promise of Opportunity Zones
Tax breaks for investors don’t help poor communities.
Timothy Weaver
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-false-promise-of-opportunity-zones/
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A_Critical_Explanation_of_Opportunity_Zones
https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/A_Critical_Explanation_of_Opportunity_Zones.pdf
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Further evidence appears to show that Scott Turner may hate the poor, while he shows a lot of love for the rich.
Scott Turner is the Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council for opportunity zones.
Considering that the rich want to get their hands on our nation's public housing under the guise of using the opportunity zone program, resulting in the displacement of the poor, it appears to be a conflict of interest for Scott Turner to become the next HUD Secretary under the convicted felon Donald J. Trump.
Where I reside in Oakland, CA, it is in a large area designated as an opportunity zone, which is very disturbing.
Map of federal opportunity zones in Oakland, CA
https://properties.zoomprospector.com/california/community/Oakland-CA-/0653000/profile
https://properties.zoomprospector.com/california/community/Oakland-California/0653000/emsiadvanced
See more links and information below....
Lynda Carson
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YouTube, Scott Turner & Opportunity Zones
In the YouTube link below, Scott Turner offers plenty of "mumbo jumbo" to confuse people about the reality of whats happening with opportunity zones, and he fails to mention that opportunity zones end up evicting and displacing the poor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVC954wCSfM
Scott Turner - Opportunity Zones
Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council:
Scott Turner is the Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council
https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/
OZ_One_Year_Report
https://opportunityzones.hud.gov/sites/opportunityzones.hud.gov/files/documents/OZ_One_Year_Report.pdf
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Opportunity Zones are Displacement Zones
Opportunity Zones are intentionally designed to displace tenants and extract wealth from low income communities to benefit the country's richest investors.
https://www.saje.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SAJE_DisplacementZones.pdf
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(2019 Letter to some members of Congress about Opportunity Zones)
Dear Chairman Richard Neal, Chairman Al Green, and Chairman Raja Krishanmoorthi,
I am writing to request that your respective committee/subcommittees hold an investigative hearing into whether political campaign contributions have influenced the designation of so-called opportunity zones in my district and across the country.
On October 24th, 2019, ProPublica published an article titled “How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert.” 1 The article contained disturbing details that suggest that opportunity zones have been designated in census tracts that did not meet the legal criteria, and that political donations and influence have overridden the law to reward donors with generous tax breaks supposedly intended to benefit the poor.
According to ProPublica, billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Quicken Loans company donated $750,000 to President Trump’s inaugural fund, hosted Ivanka Trump in 2017 for a panel discussion, and last year Gilbert watched the midterm election returns at the White House with President Trump, who has called Gilbert “a great friend.” In return, three census tracts in downtown Detroit, where Gilbert owns valuable real estate, were selected as opportunity zones.
According to ProPublica, multiple studies have found that property values in opportunity zones increased because of the tax break, and Gilbert has poured more than $3 billion into real estate in Detroit – the vast majority of which is now in opportunity zones. At least one of the Gilbert tracts did not meet the poverty requirement for being an opportunity zone and appears to have been designated solely due to political influence. Email exchanges revealed Quicken executives working in concert with the White House to designate tracts with Gilbert’s investments as opportunity zones. Quicken lobbyists were enmeshed in the selection process at every level, lobbying City, State, and Federal officials to include Gilbert’s investment zones in the opportunity zone law.
According to the City of Detroit’s recommendations, one of the Gilbert tracts – where he owns more than 10 buildings – was ineligible for the program because its median family income was almost 1.5 times the eligibility requirements. Yet when the Treasury Department released a revised list of eligible tracts, it had transformed that tract into a “low-income community.” I am deeply concerned that the Treasury Department has approved opportunity zones as political favors to donors, and Congressional hearings must be empaneled swiftly to root out abuse and corruption.
Click below for the full letter…
https://www.novoco.com/public-media/documents/oz_2019_letter_concerning_campaign_contributions_for_opportunity_zones_110619.pdf
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Treasury watchdog to investigate Trump opportunity zone program
by Justine Coleman - 01/15/20 9:09 PM ET
The Treasury Department’s internal watchdog is planning to investigate the “opportunity zones” program after three Democratic lawmakers called for a closer look at the initiative, acting Treasury Inspector General Richard Delmar told NBC News.
Delmar’s announcement came a few months after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) sent him a letter requesting an investigation after news reports indicated that friends of the administration were benefiting from the program. The acting inspector general told NBC News that the report is expected to be completed by early spring.
Click below for the full story...
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/478521-treasury-watchdog-to-investigate-trump-opportunity-zone-program/
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Opportunity Zones: Improved Oversight Needed to Evaluate Tax Expenditure Performance
GAO-21-30 Published: Oct 08, 2020. Publicly Released: Nov 09, 2020.
Congress created Opportunity Zones to spur investment in distressed communities. About 10% of Americans live in the nearly 9,000 zones.
In these areas, certain business investments can bring significant tax benefits to the investor. Unlike other, similar tax incentives, there is no limit on the amounts investors can claim for tax breaks.
But how will opportunity zone investments actually affect these communities? Congress should consider having the Treasury Department collect whatever data is needed to find out.
Click below...
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-30
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[SIX98 Irolo is being developed by Vukota Capital Management, an “alternative investment firm” based in Colorado and the Bahamas. According to the company’s website, the development aims to take advantage of the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program, which grants developers tax breaks for investing money in lower income areas. A $12.3 million opportunity zone fund called VCM Irolo Opportunity Zone Fund, LP has also been created, Security and Exchange Commission records show.]
‘Where should I go?’: Developer evicting Koreatown tenants to build new apartments
The developer is using the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program
By Zoie Matthew Feb 3, 2020, 10:35am PST
https://la.curbed.com/2020/2/3/21120475/opportunity-zones-development-displacement-koreatown
Nicole Donanian has spent much of her life in the plaza at the corner of Seventh and Irolo streets in Koreatown. In 1995, her parents opened Falafel Corner, a Middle Eastern hole-in-the-wall known for its affordable and plentiful portions of falafel, kabob, and rice. Three years later, the family moved into one of the apartments on the complex’s second floor, making it easier for them to manage the restaurant.
These days, 31-year-old Donanian still resides in the beige stucco strip mall at 698 Irolo. She now rents her own apartment above the complex’s Korean noodle house and dry cleaner. The apartment has a room for her 12-year-old son, and it’s easy for her to help at the restaurant, which she’s been doing more often since her father fell ill two years ago.
But last year, Donanian’s future in Koreatown and the fate of her family’s business became uncertain, when a developer announced plans to replace the handful of mom-and-pop restaurants and apartments that occupy the strip mall with a 17,290-square foot mixed-use building.
Named SIX98 Irolo after its address, the new complex would include 139 market-rate and 18 affordable units, along with 3,200 square feet of ground floor retail space. The development would increase the stock of affordable housing in an area where it’s sorely needed.
But it will very likely displace residents in the plaza’s six existing units. They were served 60-day eviction notices earlier this month, and they say they have not received offers to live in the new building. Donanian, who pays $1,100 a month for a two-bedroom in an area where similar apartments have a median rent of $2,900, expects she will have to leave the neighborhood.
“I’ve started looking to see if I can find an apartment close to [the area] I know, where my son goes to school, and the family restaurant. But I can’t afford anything here,” says Donanian. “I’m pretty devastated. I’ve been here my whole life.”
SIX98 Irolo is being developed by Vukota Capital Management, an “alternative investment firm” based in Colorado and the Bahamas. According to the company’s website, the development aims to take advantage of the federal government’s Opportunity Zone program, which grants developers tax breaks for investing money in lower income areas. A $12.3 million opportunity zone fund called VCM Irolo Opportunity Zone Fund, LP has also been created, Security and Exchange Commission records show.
Messages to Vukota Capital Management were not returned.
Launched in 2017, the Opportunity Zone program is under investigation by the Treasury Department, and has been criticized by Democratic lawmakers for spurring gentrification while lining the pockets of wealthy investors. Earlier this month, the first city of Los Angeles-approved project to take advantage of the program broke ground in Hollywood, and more are expected to crop up in LA and beyond now that clear regulations have been set.
The Koreatown development also falls under the city of LA’s “Transit Oriented Communities” plan, a measure passed in 2016 to give developers incentives to build multi-family housing near bus and train stations.
A spokesperson for Los Angeles City Councilmember Herb Wesson, whose district includes Koreatown, said staffers have been in contact with the tenants at 698 Irolo. They plan to send a letter to the building owner “expressing our disapproval of the evictions and trying to come up with a solution to protect the current tenants,” the spokesperson said.
“We have been and always will be against the displacement and eviction of tenants in our district,” Wesson wrote in an email to Curbed. “With tens of thousands of Angelenos living on our streets, our collective focus should be on keeping people in their homes, not kicking them out.”
Desperate to find a way to stay, Donanian has formed a tenants’ union with her neighbors, who are also feeling the stress of relocating. Resident Basel Sultan says his multi-generational family has lived in two units in the building since they immigrated from Syria in 2013. He fears they will now be separated.
“I’m thinking about my mom, she’s an old woman. I have to care for her, she’s in a wheelchair,” he says. “My kids are also having bad feelings right now because they are going to miss their grandma, aunt, uncle, cousin, and also our community.”
The group is also urging the Los Angeles City Council to pass a motion that would implement rules set in place by Senate Bill 330, a state housing package passed last year to help tenants who lose their homes to new residential developments.
Under the new law, residents have the right to remain in their units until six months before the start of construction. The motion, introduced by Councilmember Mike Bonin in January, stresses the need for the city to implement these measures quickly.
“Unless the city has clear protocols and strict enforcement, it is easy to imagine that developers may secure their project permits and fail to follow through with the requirements that protect and benefit tenants,” Bonin wrote in the motion.
In the meantime, Donanian and her neighbors are scrambling to decide what to do next. She says she’s nervous about the idea of taking the battle to court, but she also doesn’t want to have an eviction on her record, which could make it even harder for her to rent a place in the future.
“I literally dream about it every night—what should I do? Where should I go?” Donanian says. “I have no idea, and I’m really trying to figure out what our next step is going to be.”
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Marin Voice: ‘Opportunity zones’ paving the way for displacement, not prosperity
https://www.marinij.com/2024/02/09/marin-voice-opportunity-zones-paving-the-way-for-displacement-not-prosperity/
In the first week of 2024, 17 families at 400 Canal St. in San Rafael opened their mailboxes to find eviction notices.
Tesseract Capital Group, owners of the building, are evicting families to renovate the units. Not only will the existing families be forced out of their homes and into a brutal rental market, the renovated units will be unaffordable to most residents of the Canal neighborhood. While heartbroken to learn of this news, unfortunately, I am not surprised. This crisis has been building for years.
Now the main question is whether San Rafael’s leadership, which has often said they support Canal residents and the cause of racial justice in our city, will use their power to stop this from happening.
The threat of displacement in the Canal has been steadily growing since our community was designated as an “opportunity zone” in 2018, the only one in Marin County. Opportunity zones were created by the Trump Administration to stimulate economic growth in underserved areas by encouraging outside investment via tax incentives.
We were concerned from Day One that the designation in the Canal would incentivize displacement, mostly through the sale of aging residential buildings — home to low-income and Latino families — to more aggressive investor owners, whose business plans would involve evicting tenants, renovating buildings and renting them at prices unaffordable to neighborhood residents.
We worked with city officials to proactively create a tenant relocation assistance program in 2019. This program, designed to provide financial assistance during involuntary relocation due to development projects or renovations within the zone, has unfortunately proven insufficient to stem the tide of displacement fueled by speculative investment and massive rent increases.
At Canal Alliance, we didn’t need to wait for the latest round of evictions to know that current protections weren’t working. We’ve been urging Mayor Kate Colin and the City Council to take action for years, to provide real anti-displacement protection for residents in the opportunity zone — protections strong enough to prevent the displacement we are seeing.
Canal residents have appeared before the City Council several times, sharing personal stories about how recent rent hikes and “no fault” evictions are negatively impacting families, children and seniors.
In November 2022, we collaborated with local partners to urge the City Council to stop this displacement, including concrete recommendations on “just cause” eviction, rent hikes, relocation assistance and “right to return” policies that would have helped prevent displacement in the first place. While we sparked concern and interest among some council members, they did not act. The council failed to prioritize crucial protections for vulnerable residents facing potential displacement.
Colin and city staff recently indicated that they take this threat seriously and are prepared to take action. The City Council can still intervene to stop the mass displacement of 400 Canal St. tenants and the thousands of other Canal residents made more vulnerable by the opportunity zone designation.
They can and must establish the necessary protections to prevent these evictions and the ones that will come next. This ordinance can focus only on the opportunity zone, much like enhanced renter protections were during the COVID-19 pandemic. They can be temporary, but must be enacted by the council before more Canal families are displaced.
These protections would not solve the long-term problem of displacement in the Canal or the opportunity zone, but it would buy us time to work together on a long-term housing plan that sees our older buildings renovated without displacing the community that provides so much critical labor to our city and county.
With time, we could work with Rep. Jared Huffman on needed reforms to the legislation of opportunity zones, which were renamed “Displacement Zones” in a 2019 report by the Steering Committee of Strategic Actions because of the program’s impact on neighborhoods where people of color live, like the Canal.
The time to act is now. The displacement of low-income residents, many of whom are essential workers, will generate detrimental ripple effects throughout the community. Continued displacement will exacerbate the crisis of homelessness, cripple the ability of local businesses to hire and retain staff and ultimately erode the very tax base necessary to sustain vital programs and activities benefiting all residents.
Omar Carrera is CEO of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit based in San Rafael.
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[The law amends the city’s cause for eviction code and relocation assistance program for the designated “opportunity zone,” which covers two census tracts in the Canal where residents have been disproportionately displaced.
Opportunity zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The city adopted a relocation assistance program for the neighborhood in 2021 to discourage gentrification.]
San Rafael OKs urgency law to halt evictions in Canal area
APRIL 18, 2024
https://www.canalalliance.org/media/san-rafael-oks-urgency-law-to-halt-evictions-in-canal-area/
SAN RAFAEL HAS APPROVED TEMPORARY PROTECTIONS FOR RENTERS IN PARTS OF THE CANAL NEIGHBORHOOD FOLLOWING A RECENT WAVE OF EVICTIONS.
The law amends the city’s cause for eviction code and relocation assistance program for the designated “opportunity zone,” which covers two census tracts in the Canal where residents have been disproportionately displaced.
Opportunity zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The city adopted a relocation assistance program for the neighborhood in 2021 to discourage gentrification.
Under the new urgency ordinance, landlords will no longer be able to evict tenants for health and safety renovations in most cases. If a home must be vacated, landlords must provide the tenant with temporary relocation assistance and the right to return to their dwelling after work is complete.
Since October 2022, 31 tenant households were evicted on grounds of “substantial rehabilitation for health and safety within the Canal opportunity zone,” Alexis Captanian, the city’s housing manager said.
The urgency ordinance, which took effect immediately following a unanimous City Council vote Monday, is designed as a stop gap to prevent more displacement while city officials examine citywide tenant protections, Captanian said.
“Due to the tight rental market in San Rafael and Marin County, it is extremely difficult for displaced tenants to secure housing,” Captanian said. “Staff has received reports of displaced opportunity zone tenants moving out of Marin, doubling up with other families, or becoming unhoused and moving into their cars.”
Captanian said the urgency ordinance will expire at the end of 2026, which is in line with the end of the opportunity zone tax benefits. Officials expect to bring forward proposals for citywide tenant protections before the urgency ordinance expires, she said.
At the center of the issue is a 99-apartment complex at 400 Canal St. where dozens of tenants have been displaced for renovations. Tesseract Capital Group, a San Francisco private equity firm, began a multimillion dollar renovation of the complex two years ago, and have since asked several tenants to voluntarily relocate and evicted others.
Representatives of the company did not respond to requests for comment.
The issue of skyrocketing rent in the densely populated neighborhood has been ongoing for years. Last year, renters and their supporters formed a coalition begging San Rafael city officials to enact rent control, or provide some sort of protection to keep families from being forced out of their homes.
While the city has recorded 31 “no-fault evictions,” coalition members say the number is actually much higher because many tenants didn’t know their rights and left out of fear.
“Too bad this ordinance wasn’t approved before, because it could have helped a lot of people who were displaced … who didn’t know where to go,” said Cruz Vargas, a volunteer with the Voces Del Canal advocacy group.
Vargas, who addressed the council in Spanish on Monday, said she hopes the city will develop a permanent ordinance to protect families beyond the two years.
Captanian said there are approximately 1,800 dwellings in the opportunity zone of the Canal neighborhood, and about 1,500 of those are apartments, making it one of the most concentrated areas of rental housing.
The neighborhood has higher rates of severe housing cost burden, meaning rent is equal to more than 50% of the household income. There is also more overcrowding in the Canal than in other areas of the city, Captanian said.
In cases where a substantial remodel is needed for health and safety, the landlord will be required to provide daily temporary relocation payments to the tenant or offer a comparable dwelling on the property if one is available.
Relocation payments would be $250 a day during the first 29 days of displacement, which is an average based on the cost of a hotel room or short-term rental, staff said. Starting on day 30, the rate would be based on the tenant’s monthly lease or fair market rate, whichever is greater.
The ordinance will require staff to review the plans during the construction permit process and is subject to administrative fees.
Tenants who choose not to move into temporary digs will be eligible for the city’s existing permanent relocation assistance payments, which is equal to three months of rent, plus estimated moving expenses. If the tenant household includes a person under the age of 18 or over 62, or a person with a disability, the household is eligible for an additional month’s rent.
The amount is calculated based on the tenant’s current rate or fair market rate, whichever is higher.
Lucie Hollingsworth, senior policy attorney with the nonprofit firm Legal Aid of Marin, said while she supports the ordinance, there needs to be strong language for enforcement.
“As currently written a tenant only has a private right of action for wrongful eviction,” Hollingsworth said. “In reality, a tenant can only enforce their rights under this ordinance after they have already been displaced and that is if they have the time and the courage to do that. To truly work towards creating a more equitable city, San Rafael must add that noncompliance with this order is an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer.”
Hollingsworth said San Rafael has approximately 20% of the county population but in 2023, more than 42% of housing cases for the firm were residents of San Rafael.
Omar Carrera, chief executive officer of Canal Alliance, told the council he is ready to work with city officials on programs for tenant protections, and housing production and preservation.
“Because that’s what we need to solve the housing crisis,” Carrera said. He said that includes creating a tenant registry so officials can have the data they need to make the right decisions.
“I know that it has not been easy. I know a lot of people expect more, but we also understand that there is a process together and that’s what I really encourage all of you to support,” he said.
Read more posts in: Media
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[The coalition said the recent eviction of residents is the result of the “opportunity zone” designation given to the Canal area.
Opportunity zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment.]
San Rafael eviction wave in Canal area revives pleas for help
FEBRUARY 7, 2024
https://www.canalalliance.org/media/san-rafael-eviction-wave-in-canal-area-revives-pleas-for-help/
By ADRIAN RODRIGUEZ | Marin Independent Journal
Another eviction of renters from an apartment complex in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood has spurred a renewed call for tenant protections.
Renters and their supporters amassed at City Hall on Monday to urge the City Council to enact rent control in the area after the latest displacement of tenants in 17 households at the 99-apartment complex at 400 Canal St.
“Our families here are suffering and we need your help,” said Marina Palma, a community leader in the Voces Del Canal advocacy group. “People are leaving to other cities. Please stand up for us. We need you.”
Glendy Barrios said she is among the tenants who were previously evicted from the same complex, and now at her new apartment she is already facing a $1,000 rent increase.
“Where do you expect us to live and work?” Barrios said. “Do you want us to live in the streets of San Rafael? I don’t think so.”
Tenants of the 17 apartments were notified last month by the Tesseract Capital Group, a San Francisco private equity firm, that their residences required substantial repairs because of dry rot and they would need to vacate.
The Voces Del Canal group is part of a coalition of renters and nonprofits that has been campaigning for stronger tenant protections in San Rafael since tenants of the same complex were asked to voluntarily relocate in September 2022. Letters encouraging the tenants to move were delivered as a multimillion remodel launched over a year ago.
A couple of months later, just days before Christmas, tenants were displaced after a fire connected to the renovation work ravaged the low-income complex. More tenants were displaced in January 2023 following the discovery of water damage.
Since August 2022, the property owner has requested building permits to renovate 64 apartments at the complex, said Angela Robinson Piñon, assistant city manager.
Fifty permits have been approved following city official verification that the landlord had provided relocation assistance payments to the displaced tenants, as required by the city, she said.
The coalition said the recent eviction of residents is the result of the “opportunity zone” designation given to the Canal area.
Opportunity zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The zones are economically distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, might be eligible for preferential tax treatment.
In 2021, the city adopted an ordinance requiring landlords evicting a tenant living in San Rafael’s opportunity zone to provide a significant amount of relocation assistance in an effort to discourage gentrification.
Omar Carrera is chief executive officer of Canal Alliance, a nonprofit that serves the immigrant community and member of the coalition advocating for rent control. Carrera said opportunity zones are supposed to engage the community to provide benefits such as job opportunities and new housing.
“The only thing we have seen is displacement of essential workers, of our families,” Carrera said. “This council needs to respond to those families.”
Carrera said the council stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting a temporary residential rent freeze and an eviction moratorium in the Canal area, the neighborhood that had the highest rate of coronavirus cases in the county. He said the community needs the council to step up again.
Robinson Piñon said that in the city’s updated housing element, a state-required housing plan approved in 2023, officials directed staff to evaluate tenant protections.
“We are listening to the community’s concerns and recognize the urgency,” Robinson Piñon said in an email Tuesday. “Therefore, the City will be evaluating what type of temporary anti-displacement measures could be implemented in the Opportunity Zone in the coming months.”
San Rafael Mayor Kate Colin added that “due to the ongoing community input and being several years into the opportunity zone program, we believe that now is a good time to examine whether additional anti-displacement protections could be beneficial within the opportunity zone.”
“We look forward to continued collaboration with the local community organizations and our residents,” Colin said.
“It sounds encouraging, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lucie Hollingsworth, an attorney at Legal Aid of Marin, said about the city’s response. The nonprofit firm is another member of the coalition calling for rent control.
“This has been an ongoing conversation with the city for years,” Hollingsworth said. “We’d like to see it on an agenda.”
Most displaced renters are forced to move out of the county. Marin is already one of the most segregated counties in California, Hollingsworth said.
San Rafael has about 20% of the county population, but in 2023, more than 42% of the firm’s clients were San Rafael residents, Hollingsworth said.
“That’s definitely disproportionate, and it’s taking up a lot of our resources for low-income tenants,” Hollingsworth said. “When we’re try to preserve housing, we can’t usually do that because we don’t have the policies in place that could help us, and that’s what we’re asking for.”
A Tesseract Capital Group representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more posts in: Media
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The False Promise of Opportunity Zones
Tax breaks for investors don’t help poor communities.
Timothy Weaver
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-false-promise-of-opportunity-zones/
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A_Critical_Explanation_of_Opportunity_Zones
https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/A_Critical_Explanation_of_Opportunity_Zones.pdf
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