Suspicious Blog Postings Emerge Praising and Defending Predatory Landlord

Last week a very curious article and a very curious blog post appeared in the Bay Area online media. The article appeared on the San Francisco Sentinel and is credited to the website's founder Pat Murphy. The blog post by Zennie Abraham appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle's website SFGate.com under a new blog section called "City Brights."

These pieces struck us as so odd because of their praise and defense of predatory East Palo Alto landlord, Page Mill Properties, a real estate investment company that is widely loathed in the community. It's difficult to imagine that anyone other than a hired PR firm could have anything nice to say about this company's activities in East Palo Alto.

Page Mill's excessive rent increases and unjust evictions have been denounced by numerous tenants, the East Palo Alto City Council and Mayor, SEIU 521, and community organizations including the Fair Rent Coaltion, Youth United for Community Action, Nuestra Casa, The Family Center, The Stanford Community Law Clinic, and Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto.

Murphy's article reads like a reprint of a Page Mill press release, which, as it turns out, it essentially is. Murphy has been the subject of related controversy in the recent past. Last October, the environmental group Amazon Watch called on the Chevron corporation to disclose the nature of it's relationship with Murphy and his website. In a press release Amazon Watch states "for several months Murphy has been posting a steady stream of commentary and misleading facts to discredit indigenous groups suing Chevron for environmental contamination in Ecuador without disclosing he is being paid." In a published response to Amazon Watch's claims, Murphy did not deny that he had accepted payment from Chevron for services rendered.

It is clear from running a search on his website that until last week, Murphy hadn't often, if ever, covered news in East Palo Alto (EPA). Yet on April 17, Murphy published under his byline a detailed story about the supposed positive changes Page Mill has brought to the EPA community, complete with quotes from Page Mill CEO, David Taran and members of the community. Along with the article is a video, clearly produced for or by Page Mill, but with no disclosure as to the video's origins. (A video with some of the same footage, appears on an Abraham's blog as well. Both videos are hosted on the Page Mill Properties' YouTube channel.)

Abraham's post reads less like a mere reprint of a Page Mill press release, but is no less surprising in it's defense of the company and it's conduct in EPA. As with Murphy's website, a search of Abraham's past posts reveals no previous coverage of events in East Palo Alto. We find it quite interesting that within 48 hours, both of these writers, who showed no prior interest in the news of East Palo Alto, published heavily slanted coverage for Page Mill while the company is in the midst of litigation with the City of EPA, is the target of a class action law suit, and is facing increasingly negative press coverage.

As the website for his business, SBSON.com, explains, Mr. Abraham is paid by clients for the services of "online reputation management." In other words, he takes money to create positive hype for companies on the internet. Hmmm.

Most troubling is that, because Abraham now has a blog on SFGate.com under it's recently created "SF Brights" section, his terribly slanted piece appears as a San Francisco Chronicle article in internet news searches. Currently, if one searches Google for news on Page Mill Properties, Abraham's piece titled "Page Mill Properties Treated Unfairly in East Palo Alto" appears at the top of the search list. There is no indication that it is a blog piece from a writer who accepts payment from clients for "online reputation management."

Like Murphy, it appears that Abraham may also have a relationship of some nature with the Chevron corporation. On another of Abraham's multiple blogs the Chevron logo is prominently displayed and it links to his favorable coverage of Chevron's recent legal battles.

I contacted both Murphy and Abraham. Both denied receiving compensation for their favorable coverage of Page Mill.

To say the least, we are quite suspicious of the timing and the very slanted nature of these pieces. We're continuing to look into this and will keep you updated.

NLIHC Releases Report -- Out of Reach 2009

This week the National Low Income Housing Coalition released its Out of Reach 2009 Report. The report compares wages and rents in every U.S. county. California, on average, has the second highest housing costs in the country, after Hawaii. The housing wage (how much an individual would have to earn an hour working full time in order to not have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing) is $24.83 in California. Furthermore, five out of ten of the most expensive metro areas in the U.S. are in California. They are San Francisco, Santa Cruz/Watsonville, Orange County, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, and San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos.

To view the full report, visit the National Low Income Housing Coalition website.

Bloomberg News Covers our Report and the Plight of California Renters in Foreclosure

Dan Levy and Ari Levy of Bloomberg News have published an important story on renters in foreclosure situations in California. Tenants Together, our recent report (Hidden Impact: California Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis) and callers to our foreclosure hotline were key sources for the story.

The story conveys the shock and hardship experienced by tenants who have never missed a rent payment and yet face eviction, often without legally mandated notice periods. It also highlights the irony that once evictions of renters are complete, many rental properties sit vacant and deteriorate when they could be providing shelter to tenants and generating income to the new owners. Tenants Together has been critical of banks' routinely evicting innocent tenants after forelosure, a practice we view as both immoral and economically irrational. Our position is clearly bolstered by the article. The reporters estimate that some $1 billion in potential annual rent is not being collected because banks don't want to be landlords of the properties they take over in foreclosures.

The article, "California Foreclosures Jeopardize Renters as Banks Seize Homes", begins with the story of Laura Hecox, a caller to our Tenant Foreclosure Hotline from San Diego who was evicted without proper notice. She and her children became homeless as a result of the eviction.

Read the complete story at Bloomberg News.

KALW's Sheriff Eviction Ride Along

KALW public radio has been doing an extraordinary series on the impact of the economic crisis on people's lives called the "Economic Edge."

Journalist Zoe Corneli recently did a piece on renters caught in the foreclosure crisis, which included an interview with Dean, our executive director and with our foreclosure hotline volunteers. Now Corneli reports on her ride along with a Alameda County Sheriff as he performs his numerous daily evictions.

Listen to this excellent report here:
http://www.crosscurrentsradio.org/economic-edge.php?post_id=1774

From KALW:
"We often hear about foreclosures putting people out on the streets, but for that to happen, someone has to translate a court order into real life. That someone is the sheriff. In Alameda County, foreclosures have increased the number of evictions from about 300 to about 500 each month. The deputies who perform those evictions have a first hand look at some of the real life impacts of a down economy. We sent KALW’s Zoe Corneli to ride along on an Alameda County eviction route."