Rents and Rants

SF Mayor Appoints Tenants Together Honoree Kent Qian as Rent Board Commissioner

2012-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

Kent Qian, an attorney at the National Housing Law Project, will soon be the newest member of the San Francisco Rent Board Commission. Kent is an impressive housing attorney and a strong ally of Tenants Together. At our annual event in 2011, we honored Kent for his outstanding work to protect renters in foreclosed properties.

We commend San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee for his decision to appoint Kent to the Rent Board. Kent will hold one of two Tenant Alternate seats on the Commission. He is scheduled to be sworn in this Thursday, January 5, 2012, at SF City Hall.

Smart, hardworking and firmly committed to housing justice, Kent is the perfect person to represent San Francisco tenants on the Rent Board.

Congratulations to Kent for this well-deserved appointment!

Merced City Council Gives Final Approval to Anti-Eviction Law Protecting Tenants

2011-11-22T10:47:00.001-08:00

Despite an intense lobbying effort by local realtors, the Merced City Council gave final approval yesterday to the Central Valley’s first anti-eviction law. The law seeks to stop evictions of innocent tenants after foreclosure. It will take effect on December 21, 2011.

This was the second reading of the ordinance. Usually, the second reading is a mere formality and matters are adopted by consent, meaning there is no debate, public comment, or additional testimony. However, under pressure from local realtors, the anti-eviction law was pulled from the consent calendar. Two hours of discussion followed. The Council chambers were packed with supporters and opponents of the law.

The Council voted 5-2 in favor of the law. The vote was met with a standing ovation from local residents who came to the hearing to support the measure, including members of Tenants Together, Occupy Merced, Journey for Justice, and UC Merced.

Mayor Pro Tem Bill Blake and Council Members John Carlisle, Noah Lor and Mary-Michal Rawling were steadfast in their support for the law at all hearings. These council members consistently put people above politics and stood firm in the face of a misinformation campaign by local realtors. Council Member Josh Pedrozo surprised the crowd by voting in favor of the law after voting against it on November 7. Mayor Spriggs and Council Member Michele Gabriault-Acosta voted in opposition to the law.

Members of Tenants Together immediately praised the Council’s action. “The Council has done the right thing,” said Angela Fragulia, a renter displaced from her Merced home after foreclosure. Her story was noted by Council Member Lor when explaining his support for the ordinance. Michelle Dirickson, another renter evicted by foreclosure, commented: “this law doesn't cost anybody anything. It doesn't hurt anybody, and it helps families and it stabilizes communities."

This is a game changer for Merced tenants and the entire community. Under the new law, tenants will be able to stay in their homes, rather than being callously tossed into the street by banks that care nothing about creating unnecessary homelessness, vacancy and blight.

Tenants with questions about the new law can contact Tenants Together’s Foreclosure Hotline toll free at 1-888-495-8020 or contact Tenants Together by email at info@tenantstogether.org. TT will be distributing a fact sheet for Merced tenants on their rights under the new law.

Congratulations to our Merced members and allies on this tremendous victory!

Merced Passes Tenant Protection Law to Stop Arbitrary Evictions after Foreclosure

2011-11-11T10:11:00.001-08:00

This week, the Merced City Council passed the Central Valley’s first anti-eviction law. The ordinance seeks to stop evictions of innocent tenants after foreclosure. Members of Tenants Together successfully advocated for passage of the law.

Mayor Pro Tem Bill Blake and Council Members John Carlisle, Mary-Michal Rawling and Noah Lor voted to pass the law. Blake, an early proponent of the law, called it “the moral and right thing to do.”

Mayor Spriggs and Council Member Pedrozo had previously voiced support for the law at a city council hearing in August, but bowed to pressure from realtors and voted in opposition to the new tenant protections. Council Member Michele Gabriault-Acosta, herself a real estate agent, opposed the law at all times.

The final vote was 4-3 to pass the law.

TT member Tenea Wallace and her family rent a home in Merced that is scheduled for auction later this month. Under existing law, her family could face eviction after the foreclosure auction. Wallace welcomed the City Council vote: “Our communities are sick and tired of evictions by irresponsible banks that kick out good renters after foreclosure. With this new law, tenants like me will be able to stay in our homes.”

The law approved by the Council on Monday requires that banks and investors have “just cause” for evicting tenants after foreclosure. The law spells out the specific circumstances where eviction is permitted, such as where the tenant fails to pay rent or where the owner wants to move into the property. Foreclosure is not a recognized reason for evicting tenants under the law. Fifteen other California cities already have laws against eviction of tenants due to foreclosure.

Mayor Pro Tem Blake and Councilmembers Carlisle, Rawling and Lor deserve enormous credit for listening to Merced’s residents and doing their part to stop the unfair evictions, vacancies, and blight that are plaguing this community.

“We look forward to working with renters who want to stay in their homes after foreclosure,” commented Pahoua Lor, staff attorney with Central California Legal Services, a nonprofit legal services organization in Merced that will assist eligible renters exercise their rights under the law. “This new law will enable many tenants to stay in their homes and keep paying rent, rather than being forced onto the streets when banks take over foreclosed properties.”

There will be a second reading of the ordinance. The law is expected to take effect before the new year.

Tenant Advisory: Eviction Assistance Websites

2011-11-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Tenants Together is regularly contacted by tenants whose landlords are facing foreclosure. These tenants are often searching for attorneys to represent them in eviction cases resulting from their landlord's foreclosure. Regrettably, many communities do not have a well-developed tenant bar, and local legal aid organizations are often unable to meet the overwhelming numbers of tenants seeking representation.

This vacuum has led tenants to websites that offer services in pro per. (Pro per is when a person represents themselves in a legal action.) These websites advertise—sometimes for extraordinarily high prices—the preparation of basic legal paperwork. The potential tenant-client is often told that she will be able to stay in her home for several months because of the documents she is sold. These websites fail to inform tenants that they generally have the right to stay in their homes for 90 days or longer after foreclosure regardless of the paperwork that is filed, and that they have the right to contest the eviction in court after the notice expires, which can take over a month.

Tenants Together would like to provide some basic guidelines on how to determine if the service you are paying for is legitimate and whether you are paying for something that you could get for free, simply by going to your local self-help center.

1. Do not pay a paralegal to prepare documents unless they are a registered unlawful detainer assistant or working under the direct supervision of an attorney. In general, we would suggest that you only pay money when an attorney is preparing the legal documents. In California, unlawful detainer assistants may prepare documents for landlords or tenants. However, they must be registered and specifically are not allowed to provide legal advice.

2. In most communities, if you are unable to receive assistance from legal aid, you can go to a self-help center generally located at a courthouse. There, you can obtain the appropriate documents and some assistance on how to fill them out. See http://www.lawhelpcalifornia.org/CA/index.cfm/ for a list of free local resources for document preparation.

3. Be wary of guarantees. It is rare that any attorney can guarantee the result of a legal action. An experienced attorney will rarely make such a claim but instead can describe the usual practice and provide a reasonable expectation.

4. Make sure you understand your rights as a tenant so that you are not paying for “extensions of time” that you already have a right to without any “filing of motions.”

5. It is generally important to attend hearings. Be wary of anyone who tells you that you do not need to attend a hearing, go to court or appear before a judge.

6. Do not use a company that claims to provide assistance in several states but provides information regardless of location. Every state has different laws regarding tenants. In California, 15 cities also have their own local just cause for eviction laws. Advice that does not take into account state and/or local law will rarely be accurate in this context.

Please feel free to contact our office if you have further questions or if you have paid money to a service that you feel may not be legitimate. We would like to hear about your experience with the service.

Tenants: Occupy

2011-11-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

Across California and the nation, the 99% are joining together to protest economic inequality and corporate excesses. In an age when most politicians are servants of corporate interests, the public has done one of the few things left to do: occupy public space in protest of a system gone awry.

The figures are increasingly well known, thanks in no small part to the success of the Occupy Wall Street movement. 1% of the U.S. population controls over 40% of the nation’s wealth and 25% of its annual income. The top 1%’s income has grown by 275% over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, one in seven Americans lives in poverty. Unemployment is in double digits. Student loan debt is a staggering trillion dollars. The economic inequities are so depressing, that for years many have wondered how to even begin trying to make change.

Avenues for political change from within have been largely blockaded. The right wing’s assault on the judicial system has resulted in a judiciary hostile to the rights of poor and middle class people. Long gone are the days when judges furthered social justice by using their discretion to protect the vulnerable.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling was the last straw, toppling reason in transparent service to moneyed interests. Thanks to the decision, corporate control over the political process is here to stay, unless there is a constitutional amendment or popular uprising. By giving corporations all the privileges of personhood, including the right to buy elections, the Supreme Court made a mockery of our democratic process.

Rather than be satisfied with a skewed system in which wealth is concentrated at the top, those at the top have sought further and further gains at the expense of working people. Politicians of all parties have obliged: eliminating the estate tax; cutting taxes on the richest Americans; slashing spending on housing, education and welfare programs; bailing out banks while abandoning homeowners to fend for themselves; refusing to hold anyone accountable for fraudulent conduct leading to the mortgage meltdown. The Occupy movement summarizes the overwhelming feeling of the masses who, with every occupation, collectively shout: “Enough!”

California tenants share this feeling. California has over 15 million tenants. Most are working people of low or moderate incomes, including millions of people of color. Legislators in the state capitol ignore tenants, shamelessly serving real estate industry interests who pay to play in a game that is rigged against tenants and other working people. Meanwhile, tenants find no refuge in the courts, where decades of conservative appointments have created an unmistakable hostility to tenant rights.

Tenants are joining the Occupy movement in large numbers. Occupations are occurring across California – in Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Merced, Los Angeles and dozens of other cities. Honest, emotional, creative and constructive voices for change are emerging and the chorus is getting louder.

For tenants and homeowners in foreclosed properties, the Occupy movement has particular poignancy. Some housing groups try to fight off evictions by bringing the community together in eviction blockades, but these actions are designed to save one family’s housing at a time, and despite these heroic efforts, banks continue the mass-displacement of people from their homes for no good reason. Occupations provide a forum for collective refusal to vacate. There is safety and power in numbers, notwithstanding the violent and misguided police actions in Oakland and other cities in recent days.Tenants Together commends Occupy Wall Street and the entire Occupy movement for giving voice to the frustration felt by the 99% and for sparking a long overdue and desperately needed movement for economic justice.

To our members across the state, and our allies everywhere, we say: “Occupy.”

Tim Lincecum Joins the Ranks of Blacklisted Tenants

2011-10-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

Tenants Together would like to welcome Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum to the tenant blacklist. Here, with nothing more than a landlord’s accusations, a tenant’s ability to find rental housing can be damaged forever.

Last week, Lincecum was sued by his ex-landlord. Headlines blared that Lincecum had allegedly “trashed” his apartment, stolen items from the unit, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. The sole source of information was, and is, the landlord’s complaint filed in superior court. No details were submitted with the lawsuit. No photos of the alleged damage were made available. In fact, not a single story contained independent verification of any of the landlord’s claims. But the price tag was widely reported – a whopping $350,000.

Now maybe Tim Lincecum will find a landlord willing to rent to him next season, but it’s likely that regardless of the facts of the case, he will be discriminated against if he tries to rent housing in the future. Even if he wins the case and disproves the allegations, the lawsuit will remain in the files of credit reporting agencies and tenant screening services, not to mention Google searches. He has been, and will forever remain, blacklisted, and there’s not a thing he can do about it.

Lincecum is not alone. Each year, tens of thousands of tenants in California are sued by their landlords, often in eviction actions. In some cases, there are grounds for the lawsuit. In others, there are not. The blacklist does not distinguish between the two types of cases.

Credit reporting companies scour court records for cases and report them to prospective landlords as part of credit checks. These companies include cases regardless of outcome. So even if a jury decides the landlord’s cases is frivolous, the case will likely end up damaging a tenant’s credit history.

There’s a state law on the books that prohibits credit reporting companies from including eviction case information unless the landlord wins the case. That makes a lot of sense, since only after the landlord wins is there reason to believe that the case had merit. However, California courts struck down this law, announcing that credit reporting companies had a First Amendment right to report available court records. As a result, credit companies report cases regardless of merit.

Rather than uncritically accept Lincecum’s landlord’s claims, let’s wait for some evidence. I’ve practiced landlord-tenant law for years. I’ve never heard of a tenant doing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to an apartment without a fire or flood. It makes me wonder what price tag this landlord would have claimed if her tenant didn’t have a multi-million dollar contract with the San Francisco Giants.

Get Involved! Make Things Happen!

2011-09-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Tenants Together is a dynamic, growing organization, and our power comes from you. Join with us and tenants across the state to protect and improve renters' rights throughout California. Here is how our members are getting the word out:

Tabling: Grab a friend and set up a table at a shopping plaza or other busy intersection. TT will send you written materials to help you engage others in our work.

Door-knocking: Meet your neighbors while informing them about their rights. Groups of 2 or more choose a block or a neighborhood and knock on doors to get people talking about renters' rights.

Speaking up: Attend a City Council meeting and remind your local elected officials that they represent renters, not just homeowners.

Plan a meeting: Pull together some friends and allies for a meeting in your home or in a public place. Work together to create a Tenant Action Group that will set the agenda in your city.

For more information about taking action for tenant rights, email tag@tenantstogether.org or call 415-495-8100.

Will Wells Fargo Sell East Palo Alto to Vultures?

2011-08-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

Wells Fargo is poised to sell half of the rent-controlled housing in East Palo Alto, CA, and the potential buyers are raising more than a few eyebrows. The properties were previously owned by Page Mill Properties, a predatory investment group headed by David Taran, until Wells Fargo foreclosed on the portfolio in 2010. Page Mill’s business plan was to purge EPA of most of the city’s rent-controlled tenants. The question now is whether Wells Faro will hand the portfolio over to another predatory investor that plans to finish what Page Mill started, or whether the portfolio will at long last land in responsible hands. Unfortunately, the former scenario is looking more likely, but this story is not over yet. It is time for anyone who cares about rent control to weigh in on the fate of East Palo Alto.

Sharon Simonson of The Registy broke the news on July 21 that Wells Fargo had identified three finalists for possible purchase of the Page Mill portfolio. Tenant groups reacted quickly to the news, warning Wells Fargo not to turn the property over to predatory investors and urging that the community be part of the selection of the new ownership. Click here for Tenants Together’s letter to Wells Fargo. Tenants Together also launched a petition urging Wells Fargo to protect EPA’s tenants and select a responsible buyer.

Tenants have three major complaints about how Wells Fargo is handling this process. First, Wells Fargo has failed to involve the community in selecting the final potential buyers. Second, Wells Fargo intends to violate the community’s repeated calls for the portfolio to be broken up, not sold to a single investor. Third, Wells Fargo’s short-list reportedly includes some of the worst predatory investors around.

Wells Fargo will not disclose who is on the short list, but media reports identify AREA Property Partners and Equity Residential as two of three finalists. Either would spell disaster for East Palo Alto and its residents.

Apollo (AREA Property) – A History of Predatory Deals in New York

AREA Property Partners was founded in 1993 as Apollo Real Estate Advisors. Apollo is among the most notorious predatory equity investors. Apollo was the equity partner in the acquisition of thousands of rent-controlled units in New York City as part of plans to displace rent-regulated tenants.

As spelled out in an excellent report by the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, Apollo’s deals involved acquiring buildings at prices reflecting Gross Rent Multipliers more than double the industry standard, making clear that they had no intention of honoring tenants’ rights to remain in their homes under local rent-regulations. The report notes as examples the acquisition of Savoy Park in Harlem and Broadway Portfolio in Washington Heights.

Apollo’s strategy has been well covered in the New York Times. Here are relevant excerpts from an August 26, 2008 article:

Many of those deals involved major players like Apollo Real Estate Advisors…

In March 2006, for example, Apollo and its partners paid $175 million for Delano Village, a seven-building apartment complex in Harlem that was built in the 1950s as middle-income housing by the Axelrod family, which held onto it for nearly five decades.

The new owners told their lenders they would vastly increase the rental income, even though all of the 1,802 apartments were subject to New York’s strict rent-stabilization program. And the banks went along. …

At Savoy Park, for example, the building’s annual net cash flow was only $4.3 million at the end of last year, yet the loans were underwritten for an ultimate cash flow of $19.1, million, according to Realpoint. Executives at Apollo and its main partner, Vantage Properties, declined to comment. …

A real estate professional who is familiar with the Savoy Park deal but was not authorized to speak about it publicly said the new owners had projected an annual “natural attrition” of 10 percent as tenants relocated for business or personal reasons. …

Frank J. Anelante Jr.. the chief executive of Lemle & Wolff, which owns and manages 7,000 apartments in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, said turnover in his units was closer to 2 percent. “I have been in this business since 1977,” Mr. Anelante said, “and I have never seen these huge turnover numbers that a lot of these properties seem to have used.”

…when Apollo and Vantage bought eight apartment buildings in Washington Heights with a total of 455 units, they said they planned to empty as many as 30 percent of the apartments within a year and 10 percent a year thereafter, according to S.E.C. documents.

If Wells Fargo turns EPA over to Apollo, now known as AREA, tenants will be in for the fight of their lives.

Equity Residential & Sam Zell – A History of Attacking Rent Control

Equity Residential is a real estate investment trust headed by Sam Zell. Zell is reviled by California renters with good reason. The billionaire real estate mogul has funded lawsuits and ballot measures to gut rent control across the state.

Proposition 98, on the June 2008 ballot, would have repealed rent control ordinances across California. Zell through his company was one of the largest donors to the campaign to pass the measure.

A February 28, 2008 article in Capitol Weekly summarized Zell’s anti-rent-control history:

“The rent-control fight is not a new one for Zell. Zell’s company has filed several lawsuits against cities across California in efforts to repeal local rent-control ordinances. The company settled a suit with the city of Santa Cruz; the settlement allows the company to increase rents after existing tenants move out.

The company has also been engaged in an ongoing battle with the city of San Rafael in federal court and has been sued by tenants’ rights groups in Marin in response to the company’s efforts to raise rents.

Zell has made a name for himself purchasing what are considered to be undervalued or distressed properties, and seeking changes in laws and regulations to increase their value. A 1995 New York Times article on Zell, who once tried to acquire Rockefeller Center, described him and his late partner as “classic ‘vulture’ investors...”

It seems impossible to reconcile Wells Fargo’s stated commitment to work with the community with any serious consideration of selling half of East Palo Alto to such a well known “vulture investor” with a track record of attacking rent control.

Wells Fargo has a short window of time in which to involve the residents of EPA in this decision in a meaningful way or else face a public relations nightmare. To urge Wells Fargo to do the right thing, please start by signing our online petition today.

Civil Grand Jury Report Blasts Parkmerced Proposal -- Inadequate Tenant Protections

2011-05-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Civil Grand Jury of San Francisco has just released a report, entitled Government-By-Developer, criticizing the proposal at Parkmerced to demolish over 1500 rent controlled homes. The report concludes that "the proposed Development Agreement does not give adequate rent control protection to the residents of the Parkmerced property."

Tenant advocates have warned of the significant risks that the developer or a future owner would use state law to invalidate commitments to relocate existing tenants into new rent-controlled housing. The concerns are based on recent court cases that have allowed developers to avoid obligations to provide affordable rental units in newly constructed units, despite clear written agreements and local city laws. After extensive criticism from tenant advocates, city staff finally acknowledged that there was some risk that the rent control promises on new construction might not be enforceable, though Michael Yarne of the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, who has taken the lead on the project, claims that the risk is minimal.

Validating the tenants' concerns, the Civil Grand Jury specifically found that "By not explaining how it will override/resolve potentially conflicting provisions of state law, the Development Agreement does not protect tenants against rent increases as it claims."

The findings stand in stark contrast the developer's recent doorhanger, distributed throughout Parkmerced, characterizing replacement rent control units as guaranteed.

The report also criticized the lack of a project alternative that does not involve mass demolition.

The Development Agreement presumes demolition is necessary, and presents no alternative, or combination of alternatives, that might satisfy the programmatic goals of redevelopment without the demolition of 1583 occupied units.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote whether to approve the project on May 24, 2011.

Santa Barbara and Ventura Landlord Hall of Shame Nominee Spotlighted by Local Media

2011-05-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Santa Barbara Independent has spotlighted Dario Pini, a Santa Barbara and Ventura mega landlord recently nominated to Tenants Together’s Landlord Hall of Shame.

As noted by the Santa Barabara Independent:

Pini is known for consistently racking up complaints against his dozens of properties throughout Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, often neglecting basic upkeep and turning a blind eye to overcrowding. At one point he and his company, Dario Pini Investments, were targeted in a massive police investigation that ended in nearly 800 building code violations and a jail sentence. Pini famously chose to spend 30 days behind bars instead of going on house arrest in one of his rentals.

The need for Tenants Together to shine a public spotlight on California's bad landlords is clear. Since launching it's Landlord Hall of Shame, hundreds of California tenants have suggested nominees and local media outlets have responded to its nominations with great, investigative coverage.

All California tenants can suggest nominees for the Landlord Hall of Shame by going to http://hallofshame.tenantstogether.org. Based on the information submitted and its own research, Tenants Together announces Official Nominees throughout the year. Annually, members of Tenants Together vote to determine which of the Official Nominees will be inducted into the Hall of Shame. Last year’s inductees were Donald Sterling, a Los Angeles area mega landlord and owner of the LA Clippers and David Taran, a East Palo Alto mega landlord and owner of Page Mill Properties.

L.A. Sues Deutsche for Abusing Tenants

2011-05-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

Huge news out of Los Angeles. The City Attorney has sued Deutsche Bank for its treatment of tenants after foreclosure. Tenants Together welcomes this major step toward holding banks accountable for abusing tenants after foreclosure.

Click here for L.A. Times Coverage, and here for the City Attorney's press release.

According to the City Attorney's Office, "Deutsche Bank has become one of the largest slumlords in the City of Los Angeles."

In addition to holding Deutsche accountable for its conduct, this case should serve as a warning to all financial institutions acquiring foreclosed properties that they had better start acting like responsible landlords when they acquire renter-occupied properties.

Local Media Covers Plight of Tenants in Foreclosure

2011-02-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

Tenants are innocent and often forgotten victims of a foreclosure crisis they have done nothing to create.

Tenants Together, continues to lead efforts to mitigate the impact of the foreclosure crisis on tenants. Among other activities, Tenants Together publishes an annual report on California Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis, operates a hotline for tenants in foreclosure situations, and works with local media to spot the crisis and educate tenants.

Recently, News10, ABC in Stockton, KSBY 6, NBC in Santa Maria, the Tribune in San Luis Obispo, and the Los Angeles-based blog, Neon Tommy, ran stories spotlighting our foreclosure work.

Third Annual Foreclosure Report Released: 200,000 California Tenants Affected by Foreclosure Crisis in 2010

2011-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Tenants Together released its third annual report, California Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis. The report highlights recent foreclosure-related developments affecting tenants, quantifies the impact of home foreclosures on tenants in 2010, and makes recommendations to strengthen protections for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Tenants Together conservatively estimates that in 2010, at least 38 percent of residential units in foreclosure in California were rentals, directly affecting over 200,000 tenants, most of whom were displaced from their homes. The report quantifies the impact of the foreclosure crisis at the state and county level.

Tenants Together's annual foreclosure reports are designed to shed light on the plight of tenants in foreclosure situations and offer solutions to the ongoing crisis.

California Tenants Elect Donald Sterling and David Taran to Landlord Hall of Shame

2011-01-20T09:30:00.001-08:00

Tenants across the state elected David Sterling of Los Angeles and David Taran / Page Mill Properties of East Palo Alto as the inaugural inductees to Tenants Together’s Landlord Hall of Shame.

The Landlord Hall of Shame is designed to shine a public spotlight on California’s bad landlords and send a clear message that their actions will be announced and publicized.

Throughout 2010, California tenants suggested nominees for induction into the Hall of Shame. Mr. Sterling and Mr. Taran distinguished themselves from this list of candidates by the egregiousness and scale of their bad conduct.

Donald Sterling, LA Clippers owner and LA-area mega landlord, has been involved in a number of out-of-court settlements in discrimination cases. In 2009, Sterling paid the Department of Justice (DOJ) the largest settlement ever involving a housing discrimination case. According to the DOJ, Sterling "engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, and family status." The DOJ stated that Sterling "refused to rent to African Americans and that his conduct was willful." In 2006, the Housing Rights Center in Los Angeles sued Sterling for discrimination, a case that Sterling settled for an undisclosed amount that included over $5 million in fees. Sterling has also been sued for harassment and employment discrimination based on race by NBA legend and former Clippers General Manager Elgin Baylor.

David Taran, through his company Page Mill Properties, orchestrated and executed a scheme to evict thousands of rent controlled tenants in the city of East Palo Alto (EPA). After acquiring more than half of the rent controlled housing in EPA, this landlord soon began imposing exorbitant rent hikes and aggressively displacing tenants from their homes. Within a few years, the scheme imploded with all units going into foreclosure in 2010, but not before an estimated 1500 tenants lost their homes, according to research by the Fair Rent Coalition of East Palo Alto.

Washington, D.C. Extends Rent Control for 10 Years

2011-01-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

In its final 2010 meeting, Washington, D.C.'s Council voted to extend the city's local rent control for another ten years. The Washington Post summarized the development:

RENT CONTROL. Extended for 10 years the District’s rent-control laws that limit annual rent increases to about 2 percent plus inflation, or no more than 10 percent a year. The 35-year-old program was meant to protect tenants from rising costs. Increases for the elderly and disabled are limited to 5 percent a year; increases on vacant units may rise no more than 30 percent.

California readers will note that, unlike California, D.C. law permits vacancy control -- i.e. the amount that a landlord can increase rent after a vacancy.

Congratulations to the D.C. city council and local tenant activists. Particularly in these difficult economic times, the security provided by rent control laws is essential.

Ninth Circuit Throws Out Rent Control Challenge

2010-12-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

By Dean Preston

Earlier today, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a challenge to the City of Goleta’s mobilehome rent control ordinance. This closely watched case is a major victory for mobilehome residents and rent control.

Tenants Together, National Housing Law Project and other allies had submitted an amicus brief in support of the City of Goleta.

The Ninth Circuit panel squarely rejected the park owners' argument that the rent control law somehow denied them their "investment backed expectation." The court found that the owners knew exactly what they were buying – a property subject to rent control -- and could not now challenge the rent control law as a taking. The court also noted that "the people who really do have investment-backed expectations that might be upset by changes in the rent control system are tenants who bought their mobile homes after rent control went into effect. Ending rent control would be a windfall to the Guggenheims, and a disaster for tenants who bought their mobile homes after rent control was imposed in the 70’s and 80’s."

Speculators like the Guggenheims routinely buy property cheap because of rent control and then turn around and try to invalidate rent control laws claiming that these laws deny them their ‘investment backed expectations’. The court's opinion will make it far more difficult for speculators to use these disingenuous arguments in the future.

Today's decision reverses Judge Jay S. Bybee’s decision from last year. In that decision, Bybee wrote that mobilehome park owners had a constitutional right to compensation by the City because the rent control ordinance constituted a “regulatory taking” under the Fifth Amendment. Despite the fact that the park owner bought the park with full knowledge of the rent control law, Judge Bybee, joined by Nixon-appointee Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, found that the law improperly interfered with the park owner’s “investment backed expectation.”

Judge Bybee, of course, was controversial long before his poorly reasoned anti-rent control decision. Bybee authored the torture memos while at the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, after which he was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. When his responsibility for the torture memos was exposed, there were widespread calls for his impeachment. In April, 2009, The New York Times called for Bybee’s impeachment, stating: "These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution." Bybee was not impeached and remains on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bybee’s Goleta ruling angered many advocates for renters’ rights who saw the court bending over backwards and contorting the law to find in favor of park owners and against those protected by rent control.

Today's en banc decision is an encouraging sign that the Ninth Circuit recognizes the right of cities to adopt and enforce their rent control laws, even if conservative activist judges like Judge Bybee do not.

As a result, many working families and seniors in Goleta and beyond will rest a little easier this holiday season.

Parkmerced tenants turn out to oppose demolition of rent controlled homes

2010-12-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

By Dean Preston

Hundreds of tenants showed up at the Planning Commission last night to speak out against the proposed demolition of over 1500 rent controlled homes in San Francisco's Parkmerced. The hearing began with a contentious exchange between Commission President Ron Miguel and tenants of the property. Residents, many of whom have endured hours of waiting for public comment at prior hearings, demanded that Miguel give the public the opportunity to speak at the beginning of the hearing, rather than after a extensive staff presentation. Miguel ultimately relented, allowing public comment and rescheduling the staff presentation.

Over three hours of public comment followed. Virtually every speaker spoke against the project. The speakers included tenants who had lived at Parkmerced for decades.

Speakers from the Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods spoke near the end. They explained how the developer had presented the plan to their group and had stated that there was not much opposition among Parkmerced residents. They were moved by the public testimony, noting that there was clearly extensive opposition in the community.

Parkmerced is owned by private equity groups that would have the right to sell the complex to the highest bidder once entitlements are obtained. The same ownership group has financed schemes to displace tenants and redevelop rent controlled housing in New York City. These projects ultimately failed due to tenant opposition and financing problems, raising concerns about the financial viability of the massive development project at Parkmerced.

Under the proposal, over 1500 rent controlled "garden apartments" would be demolished. The construction would extend for decades (up to 30 years of construction), creating an environment that would be miserable for the thousands of residents of Parkmerced, many of whom are very long term tenants. The developer claims that tenants would be relocated to new rent controlled units, but serious question exist as to whether such promises are enforceable in light of state law and recent court rulings.

One thing is clear from the hearing. At long last, tenants at Parkmerced are coming together with each other and community allies to stop this project. They are doing so just in time. The Planning Commission will soon decide whether the massive project will proceed.

Details of the Development Agreement, including rent control and relocation issues, will be presented by Planning Department staff at the Planning Commissions meeting next week. For meeting and agenda information, visit www.sfplanning.org.

If the Planning Commission approves the project, residents could appeal to the Board of Supervisors. Commissioner Sugaya spoke after the public testimony, noting that in the end, "it is a political process" and community members should organize and go to their supervisors.

The Planning Commission deserves credit for having this hearing at San Francisco State University, located right next to Parkmerced. This was highly unusual and allowed many tenants -- including seniors and persons with disabilities -- who may not have been able to come to City Hall the opportunity to participate. The Commission should consider hosting future key meetings concerning the project at the same location given that Parkmerced is so far from City Hall.

Notably absent from the meeting were any politicians. The District's supervisor, Sean Elsbernd, was not present and has been largely silent about this massive redevelopment project proposed in his district. Despite the large number of tenants affected and the city wide implications of the proposed project, not a single mayoral candidate attended the hearing. Expect this to change as the rest of the city realizes the importance of this fight. In the meantime, Supervisors should be urged to tune in to SFGTV this evening at 8:15 to watch the powerful testimony against this project.

Tenants Together opposes the demolition of over 1500 rent controlled homes, particularly given the inadequate tenant protections. Until state law changes to guarantee that demolished rent controlled housing can be replaced with new rent controlled housing, it is hard to see how responsible city officials could approve such a project.

If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, please email info@tenantstogether.org.

Tenants Defeat Ellis Act Eviction in San Francisco

2010-12-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

Tenants at a six-unit building in San Francisco prevailed in an Ellis Act eviction case when a San Francisco Superior Court Judge granted summary judgment for the tenants.

As reported earlier this week by Paul Hogarth of BeyondChron.org, the tenants' prior landlords, Kip and Nicole Macy,

had made local headlines for their battle of intimidation that included hacking into the tenants’ e-mails, cutting out the floor boards, and breaking into their units – after failing to get them out with an Ellis eviction. The Macy’s landed in jail and foreclosed on the building in April 2010, but the new owners tried to add themselves as plaintiffs in the dormant Ellis case. But in the meantime, three of the units had been re-rented – proving the Macy’s didn’t intend to go “out of the rental business.” The Tenderloin Housing Clinic’s Steve Collier represented the tenants in successfully fighting the Ellis eviction.

This is Collier's second major Ellis Act victory this year. In another closely watched case, he represented Chinatown seniors who refused to vacate when a speculator bought their home and used the Ellis Act to try to evict them. As part of the resolution of that case, the tenants will remain in their homes.

Collier, a staff attorney at Tenderloin Housing Clinic and an expert on Ellis Act evictions, also serves as President of the Board of Directors of Tenants Together.

We congratulate Steve Collier and the tenants he represents for their determined and successful opposition to abusive Ellis Act evictions.

Fresno Paper Publishes Story on Hall of Shame

2010-12-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

Since 1996, Community Alliance has served as the voice of the progressive movement in Fresno. The front page of their December issue features a story written by TT Organizer Giti Dadlani about the Landlord Hall of Shame.

From Community Alliance:
For years, tenants have tolerated landlord harassment, illegal evictions, hazardous living conditions and other forms of abuse with little recourse. Irresponsible landlords get away with these wrongful actions because of a lack of oversight, transparency and accountability. The lack of public information about these bad actors leaves tenants with no way to learn, in advance, if they are entering into a contract with an unscrupulous landlord, and no way to expose unethical or illegal behavior after the fact.

Visit Community Alliance's website for the full story.

Hall of Shame of Nomination Sparks Media Exposé on Fresno Mega-Landlord

2010-12-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

After years of neglect, Fresno-based mega-landlord, JD Home Rentals sent a maintenance crew to one of its dilapidated rental properties after a nomination to Tenants Together’s Landlord Hall of Shame landed it in local evening news.

The story was covered by two local TV channels: KSEE 26, NBC and KMPH 24, Fox.

JD Home Rentals, owned and operated by father-son pair John and David Hovannisian, is notorious for renting substandard homes to Fresno’s most vulnerable tenants, including immigrants and low-income residents. The Better Business Bureau of Central California has given JD Home Rentals an ‘F’ score for receiving and failing to respond to a high number of complaints.

Afraid of retaliatory evictions, many JD Home Rentals tenants don’t complain about their substandard living conditions. When they do, their complaints generally go unanswered.

In response to the media spotlight, JD Home Rentals sent representatives to address complaints at one location. See video

It remains to be seen what repairs, if any, the mega-landlord will actually make.

Tenants Together will continue to keep the public pressure on JD Home Rentals and work with local tenant leaders and advocates to make sure that JD Home Rentals brings all its rental properties up to standard so its tenants can live healthy and dignified lives.

Banks Continue Mass Eviction of Tenants after Foreclosure: New Report Compares National Banks’ Rental Policies

2010-11-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

In May 2010, in response to the devastating impact the foreclosure crisis has had on tenants and their communities, we delivered our Win-Win Proposal: A Proposal for Banks to Continue Renting to California Tenants After Foreclosure to all major national banks acquiring tenant-occupied foreclosed properties. The Win-Win Proposal demands that banks comply with existing tenant-protection laws and continue to rent to tenants after foreclosure, including those with month-to-month rental agreements.

Our new report, Without Justification: Banks Continue Mass Displacement of Innocent Tenants after Foreclosure, analyzes the rental policies and actions of the major national banks acquiring tenant-occupied foreclosed. As detailed in the report, banks continue to maintain callous and irrational rental policies that lead to the mass eviction of tenants after foreclosure. Only Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase have adopted policies in line with our Win-Win Proposal. Unfortunately, these rental policies are often undermined in practice by the actions of real estate agents and eviction lawyers hired by the banks to handle their tenant-occupied properties.

Illinois Sheriff Takes a Stand – Will Any California Sheriffs Follow?

2010-10-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

Two years ago, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart took a bold step by refusing to evict innocent tenants after foreclosure. His actions were challenged in court, but were settled with new requirements imposed on banks before they can proceed with tenant evictions. His actions also put a national spotlight on the plight of tenants in foreclosure situations at a time when few were paying attention to this issue.

Now Sheriff Dart is back in the news, taking a similarly principled stand. Sheriff Dart refuses to evict families from foreclosed properties if banks can’t confirm that the foreclosures were done properly.

Dart announced his new moratorium after national revelations about fraudulent foreclosure filings. On behalf of banks, “robo-signers” (or, as eviction defense lawyer Wallace Oman prefers to call them, “robo-perjurers”) have signed off on countless illegal foreclosures leading to unnecessary displacement and misery across the country. Our government appears to have little appetite for holding these banks accountable or keeping residents in their homes.

Last week, Sheriff Dart wrote to Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and GMAC/Ally Financial, giving the banks five business days to respond and establish that their controversial evictions were legal. The moratorium took effect this week and will stop or at least delay the eviction of hundreds of families in Cook County. According to Dart’s website, “Dart's office has 500 eviction orders waiting to be executed, with 1,000 more being prepared to be executed - 1/3 of which would be impacted by such a moratorium.”

“I can’t possibly be expected to evict people from their homes when the banks themselves can’t say for sure everything was done properly,” Dart said. “I need some kind of assurance that we aren’t evicting families based on fraudulent behavior by the banks. Until that happens, I can’t in good conscience keep carrying out evictions involving these banks.”

Dart is reportedly planning to extend the moratorium on evictions to other financial institutions if there is evidence of similar questionable foreclosure practices. He has also demanded that bank attorneys provide an affidavit confirming that their foreclosure filings were proper.

“With banks changing hands two or three times and mortgages constantly being purchased by different lenders, we just don’t know how vast this problem is,” Dart said. “What I do know is that there is a cloud over every one of their foreclosure filings.”

Other than Sheriff Dart, sheriffs across the nation have been largely silent about their role in carrying out improper post-foreclosure evictions. Sheriffs are the final link in the eviction chain. Their deputies are the ones who physically go to properties, throw out residents and their possessions, and change the locks. When they do so pursuant to bogus filings by banks, sheriffs become accomplices to these illegal evictions.

Some sheriffs have expressed frustration with their role in evicting renters and other innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis, but few take action to defend residents from abuse at the hands of banks. Instead, they argue that they are just following orders, while residents lose their homes and neighborhoods become vacant.

To date, no California sheriff has adopted a policy of refusing to carry out banks’ illegal post-foreclosure evictions. Any sheriff who does will instantly become a local hero or, as in Sheriff Dart’s case, a national one.

Article originally published by Beyond Chron

Bay Guardian Covers Landlord Hall of Shame

2010-09-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Check out Rebecca Bowe's piece in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, New Website Featured Worst Landlords Ever.

"Tenants Together, a statewide nonprofit advocating for tenants’ rights, has launched a new website that allows tenants to nominate their landlords as the worst ever in California.

The Landlord Hall of Shame features a listing of landlords who’ve been suggested, officially nominated, or installed by vote into the Hall of Shame. The aim is to spotlight landlords who disrespect tenants' rights, try to force tenants out for their own economic gain, or act in some other egregious way that makes life miserable for a renter. While none of them will be dubbed Hall of Shamers until December, a couple of official nominees already sound like tough contenders."

To read the full article, click here.

The Landlord Hall of Shame was launched on Thursday, September 23, and has already generated significant interest and excitement. Tenants across California are suggesting potential nominees. To suggest a nominee, click here.

Tenants Together Launches Landlord Hall of Shame

2010-09-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today, Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for tenants’ rights,launched its Landlord Hall of Shame.

The Landlord Hall of Shame is designed to expose the worst landlords in California. Through the Landlord Hall of Shame, Tenants Together hopes to publicly shame bad landlords and deter future misconduct by landlords.

The first two Official Nominees to the Landlord Hall of Shame are Palo Alto-based real estate Developer David Taran and Bakersfield-based mega landlord Frank St. Clair.

Congratulations to Mr. Taran and Mr. St. Clair on their nomination to the Hall of Shame. They've been selected in recognition of the extensive misery they've caused California tenants.

Using an easy online form, California tenants can nominate a landlord for consideration to the Hall of Shame by going to http://hallofshame.tenantstogether.org. Tenants Together plans to announce Official Nominees throughout the year. Annually, members of Tenants Together vote to determine which of the Official Nominees will be inducted into the Hall of Shame.

The message to bad California landlords is clear. Clean up your act, or be ready for a public shaming.

Know Your Rights: Security Deposits

2010-09-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

We have recently received a high number of phone calls from tenants with questions about their security deposits. Here are some quick facts for you to know about your security deposit.

-The deposit may not exceed the amount of two months’ rent (three months if furnished)

-The tenant is not responsible for any damage or wear and tear done by an earlier tenant.

-The landlord must return your deposit within three weeks after you move out; if the landlord retains part or all of the deposit, he/she must give or mail you an “itemized statement” in writing with an explanation and receipts for work done and items purchased, if the amount is $125 or more, and return the rest to you.

-Tenants who moved in after January 1, 2003 have the right to a pre-move-out inspection of their rental to learn about any possible deductions.

-To avoid any tenant-landlord disputes around cleaning after you leave your rental unit, be sure to carefully document your cleaning work through pictures and witnesses.

-A landlord who sells the building is supposed to return the deposit to the tenant OR transfer it to the new owner.

-If your rental was foreclosed and is now owned by a bank or investor, these new owners must account for and return the deposit, regardless of whether the defaulting owner turned the deposit over to the deed or mortgage holder before the foreclosure.

-If three weeks have passed and you still have not received your deposit, you can write a demand letter to your landlord and/or you can sue. The landlord may be liable not just for the amount of the deposit, but for up to two times the amount of the deposit as a penalty for withholding the deposit in bad faith.

For more information, see our complete FAQ or call our hotline at 888-495-8020.

Reference: California Civil Code Section 1950.5
California Tenants’ Rights by Attorneys Janet Portman and David Brown. Published by Nolo Press.

Legislature Passes Bill to Protect Innocent Tenants From Having their Credit Ruined by Banks; Will Governor Sign or Veto?

2010-09-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

Tenants evicted through no fault of their own frequently have their credit history damaged for years. In California, where hundreds of thousands of tenants are being evicted by banks because their landlords went into foreclosure, these credit impacts are particularly harsh. Fortunately, a bill by state senator Ellen Corbett (D – San Leandro) would limit this collateral damage to innocent renters. Readers can weigh in by signing the online petition urging the Governor to approve Senator Corbett’s bill.

Years ago, California’s legislature tried to stop credit reporting companies from reporting evictions unless tenants were proven to have done something wrong by entry of judgment against them. The law, which is still on the books, provides that these companies can only report evictions where landlords obtain judgments against the tenants. Unfortunately, the courts severely restricted the law, ruling that reporting companies have a first amendment right to report eviction records that are public.

As a result, currently the courts “mask” eviction records (meaning they restrict public access to those court records), but only if the tenant prevails within 60 days of the date the case is filed. Because the timing of eviction cases is generally out of the tenants’ control, this means that tenants facing an eviction lawsuit must risk damage to their credit because they have no idea if the case will be resolved in their favor within that time frame. Amazingly, even when a tenant prevails and shows that an eviction was entirely bogus, if the tenant prevails more than 60 days after the case is filed, the eviction will show up on future tenant screening reports, effectively blacklisting the tenant. For this reason, even though many bank evictions after foreclosure are totally illegal, tenants are often afraid to assert their rights for fear that it will damage their credit history.

SB 1149, co-sponsored by the California Reinvestment Coalition and the Western Center on Law & Poverty, takes an important step to address this issue. In addition to requiring banks to provide better notice to tenants after foreclosure of their rights, the law would also limit access to eviction records in post-foreclosure situations. Such records would only become public if the bank prevailed in the eviction court case.

The law was authored by Senator Ellen Corbett. Sen. Corbett has proven herself a strong advocate for basic fairness for renters in recent years. While many politicians ignore the plight of California’s renters, Sen. Corbett clearly understands that both homeowners and renters are impacted by the foreclosure crisis. She has used her position as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to bring attention to the plight of tenants in foreclosed properties and work toward legislative solutions that protect renters in this precarious situation. For this, she deserves great credit.

The legislature passed SB 1149. To see how your legislators voted, click here. The bill is now before the governor. The governor has vetoed other tenant bills in recent years, but did sign legislation in 2008 that provided additional notice for tenants in foreclosed properties. The governor has not announced his position on SB 1149.

Tenants Together has set up an online petition to urge Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 1149. Please sign the petition today. Tenants should not be blacklisted because of evictions arising from their landlords' failure to pay the mortgage.

Article originally published by Beyond Chron

Action Guide for California Tenants in Foreclosure Situations Released

2010-07-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

Due to overwhelming demand, Tenants Together, California’s Statewide Organization for Renters’ Rights, today released the Action Guide for California Tenants in Foreclosure Situations to help tenants caught up as innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis learn, assert, and expand their rights.

The Action Guide includes four sections:

· Section 1 helps tenants learn what stage in the foreclosure process their home is in.

· Section 2 helps tenants learn and assert their rights so they can stay in their home for as long as possible, maintain their home in a habitable condition, live free of harassment from their landlord, and recover their security deposit.

· Section 3 helps tenants learn how they can pressure bad actors (typically banks, private investors, real estate agents, and eviction law firms) by shining a public spotlight on them. The Action Guide includes downloadable sample-letters to banks and to elected officials as well as a web-based, sample letter to the editor.

· Section 4 helps tenants work to expand their rights by forming local Tenant Action Groups and by demanding that their city council pass a local just cause for eviction ordinances to provide long-term protections for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Time and again we have seen banks and private investors back down when tenants stand up for their rights. Our Action Guide will help tenants fight back and turn the tables on these abusive landlords after foreclosure

For a printer-friendly version of press release, click here

President Obama extends and clarifies the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act

2010-07-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

By Kent Qian

Last week, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Public Law 111-203). The Act is most known for reforming the financial system and creating an independent consumer protection agency. But more importantly for renters, Section 1484 of the Act extends the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) to 2014 and clarifies that the PTFA protects all bona fide tenants who entered into a lease before the transfer of title by foreclosure.

Under the PTFA, all bona fide tenants must receive a 90-day notice before they may be required to vacate. Tenants with more than 90 days remaining on a lease may remain until the end of the lease, if the tenant entered into the lease before the "notice of foreclosure." Initially, the term "notice of foreclosure" was not defined in the PTFA. Seizing on this ambiguity, banks and other post-foreclosure owners have insisted that "notice of foreclosure" means one of the earlier foreclosure notices, such as a notice of default sent to a defaulting borrower in California. Tenant advocates, on the other hand, argued that the PTFA's legislative history evidenced Congressional intent to protect all leases entered into before the transfer of title by foreclosure. Until now, the case law on what "notice of foreclosure" means has been mixed.

The Dodd-Frank Act removes this ambiguity by defining the date of "notice of foreclosure" to be the date complete title transfers through foreclosure. Because it is meant as a clarification of existing law, this provision should apply retroactively to pending evictions to ensure that bona fide tenants may remain until the end of any lease entered into with a landlord who still owned the property at the time.

Kent Qian is a Skadden Fellow at the National Housing Law Project. His work at NHLP focuses on protecting renters' rights in foreclosure.

Sacramento Renters: We Deserve More

2010-07-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

By Alison Brennan

Sacramento is one of the many places in the country where tenants are nonpersons. Coming from the Bay Area where the majority of the population rents and where tenant participation in civic affairs is expected, it was a bit of a shock to find out that, in Sacramento, tenants cannot expect to get many of the services from government and elected officials that homeowners receive as a matter of course.

My first experience of this was when I sought to obtain legal counsel for one of my neighbors who was threatened with eviction by the property manager. Unfortunately for the property manager, she sought to evict my neighbor for complaining about conditions at the property--one of the few instances in which tenants are protected from eviction by law. All I wanted was to find a lawyer who could write a stern letter to the property manager explaining that and, of course, detailing the consequences if she pursued the eviction. So I did what people do in San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley all the time. I called my City Councilmember's office. And was stunned when his staff person informed me that she couldn't help me, but could have helped me had I been a landlord seeking the same assistance. Gulp.

My next encounter with government officials was when I sought to get a copy of a county publication, "River-Friendly Landscape Guidelines," which I'd read about on one of the local gardening websites. I got online and requested it, leaving the space to indicate whether I was a homeowner or landscaper blank. The county did send it to me, but first telephoned to grill me as to my intentions. Gulp. Again.

It's unfortunately no surprise that our government officials and the local press have largely ignored the effect of the foreclosure crisis on tenants. So today, Tenants Together is taking us to the City Council meeting, where will attempt to interest them in the plight of the thousands (yes, thousands!) of tenants who were displaced when their landlords allowed their buildings to go into foreclosure. Maybe they will "see the light", but I suspect that this will only be the beginning of a long process.

Alison Brennan is a member of Tenants Together who lives in Sacramento. She runs a blog entitled Tenants and Foreclosure: Information for California Renters in Foreclosed Properties, which is a valuable resource for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Committee stops anti-rent control bill

2010-07-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

AB 761 (Calderon) would have been devastating to mobilehome residents who are protected by rent control. Mobilehome owners are both owners and renters: they own their homes, but rent the land underneath from park owners. AB 761 was the latest in a series of attacks on rent control by greedy park owners and their allies in state government.

Last year, AB 761 narrowly failed, and the bill was back in this second year of this 2-year legislative session. Fortunately, Judiciary Committee members Senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) stood firm against powerful park owners that seek to take rent protections away from residents.

This is a major victory for mobilehome residents, especially the many seniors living on fixed incomes in mobilehome parks.

Congratulations to the Golden State Manufactured-home Owners' League (GSMOL). GSMOL closely monitored the legislation, mobilized residents against this unfair attack on rent control, and successfully lobbied to defeat it. Score one for the good guys.

California Attorney General Announces Investigation into Banks’ Treatment of Tenants after Foreclosure

2010-06-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Since launching our Tenant Foreclosure Hotline we have counseled over 4,000 tenants in foreclosure situations. Most of the callers to our hotline report being harassed and mislead by post-foreclosure landlords and their agents.

I’m happy to report that, at the urging of housing advocates, California’s Attorney General, Jerri Brown has launched an investigation to ensure compliance with tenant-protection laws by banks and private investors acquiring tenant-occupied, foreclosed properties. The investigation, announced this week, comes after Tenants Together and 20 allied housing rights and public interest groups from across California brought rampant violations of tenant protection laws to the attention of the Attorney General. The coalition urged Attorney General Brown to take action in response to a pattern of illegal conduct and tenant harassment by banks, real estate agents, and lawyers in their treatment of tenants after foreclosure.

“Tenants who live in properties in foreclosure are the forgotten victims of the collapse of the housing market,” Attorney General Brown said. “We’ll fight every step of the way to ensure they aren’t rousted from their homes in violation of the law.”

The Attorney General’s press release provides further detail on the demands to the industry:

As a part of his investigation, Brown today sent letters to 24 banks, loan servicers, private investors, and law firms demanding information about whether they are complying with federal, state, and local laws regarding foreclosed properties and their treatment of tenants… In his letter, Attorney General Brown requires banks, loan servicers, private investors and law firms to provide information by July 19 about their policies and procedures when dealing with foreclosed properties and current tenants. It specifically asks the recipients to outline how they ‘promote or preserve tenancies after foreclosure.’

We will continue to monitor the Attorney General’s investigation and report on its progress.

Make San Francisco’s Rent Board More Pro-Tenant

2010-06-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

By Ted Gullicksen

On Thursday, the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors will be hearing a proposed ballot measure for November which would increase tenant representation on San Francisco’s Rent Board and give Supervisors authority over appointments. The hearing will be Thursday, July 1, at 11:00 AM in Room 263 of San Francisco City Hall.

Right now the Rent Board is made up of five members: two landlords, two tenants, and one homeowner. All of them are appointed by Mayor Newsom (who is opposed to rent control) and they serve at his pleasure. The proposal, sponsored by Sup. David Campos would make the Board three tenants, two landlords, and two homeowners; half of them would be appointed by the Board of Supervisors, half by the Mayor, and one would be selected jointly by the Board and Mayor.

The Rent Board has the power to write regulations, decide cases, and determine rent control policy. Right now, tenants have to work to prevent the Board from rolling back rent control. The Campos proposal will give us the chance to use the Rent Board to strengthen rent control and expand our rights.

Please come and show your support for this proposed ballot measure!

Ted Gullicksen is the Director of the San Francisco Tenants Union.

Senator Lou Correa Kills Nation's First Predatory Equity Bill

2010-06-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

Senator Lou Correa, a Democratic state senator from Orange County, has killed the nation’s first bill to stop predatory investments that displace renters from their homes. The bill, AB 2337, authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), sought to ban the state’s public employee pension funds from investing in “predatory equity” schemes. The issue gained significant attention after real estate investments by CalPERS and CalSTRS in East Palo Alto and New York City resulted in the displacement of thousands of rent-controlled tenants and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.

State Senator Lou Correa’s committee stopped the bill yesterday at the request of the California Association of Realtors and landlord groups. Correa has received significant campaign donations from landlord and realtor interests.

“Only someone in the pocket of landlords and realtors could possibly oppose this bill,” said Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights. “There’s no other explanation for Senator Correa’s decision to kill this legislation.”

Tenants Together and the East Palo Alto Fair Rent Coalition co-sponsored the bill to prevent workers’ retirement funds from being invested in schemes to evict working people. The bill had the broad support of at least twenty nonprofit housing organizations, labor groups and government entities. The only opponents were several landlord groups and the California Association of Realtors.

The California Bankers’ Association, which originally opposed the bill, removed its opposition based on substantial author’s amendments that narrowed the scope of the bill. CalPERS and CalSTRS, the very entities whose investments would have been restricted under the bill, also took a neutral stance on the bill after amendments were incorporated into the language of the bill.

The full Assembly had approved the bill by a vote of 43-30 before it landed before Senator Correa’s Public Employment and Retirement Committee yesterday. Senator Correa did not pose a single question at the hearing to the author or witnesses about merits of the bill, instead derailing the bill without explanation.

Despite these developments, Ammiano’s groundbreaking bill was not in vain. The bill forced a discussion about predatory equity investment practices and drew considerable media attention to the problem. Additionally, in response to the bill, CalPERS and CalSTRS adopted new internal policies banning future predatory real estate investments, a move praised by tenant advocates as a major step toward stopping public pension funds from financing evictions.

Court Slams NYC Rent Board for Exceeding Its Authority

2010-06-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Each year, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) passes a rent increase for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments.

In June 2008, with the economy on the decline, the RGB passed 4.5 and 8.5 percent increases for one and two-year renewals, respectively. But some tenants were forced to take on even higher rent hikes. The RGB passed a guideline with a “supplemental increase” provision, also known as a “poor tax.” Tenants who have lived in their home for six years or more and pay $1,000 or less in monthly rent were ordered to pay a dollar increase rather than the usual percentage increase. The 2008 increases were $45 and $85 for one and two-year renewals for tenants who fell into that category. In 2009, the board passed high increases of 3 and 6 percent, with a poor tax of $30 and $60.

The nine board members are appointed by the mayor, and the chair serves without term limits, at the pleasure of the Mayor. While there are legislative efforts to remedy this imbalance of power, tenants and advocates have taken other measures to put a stop to what they believe are illegal acts by the RGB. With the help of the Legal Aid Society and South Brooklyn Legal Services, New York-based tenants’ rights organization Tenants & Neighbors, along with two tenants directly affected by the supplemental increase, sued the Rent Guidelines Board for exceeding its authority by creating different classes of housing accommodations.

Ellen Davidson, attorney with the Legal Aid Society, explains, “About three weeks after the final vote, the Appellate Division, 2nd Department came down with its decision in New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition v. Nassau County Rent Guidelines Board. In that case, the 2nd Department invalidated a separate rent increase for low-income tenants, holding that the Board had improperly created a new class of accommodation. Creating classes of accommodations was left to the legislature only. We then used this claim to file our case.”

In January, the Supreme Court of New York County issued a decision in favor of the tenants. The Rent Guidelines Board posted an alert on its website stating that the supplemental increases from 2008 and 2009 were not in effect and immediately took steps to appeal the decision. While some tenants continued to pay the high increases and watch the appeal process, other tenants simply could not afford the increases and were forced to leave their homes.

Six months after the initial wave of good news, tenants received another. One week ago, just two days before the RGB’s annual vote, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision and invalidated the supplemental rent increases passed by the RGB. Tenants are entitled to money back from their landlords. According to Ed Josephson of South Brooklyn Legal Services, tenants can request a refund or credit from their landlord. If the landlord does not respond, the tenant can either subtract the overpayment from the rent or sue in small claims court.

Next, the Rent Guidelines Board will ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to review the case. In the meantime, the board continues to do business as usual. Rather than approve a rent freeze during this damaging economic crisis, the board passed rent increases of 2.25% for a one-year renewal and 4.5% for a two-year renewal. These are the lowest increases that board has passed in eight years.

Private Investors Blatantly Violate Tenant-Protection Laws after Foreclosure

2010-06-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

While callers to our Tenant Foreclosure Hotline routinely report being harassed and mislead by agents of banks acquiring foreclosed properties into vacating their homes prematurely, some of the most atrocious violations also come at the hands of private investors.

In a recent interview with KGET Channel 17, NBC-Bakersfield, Frank St. Clair, the managing broker for the Bakersfield-based Bella Vista Real Estate, LLC stated that he was moving forward with the post-foreclosure eviction of a tenant with a long-term lease. Mr. St. Clair denied that his tenants are protected by the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA), stating that the federal law “pertains to the banks that are the foreclosing entity. I am not the foreclosing entity, I’m a third party and therefore I don’t have to honor a lease.”

Mr. St. Clair’s position is 100% wrong. The PTFA applies to both banks and private investors, stating that “in case of foreclosure…any immediate successor in interest in such property pursuant to the foreclosure shall assume such interest subject to” the existing lease. Bella Vista Real Estate, LLC is clearly subject to the PTFA, having acquired at least 30 foreclosed properties at trustee sale over the last nine months.

Unfortunately, Mr. St. Clair’s callous, above-the-law attitude is commonplace among private investors acquiring foreclosed properties. Tenants Together will continue to monitor these private investors and take the necessary steps to assure their compliance with tenant-protection laws.

Kagan Proves It's Time To Amend The Federal Fair Housing Act

2010-06-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

By Jessica Gafkowitz

This past weekend's breaking news about Elena Kagan has added urgency to Alternatives to Marriage's call for for Congress to amend the federal Fair Housing Act to ban marital status discrimination in housing across the nation.

Even though California has strong fair housing laws, everyone reading this blog could know someone who has been discriminated against. Over one half of American households are headed by unmarried people, including nearly 6.15 million households headed by cohabiting couples (of whom 88.6% are different-sex couples). Marital status discrimination in housing is both widespread and legal - and completely unfair however, only about half of U.S. states and many localities prohibit it. In states that are silent on the issue, a landlord can legally refuse to rent to an unmarried couple, a town can decree that unmarried families, roommates or extended families cannot live certain neighborhoods.

While a new bill has been introduced (H.R. 4820 The Fair and Inclusive Housing Rights Act) that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, this is not enough - marital status must also be added. AtMP also calls on states that have existing laws against marital status discrimination to enforce them, and calls for the repeal of all anti-cohabitation laws.

As Tenants Together points out in their blog post on this issue, back in 1995-1996, Elena Kagan recommended federal intervention over a California Supreme Court ruling that a landlord's religious freedom was not burdened by a state law prohibiting housing discrimination on the basis of marital status.

Alternatives to Marriage is a non-profit organization that advocates for the fairness and equality for ALL unmarried people and against marital status discrimination, AtMP opposes her nomination unless she withdraws her former statement and demonstrates an understanding about the injustices of marital status discrimination.

Join our call to expand the federal Fair Housing Act and speak out against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s outrageous statement that a landlord’s religious beliefs justify denying housing to an unmarried couple!

Jessica Gafkowitz is a communications assistant at Alternatives to Marriage. She can be reached at jgafkowitz@unmarried.org

Judges Rewrite Ellis Act

2010-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

This week, appellate judges re-wrote California's Ellis Act to find that a landlord cannot waive its rights under the Ellis Act. The Case is Embassy LLC v. City of Santa Monica.

The Legislature is supposed to make the law which the courts then apply. When it comes to California's Ellis Act, however, we have two legislative bodies: The elected legislature that enacted the law and the judiciary that rewrites the Act to benefit landlords.

Here's what happened in the Santa Monica case. The City and landlord Embassy LLC entered into a settlement agreement ten years ago in which the landlord expressly waived its right to withdraw the rental units under California's Ellis Act. Subsequently, in August 2008, the same landlord sought to withdraw the units and evict the tenants under the Ellis Act. The City rejected the filing based on the landlord's waiver of the right to invoke the Ellis Act in the earlier settlement agreement.

The landlord sued to compel the city to allow it to withdraw the units from the rental market, notwithstanding the fact that the landlord had given up the right to invoke Ellis. The landlord asserted that the waiver it had signed was unenforceable as a matter of law. The trial court correctly threw out the landlord's lawsuit. The landlord appealed.

Earlier this week, the Court of Appeal sided with the landlord. The court reached the remarkable conclusion that "the Ellis Act provides that a contractual waiver is unenforceable."

Of course, the Ellis Act says no such thing. The Act says nothing about contractual waivers. Nor would there be any reason for the Act to address waivers by a landlord. The point of the Act was to give a landlord who complies with the Act a way out of the rental market, not empower landlords who falsely promise to stay in the rental market the ability to violate their written agreements.

When the legislature wants to provide that rights are nonwaivable, it knows how to do it. There are California statutes that specify that tenants cannot waive certain rights such as the right to jury trial, the right to proper notice of eviction and the right to habitable living conditions. This reflects the determination of the legislature that tenants usually have little bargaining power and should not be held to contractual provisions that require them to waive statutory rights.

There is no similar "nonwaiver" provision in California law for landlords, and certainly not one in the Ellis Act. At least there wasn't until the Court of Appeal created one this week without legislative approval.

The City of Santa Monica will now decide whether to petition the California Supreme Court for review of this obviously incorrect decision.

Elena Kagan – Friend of Renters?

2010-06-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

In 1987, Elena Kagan, as clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, stood up for rent control, characterizing a challenge to its constitutionality as “absurd” and “outrageous.” In the mid-1990s, Kagan, as counsel to President Bill Clinton, authored a memo supporting a landlords’ right to discriminate based on marital status.

So which is it? Is Kagan sympathetic to the rights or renters or not? The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to find out.

Kagan was absolutely correct in her memo of 1987. Property rights zealots have come up with some wild theories over the years as to why rent control laws are unconstitutional. Kagan and many fair-minded judges over the years have rejected these ideologically driven arguments, though they keep resurfacing in the hopes that judges will eventually adopt them.

A recent New York Times article questions whether the 1987 memo reflects Kagan’s personal view or that of the Justice she was working for: “it is not clear how much the memorandums reflect her thinking today. At her confirmation hearing to be Solicitor General last year, Ms. Kagan sought to distance herself from them, saying that she no longer agreed with some and that her job as a clerk was to ‘channel’ Justice Marshall’s views.”

The nominee’s family history suggests she should be sympathetic to the plight of renters. Kagan grew up in an apartment in New York City. Her father, Robert Kagan, had a small law firm that “mostly represented tenants.” According to his obituary, his work also included “securing housing for poor families displaced by the construction of Lincoln Center, and opposing Westway, a proposed superhighway through residential areas.” Kagan is probably the only Supreme Court nominee in history whose parent was a tenant rights lawyer.

Nonetheless, Kagan took a disturbing position in the mid-1990s. As White House Counsel to President Clinton, Kagan issued a memo highly critical of a California housing discrimination case. In the case, the Court had held that housing discrimination laws prevented a landlord from refusing to rent to a couple based on marital status. The landlord in the case claimed that her refusal to rent to an unmarried couple was based on her religious opposition to sex outside of marriage. Kagan believed that the anti-discrimination statute in question stifled the landlord’s religious freedom, and she urged the Solicitor General to weigh in on the side of the landlord in the case.

Kagan’s confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin on June 28 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The New York Times predicts: “in an era in which the government’s power to encroach on property rights has been a hot issue, Ms. Kagan could face sharp Republican questions at her confirmation hearing about her strong reaction to the rent-control ruling.”

Liberals on the committee -- including Senator Chuck Schumer, who has recently taken a leadership role in protecting rent control housing from predatory equity schemes -- should not wait for Republicans to raise these issues as if there were something wrong with supporting rent control and other tenant protections. Instead, they should proactively seek assurances that Kagan supports renters’ rights, particularly in light of her disturbing position on California housing discrimination case.

The Roberts Court has shown little regard for precedent. The activists on the court would not think twice about striking down rent control, housing discrimination laws and other measures that run counter to the political beliefs of the conservatives on the high court. With approximately one third of Americans living as renters, it is important that liberal Judiciary Committee members make sure that Kagan will uphold existing laws that protect renters.

A strong statement of support for basic renter protections would go a long way toward assuring Americans that this Supreme Court nominee has compassion for the plight of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet.

[Article originally published by Beyond Chron]

The Fall of CitiApartments

2010-06-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

Real estate company CitiApartments, founded by Frank Lembi, is notorious for being one of the worst residential landlords in San Francisco. Their business model was predicated upon the displacement of tenants from their homes in order to circumvent rent control protections and maximize profits.

The combination of the economic crisis and strong tenant organizing efforts has led CitiApartments to their demise. The owners of 16 properties filed for bankruptcy in February 2010, and 20 properties were acquired by another company (LNM) just a couple of weeks ago. An additional 24 buildings are headed for foreclosure. The tactics once used by CitiApartments and its affiliates to harass tenants out of their apartments, including threatening phone calls, utility shutoffs, unannounced visits, and chronic construction work, have significantly subsided.

But the fight isn’t over. An article in the San Francisco Bay Guardian highlights that tenants have yet to receive their security deposits, spurring a class-action lawsuit against 57 corporate defendants associated with CitiApartments.

Read the full article at sfbg.com.

Tenants Together Delivers Win-Win Proposal to JPMorgan Chase

2010-06-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Tenants Together met with representatives of JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the largest-post foreclosure landlords, to talk about the nightmare situations tenants living in foreclosed homes are going through. Tenants Together hand delivered its Win-Win proposal to Peter Baker, Chase’s California Chairman and Steven Stein, Chase’s Senior Vice President of Home Lending.

Our Win-Win Proposal urges financial institutions acquiring foreclosed properties to, among other things, enforce a zero-tolerance policy for non-compliance with existing tenant-protection laws and to not evict tenants without just cause.

The Chase representatives acknowledged the urgency of the situation and committed to responding to the proposal quickly. We’ll let you know how they respond. Our thanks to the California Reinvestment Coalition for facilitating this meeting with Chase.

Parkmerced in Default: What Now for Owners’ Plan to Bulldoze Over 1,500 Rent-Controlled Homes?

2010-06-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

A new article by our director challenges the development plans at San Francisco's Parkmerced.

The owners of Parkmerced cannot pay their mortgage, yet they want permission from the city to demolish more than 1500 rent controlled homes. While most of the public discussion about the proposed development project has been about environmental, transit and preservation issues, the planned demolition of so many rent-controlled housing units is reason alone to stop this project.

Read the full article at BeyondChron.org.

Bay Area Legal Aid Wins Appeal For Tenants in Foreclosed Homes

2010-05-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

By Spencer Wilson, Bay Area Legal Aid

The Appellate Division of Contra Costa County Superior Court handed down a major victory for California’s innocent tenant victims of foreclosure. The three judge panel reversed a trial court decision to evict a low-income single mother and her three school-age children from a foreclosed home they lawfully occupied. With the assistance of Bay Area Legal Aid’s Tenants After Foreclosure Project, the displaced tenants appealed the faulty decision, arguing that the trial court had misapplied a new federal law and a new state law designed to help tenants living in foreclosed properties.

The trial court erred by holding that a 30-Day notice was sufficient basis for an eviction lawsuit, even though tenants in foreclosed properties are entitled to more time before an eviction lawsuit can be brought. Under the recently enacted Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA), tenants in foreclosed properties are entitled to a 90-day notice prior to commencement of an eviction lawsuit. A similar state law entitles these tenants to a 60-day notice.

The Appellate Division recognized the errors of the trial court, reversed the decision, and ordered the trial court to dismiss the eviction lawsuit. This decision elucidates the federal and state protections for tenants in foreclosed properties and will help ensure that the rights of these often overlooked victims of the foreclosure crisis are enforced by our courts.

The Tenants After Foreclosure Project, funded by a fellowship from the William Wayne Justice Center at the University of Texas School of Law, addresses the unique legal needs of low-income tenants living in foreclosed properties in Contra Costa County via direct legal services coupled with educational and outreach efforts.

For more information, please contact Project Attorney, Spencer Wilson at (510) 903-2623.

Settlements at Lincoln Place

2010-05-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Big news from Los Angeles today. The Lincoln Place settlements have been finalized. Click here for the L.A. Times story:

An epic landlord-tenant battle in Venice has ended with three legal settlements that would preserve the postwar-era Lincoln Place apartments, return scores of evicted residents to their homes and add hundreds of below-market-rate units to the housing-starved Westside.

Congratulations to the Lincoln Place tenants for their perseverance! For more information about this long eviction battle with AIMCO, visit the website of the Lincoln Place Tenants Association.

LA City Council Votes Down Rent Freeze Proposal

2010-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

Garcetti, Rosendahl Change Votes, Protest Erupts & Turns Into Melee As Police Called In, Tenants Are Hurt & 3 Are Arrested

By Larry Gross, Coalition for Economic Survival

It was a sad day for the City of Los Angeles on May 22, as the LA City Council essentially provided tenants with a 3% rent increase notice. What was just as sad was the manner in which this decision was made and the events that followed.

The City Council Chambers was overflowing with tenants, including Coalition for Economic Survival members, and landlords there to weigh in on an ordinance introduced by City Council Member Richard Alarcón for a 4 month rent increase moratorium. The freeze was to enable the City Council to finish discussions regarding potential changes to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) without tenants being saddled with a new round of unjust rent increase of 3% scheduled to go into effect on July 1.

Two weeks earlier the City Council had approved requesting the drafting of the ordinance on an 8 to 6 vote. Unfortunately, on Friday the crowd was forced sit there for over 5 hours having to endure award ceremonies and other items until the rent freeze issue came up.

Adding insult to injury, because it was so late in the day and some Council Members had to leave, the public testimony and Council discussion was cut short.

Then it was learned that both Council President Eric Garcetti and Council Member Bill Rosendahl had changed their support for the rent freeze and planned to vote against it. This left the rent freeze one vote short of the required eight votes to pass it.

At that point Council Member Garcetti made a motion to send the rent freeze back to Committee. "I think we need to have a comprehensive plan in place before we make any changes to the rent control measure at this time," Garcetti said.

Garcetti's reasoning made no sense since the process of developing a comprehensive plan had been going on for nearly a year and the freeze was not a change in rent control, but merely a temporary 'time-out' to enable the Council to finish a job it have been dragging its feet on.

In the end, the Council voted 8 to 5 to send it back to committee, thus killing any chance of putting a rent freeze in place before the July 1 rent increase is effective. Council Members Garcetti, Rosendahl, Cardenas, La Bonge, Koretz, Parks, Perry, Reyes, Smith and Zine all supported sending the issue back to committee.

Protest Erupts After Rent Freeze is Voted Down

Believing they were disrespected by having to wait all day and betrayed by Council Members Garcetti and Rosendahl, many tenants stood and voiced their outrage at the Council vote. Council Member Zine, who was chairing the meeting at that point, instructed the crowd to leave the Council Chambers. When some tenants refused, Zine called for the LA Police Department to come in and remove them. It then got ugly.

With seniors, women and children still in the Chambers, LAPD started to forcibly push tenants out. A number of tenants were injured and three members of the LA Community Action Network (LACAN) were arrested.

Councilman Richard Alarcón, who proposed the rent freeze, said that during his years working for Mayor Tom Bradley and serving on the council he had never seen the "council lose control of its chamber'' and called the arrests a sad day in the city's history.

It's a very sad day for renters who are going to have to pay more rent when many of them cannot pay their bills now,'' Alarcón said. "What we saw today was an expression of their anger.''

Why the Rent Freeze Was Needed

The need for the freeze was because RSO tenants face a 3% rent increase on July 1st under the existing ordinance. A City commissioned RSO Study indicates 58% of LA's RSO tenants are paying unaffordable rents, while 31% are paying 50% or more of their income to rent.

While increases are based on the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which is a negative .62%, the increases will be allowed because the RSO has a 3% rent increase floor guaranteeing landlords this amount even though the increase is not in any way justified. If the 3% floor did not exist the rent increase would be zero, based on the CPI The freeze was needed to give the Council more time to fix this and other inequities in the law which the Council is in the process of discussing.

The Debate Continues - Action Needed to Protect & Strengthen Rent Control

The process of addressing changes to the rent control law will continue. But, without the rent freeze in place there is no incentive for the City Council to act quickly. Tenants must become involved in this process, now more than ever. With this vote landlords and some Council Members are likely to feel more empowered to increase their efforts to weaken and destroy rent control. Without a strong tenant presence, they could succeed.

We urge that tenants and supporters of rent control contact Council Members Garcetti and Rosendahl to express your outrage and disappointment in their action which will result in tenants receiving another unjust 3% rent increase.

Council President Eric Garcetti
213-473-7013
councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org

Council Member Bill Rosendahl
213-473-7011
councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org

Tenants Together Releases 2010 Report: California Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis

2010-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights, released its new 2010 Report: California Tenants in the Foreclosure Crisis today. The report, a follow-up to Tenants Together’s 2009 tenant foreclosure report, highlights recent foreclosure-related developments affecting tenants, quantifies the impact of home foreclosures on tenants in 2009 at the state and county level, and makes recommendations to strengthen protections for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Tenants Together conservatively estimates that at least 37% of residential units in foreclosure in California were rentals, directly affecting over 200,000 tenants- most of whom were displaced. The report quantifies the impact of the foreclosure crisis on a county-by-county level. The report’s research is based on California property records for every foreclosure in 2009.

For printer-friendly version of press release, click here

For a printer-friendly version of the report, click here

Massachusetts AG Goes After Realtors Who Abuse Tenants, But Penalties Are Way Too Low

2010-05-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced settlements with real estate brokers that served deceptive notices threatening to remove tenants and their belongings from properties after foreclosure. As in California, real estate agents and brokers are dispatched by banks to vacate properties after foreclosure. These agents frequently mislead and harass tenants into leaving their homes long before they are required to do so.

According to the AG's press release, the settlement with RE/MAX Classic of Fairhaven and real estate broker Simone Schettino "provide[s] a broad range of relief and preventive measures to ensure their future compliance with state and federal consumer protection laws." The settlement bars RE/MAX Classic and Schettino from delivering deceptive notices, "requires RE/MAX Classic to pay a penalty of $10,000, with $7,500 suspended, including $1,000 to South Coastal Counties Legal Services and $1,500 to the Local Consumer Aid Fund. Schettino must pay $500 to the Local Consumer Aid Fund. RE/MAX is also required to provide six free seminars that are open to the public and will provide information to homeowners and tenants in buildings facing foreclosure about their rights." The settlement also requires specific contents in future notices to tenants.

It is good to see state attorneys general pursuing these violations. Such cases highlight the bad actors who are violating tenants rights after foreclosure and provide injunctive relief against particular individuals and entities.

But why are the penalties assessed are so low? A $500 penalty against the individual agent and $2500 against the company, will not deter future misconduct by these or other agents. There's a significant danger, in fact, that unscrupulous real estate agents will conclude that they make more money violating tenants' right than they will have to pay if caught.

There is a reason unscrupulous real estate agents engage in this conduct. They think that the quicker they get tenants out, the quicker they will be able to sell the properties, and the quicker they will get their commissions. The tenants, and their rights under the law, are viewed as roadblocks to their commissions. The fear of a $500 penalty if caught will not change their behavior.

The conduct of overzealous real estate agents after foreclosure is ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of tenants, prematurely forcing tenants from their homes and, in some cases, into homelessness. These agents deserve more than a slap on the wrist.

Tenants Together Co-Sponsors Huge Rally to Hold Big Banks Accountable

2010-04-29T15:33:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday, Tenants Together co-sponsored a march in San Francisco's financial district and a huge rally outside the Wells Fargo Bank annual shareholders meeting to protest the big banks' predatory practices and to hold them accountable to our communities.

As we are reminded every day on our Tenant Foreclosure Hotline, banks and the realtors and lawyers they hire, continue to harass and bully tenants in foreclosed properties. The big banks, including Wells Fargo, continue to evict innocent, rent-paying tenants after foreclosure despite the devastating effect these evictions have on our communities.

Though rain threatened to dampen the event, mother nature ultimately blessed the rally with a break in the weather and even some moments of sunshine. Hundreds of protesters from a remarkably broad coalition of labor, faith-based, and community organizations met at Justin Herman Plaza and marched through the financial district stopping at other banks along the way en route to Wells Fargo including Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank.

Tenants Together Program Director, Gabe Treves, leads the crowd in a chant: "Keep tenants in their homes!"

Members of Tenants Together along with Bay Area member organizations carried signs reading "Tenants if Foreclosed homes: We pay rent, let us stay!" and "Hey Big Bank$! Stop Evicting innocent tenants!"

The action was the first in a week of mobilizations for financial reform across the country, including an April 28th action at the Bank of America’s shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina and a national protest April 29 on Wall Street.

The event received widespread media attention. Here's a sampler:

Over 1000 Expected to March on Wells Fargo Meeting SF Appeal
Financial District Hosts Big Protest NBC 11
Protest at SF Wells Fargo Meeting CBS 5
Protestors Lauch Showdown with Monster Banks Alternet
Unions, community to Wells Fargo: We are not your ATM! Peoples World

Watch for Nela and Judy B with the Tenants Together banner at the end of the video!

Fannie Mae Takes Steps to Protect Tenants in its Foreclosed Properties

2010-04-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

Following a complaint from Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights, Fannie Mae has distributed a zero-tolerance policy advisory notice to its agents and removed from its broker network at least one of the real estate agents about whom Tenants Together had complained.

In a written advisory notice to its agents dealing with tenants after foreclosure, Fannie Mae makes clear that it expects them “to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law and to ensure that tenants are 100% clear on every option available to them” and that “not complying with Fannie Mae policy and procedure on this issue will result in termination.”

Tenants are routinely harassed, misinformed, and illegally evicted by realtors and law firms working for banks after foreclosure. This widespread problem has caught the attention of advocates, regulators, and enforcement agencies. Most recently, the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office issued a cease and desist letter to bank servicers, real estate agents, and lawyers abusing tenants in foreclosed homes.

In addition to sending the advisory to its agents, Fannie Mae has intervened on the individual cases cited by Tenants Together. As a result, Tenants Together members who were facing illegal evictions have now signed new leases and are staying in their homes.

Because real estate agents are in the business vacating properties to prepare them for sale, many often see tenants as a road block to their commission. While we applaud Fannie Mae for taking steps in the right direction, we urge it to start using property managers instead of real estate agents to discuss its newly expanded rental options with tenants.

Assembly Committee Approves Ammiano Bill to Stop Pension Funds From Investing in Real Estate Schemes that Displace Tenants

2010-04-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the Socially Responsible Investment Act, AB 2337 (Ammiano), cleared the Assembly Employees, Retirement, and Social Security Committee. The bill would ban predatory equity investments by the state’s public employee pension funds. The Assembly PERS Committee voted 4-2 to advance the bill.

"Today’s vote is vindication for the thousands of tenants who were unjustly evicted with the use of public funds,” said Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), author of the bill. “We unfortunately cannot undo what has happened but moving forward, our public pension funds have a fiscal and moral duty to make socially responsible investments and this bill makes those values a reality.”

The legislation is co-sponsored by Tenants Together and the East Palo Alto Fair Rent Coalition in an effort to stop predatory investments that seek to generate short-term profit through the displacement of tenants. Public pension funds have been a major source of funding for these “predatory equity” schemes that have displaced thousands of tenants and squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in retirement funds.

According to Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together, "Our goal is to make sure not another dime of public employee retirement funds is invested in these mass-eviction schemes. This committee vote brings us one giant step closer to that goal.”

Earlier this week, CalPERS, the nation’s largest public employee pension fund, adopted a policy to ban investments in real estate deals that are premised on displacing tenants. Ammiano and the bill sponsors commended the pension fund for making progress on the issue, but argued that legislation remains necessary to enact a stronger policy with the force of law.

SEIU State Council’s Terry Brennand testified in support of AB 2337. SEIU’s support is particularly important as the union represents CalPERS members. The California Teachers Association, which had opposed the bill until today, withdrew its opposition at the hearing. CalPERS representatives also testified at the hearing, but took no position on the legislation.

Tenants from East Palo Alto, a city that has been devastated by the investments at issue, came to the hearing in Sacramento to provide powerful statements in support of the bill.

Photo by Daryl Hunt.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/learnscape/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

CalPERS Bans Real Estate Investments that Displace Tenants

2010-04-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, California Public Employee Retirement Service (CalPERS), the nation’s largest pension fund, adopted a policy to ban investments in real estate deals that are premised on displacing tenants. According to the new policy, “CalPERS will not participate in private real estate investment strategies that rely on or result in eliminating rent-regulated housing units, converting such units to market rate units, or raising rents above regulated levels as determined by the appropriate governing authority.” The CalPERS’ board overwhelmingly approved the policy, with only one board member voting in opposition.

“This is a major milestone in our campaign to stop investments in predatory real estate schemes that displace tenants from their homes,” stated Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights.

Tenants Together, in conjunction with the East Palo Alto Fair Rent Coalition, has been leading a campaign to stop CalPERS from investing in “predatory equity” deals that seek to generate short-term profit through the displacement of tenants. Predatory equity is a particularly nasty form of real estate investment in which investors pay more for rent-regulated housing than can be justified by the actual rental income at the time of purchase, as part of a plan to force rent-regulated tenants out of their homes and replace them with higher-rent tenants or purchasers. It is a business model premised on the displacement of tenants.

Since 2008, Tenants Together has urged CalPERS to adopt “predator-free” investment criteria. Tenants Together launched its campaign to stop pension funds from investing in predatory equity deals after learning that CalPERS had invested $100 million in a scheme led to generate short term profits in the City of East Palo Alto by driving out tenants living in rent controlled housing. Organizers soon learned of huge investments ($500 million from CalPERS) in a similar scheme in New York City. These schemes displaced thousands of tenants and did great damage to CalPERS’ reputation as a socially responsible investor. Tenants Together has been publicly critical the pension fund’s involvement in these evictions.

The predatory equity schemes not only harmed tenants, but also proved to be bad investments on purely economic terms. CalPERS lost every dollar invested in these speculative deals, including $100 million in East Palo Alto and $500 million in New York City. In repeated letters to CalPERS and in testimony before the CalPERS board, tenant advocates had predicted the collapse of these investments.

In February 2010, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced AB 2337, the Socially Responsible Investment Act, to ban predatory equity investments by the state’s public employee pension funds. Preston praised Ammiano’s leadership on the issue: “Assemblymember Ammiano deserves enormous credit for championing this bill to ensure that public employee pension funds stop investing in predatory schemes that displace renters.” Tenants Together is co-sponsoring the legislation, along with the Fair Rent Coalition. The bill will be heard in the Assembly PERS committee on April 21, 2010.

“CalPERS’ investment partner evicted me and my neighbors for no good reason,” said Christopher Lund, Communications Director for the Fair Rent Coalition. “It’s shameful that public employees are having their retirement funds used to throw residents of East Palo Alto out of our homes. I’m very pleased that CalPERS is taking this step to prevent these investments in the future.”

California Court Okays Discrimination Against Section 8 Tenants

2010-04-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

by Dean Preston

Remember Donald Sterling, the NBA team owner and Los Angeles mega-landlord who has been sued multiple times for outrageous housing discrimination, most recently by the U.S. Department of Justice? Sterling is back in the news this week, again for discrimination in his role as landlord. This time, however, Sterling convinced a California Court of Appeal that it was just fine for him to discriminate against a Section 8 tenant. At this point, anyone who still believes in the myth that judges are “liberal activists” needs to have his or her head examined.

In a 33-page opinion, the Court of Appeal held that the Fair Employment and Housing Act’s “source of income” discrimination provision does not protect Section 8 tenants from discrimination based on their participation in the section 8 program. Tenants Together had joined with other organizations to file an amicus brief urging the court to hold that refusal to accept Section 8 payments was source of income discrimination under FEHA.

In the Section 8 voucher program, participating tenants pay 30% of their rent and the Housing Authority pays the balance to the landlord. It takes years for eligible tenants to be able to participate in the program. Once tenants get off the wait list, the landlord must sign a payment contract with the housing authority in order to receive the portion of the rent paid by the government. By refusing to sign onto the program, some landlords seek to force rent controlled tenants into situations where they cannot pay their rent.

The facts of this case were compelling. As described in the court’s opinion, the tenant (appellant) was an “elderly widow who immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1985 when she was 52 years old. She suffers from several physical and psychological disabilities and receives as a consequence supplemental security income (SSI) from the Social Security Administration. She has lived since 1987 in an apartment owned by respondents and continues to live there to this day …. The apartment, located in Santa Monica, is rent-controlled. After appellant’s husband died of cancer in January 2004, appellant’s SSI was no longer adequate to cover the rent, which was $1,233 per month in 2007.”

Fortunately, after being on the wait list for years, the tenants were issued a Section 8 voucher shortly before the husband’s death. The tenant informed management and requested that they undertake the necessary paperwork so the Housing Authority could pay a portion of the rent. Management rejected the tenant’s requests, refusing to participate in the Section 8 program.

As a result, the tenant remains in danger of being evicted for nonpayment of rent, since she can only afford the rent with the assistance of the Section 8 program, which the landlord refuses to accept.

This inconvenient truth was lost on the judges (Judges Flier, Bigelow and Lichtman) who not only rejected the tenant’s “source of income” discrimination claim, but also rejected the tenant’s claim that under disability discrimination laws, the landlord was required to accept Section 8 as a reasonable accommodation. The court concluded that there was no interference with the tenant’s right to use and enjoy the property, and therefore she had no basis for her disability discrimination claim:

“It is not disputed that appellant resides in the apartment she rents from respondents. In fact, it affirmatively appears from the record that appellant and her family desisted from relocating elsewhere because the accommodations she has suit her needs. In other words, there is no interference with appellant’s use and enjoyment of the premises that she is renting.”

Of course, the Court ignores the fact that by refusing to accept Section 8, the landlord is putting the tenant in danger of eviction.

Section 8 discrimination remains a major problem in our society. Often the refusal to rent to Section 8 tenants is based on inaccurate stereotypes about tenants who are part of this program. In rent control jurisdictions, as in the Sabi case, some unscrupulous landlords also see refusal to participate in the Section 8 program as a way to force out long-term tenants who cannot afford the rent without Section 8 assistance.

This is hardly a settled area of law. Sabi could choose to petition the California Supreme Court to overturn the decision. Also, state courts are not the only place that housing discrimination claims can be brought, so future litigants may decide to raise these claims in federal courts. Indeed, the Sabi Court itself recognized that other jurisdictions have reached different results on these issues.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome, this case flags a serious issue facing Section 8 tenants and stands as another reminder that California courts are loath to use their discretion to interpret laws in a manner that protects tenants.

Dean Preston is the Executive Director of Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights. For more information about Tenants Together, visit www.TenantsTogether.org.

Tenants Together Celebrates Second Anniversary

2010-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Tenants Together turns two this month! We are incredibly proud of what we've been able to accomplish in just 2 years. We have already helped thousands of tenants across the state, counseling tenants on our hotline, exposing bad landlords, supporting anti-eviction laws, and beating back landlord attacks on rent control. On a shoestring budget, and thanks to our amazing volunteers and supporters, we empower tenants every day to stand up to abusive landlords.

If you'll be in the area, join us for a gathering at our office on Monday, April 19 as we celebrate this historic effort to build a strong and permanent statewide tenant rights movement.

Food, beverage & live music provided. Hope to see you at our anniversary party!

Please RSVP on our event page.

4/27 Hold Big Banks Accountable! Join TT for a rally and march to the Wells Fargo Annual Shareholder Meeting

2010-04-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

RSVP on facebook and contact andy@tenantstogether.org if you plan to attend this event!

April 27, 2010, 12:00 Noon to 3 p.m.

March starts at Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero and Market) in downtown San Francisco. Rally outside the shareholder meeting at the Merchants Exchange Building, 465 California Street.

On Tuesday, April 27, more than 1,000 people from faith, labor and community groups will march through the Financial District to Wells Fargo’s annual shareholder meeting, where a delegation will address the bank’s top executives and demand changes to corporate practices that have bankrupted families and public coffers while enriching those who crashed the economy.

The action is the first in a week of mobilizations for financial reform across the country, including an April 28th action at the Bank of America’s shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina and a national protest April 29 on Wall Street.

California has been crippled by banks’ foreclosures. The state had 632,573 foreclosures in 2009 alone. In addition to homeowners, more than half a million tenants have been evicted from foreclosed properties through no fault of their own. The state budget faces an estimated $15 billion gap, while local governments are losing more than $13 billion from declining property tax revenues.

Wells Fargo was one of the top three mortgage lenders who did subprime and predatory loans in California during the housing bubble. See National People’s Action’s 2009 report “The Truth About Wells Fargo: Racial Disparities in Lending Practices” (posted at www.showdowninamerica.org) for more info about the bank’s history of targeting people of color for high-cost loans.

We are calling on Wells to be accountable for its irresponsible lending practices by stopping foreclosures and tenant evictions, ending race-based predatory lending and doing their part to create jobs and credit access for a fair economic recovery,” said Domingo Delgadillo, community leader with Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization and the PICO National Network.

Participating organizations:
AFL-CIO, Alameda Labor Council, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, California Labor Federation, California Reinvestment Coalition, Causa Justa: Just Cause, Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, Contra Costa Labor Council, North Bay Labor Council, Napa Solano Labor Council, National People’s Action, PICO National Network, Right to the City, Sacramento Labor Council, SEIU, South Bay Labor Council, and Tenants Together.

RSVP on facebook and contact andy@tenantstogether.org if you plan to attend this event!

Take Action! Urge Assembly Committee to Support Ammiano's Tenant Legislation

2010-04-08T16:39:00.000-07:00

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has introduced legislation in Sacramento that would prevent state public pension funds from investing in schemes that are predicated on the displacement and abuse of tenants in order to turn profits. Take action today to make sure the Assembly pension oversight committee approves the bill and sends it to the full Assembly for a vote.

California public pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, have invested, and recently lost, some $700 million dollars in "predatory equity" schemes in East Palo Alto and New York that have resulted in the displacement of thousands of low and middle-income tenants and have been devastating to the affected communities. For nearly two years Tenants Together has been pushing CalPERS to adopt policies that would prevent it from ever again getting entangled in these reckless and immoral investments. CalPERS' inaction on the issue has made legislative reform necessay.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION by contacting the members of the assembly committee and urging them to support this important legislation for tenants.

Pay to Play? Democratic Lawmakers Selling Out Renters

2010-03-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

by Dean Preston

A lot of attention in recent months has focused on the “pay to play” problem in Washington D.C., with political leaders holding health care reform hostage for months in no small part because of the campaign contributions they receive from the insurance industry. Less attention is paid to how similar dynamics unfold in Sacramento with our state elected officials. Is there any other explanation for why a lawmaker would choose this moment in history, with all the real problems our state faces, to prioritize legislation to gut rent control protections for mobile home residents?

More than a million Californians live in mobile home parks, disproportionately seniors of moderate income. Residents are simultaneously renters and owners – they own their mobile homes, but rent the land underneath from the park owner. Recognizing that these are some of the few affordable housing opportunities in California, many local jurisdictions have adopted rent control laws that apply to mobile home parks.

Mobilehome park rent control has been under attack from the mega-landlords that own the parks. Park owners have poured millions into attempts to gut local rent control laws. Voters have overwhelmingly rejected these efforts, such as in June 2008 when Proposition 98, a measure to eliminate rent control and other renter protections, was defeated by a huge margin.

Democratic Assemblymember Charles Calderon (not to be confused with his brother, Senator Ron Calderon) is not listening to the will of California voters. Instead, Assemblymember Calderon is leading the fight to strip mobile home parks of strong rent control protections. Calderon’s bill, AB 761, would result in higher rents for mobilehome spaces, while also reducing the equity that mobilehome owners have in their homes. The controversial bill changes the rules midstream on residents for the benefit of park owners. Having failed to secure passage of the bill last year, Assemblymember Calderon has brought it back in this legislative session.

Self-described as a leader whose “passion is a concern for the poor and … working-class constituents in East Los Angeles,” Calderon was recently selected by Speaker John Perez as the Majority Floor Leader of the Assembly. With AB 761, Calderon continues to advocate for a law that delivers nothing for his constituents, and benefits a handful of mobilehome park mega-landlords.

Calderon has received substantial donations from park owners. Click here to see a recent (December 2009) donation from the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.

There are two possibilities here: either Assemblymember Calderon is championing this legislation to deliver for a campaign donor, or he actually believes that one of the most pressing issues facing California today is that mobilehome park owners don’t make enough money.

Of course, Assemblymember Calderon is not the only Democratic lawmaker to vote against mobilehome residents last year. To see how other Assemblymembers voted on Calderon’s bill, click here.

Assemblymember Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), recently selected Speaker Pro Tem, not only voted for Calderon’s bill last year, but championed her own bill, AB 481, to make it easier for park owners to strip mobilehome residents of rent control protections without due process. Ma does not have a single mobilehome park in her district, so it is curious that she has made attacking mobilehome rent control laws a priority legislative issue. Assemblymember Ma receives thousands in donations from the Western Manufactured Home Association PAC. Click here ($1900), here ($2000) and here ($3600) for details.

All Californians need to be concerned when legislators represent the interests of a few mega-landlords in opposition to the working people who are their constituents, especially when the mega-landlords are filling those legislators’ campaign coffers.

This post is also published at Beyond Chron.

Bill Introduced in Congress to Extend Federal Tenant Protection Law

2010-03-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

With the foreclosure crisis certain to continue for years, housing advocates are hoping to make permanent the new protections for tenants in foreclosed properties that became law in May 2009. The Protecting Tenants At Foreclosure Act of 2009 (PTFA) allows tenants to stay in their homes after foreclosure for at least 90 days or until the end of their lease term, whichever is later, with limited exceptions. The law is scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2012.

Thanks to the National Low Income Housing Coalition for the following update on Rep. Ellison’s important effort to remove the sunset provision:

On March 4, Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) introduced legislation to repeal the sunset date for the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA).

The PTFA, which was enacted May 20, 2009 (P.L. 111-22) requires the immediate successor in interest at foreclosure (the person or entity acquiring title at foreclosure) to provide bona fide tenants with 90 days’ notice prior to eviction. Bona fide tenants with leases must be allowed to occupy the property until the end of the lease term, except the lease can be terminated on 90 days notice if the unit is sold to a purchaser who will occupy the property. Tenants with Section 8 housing choice voucher assistance have additional protections that allow them to retain both their Section 8 lease and require that the successor in interest assume the housing assistance payment contract associated with that lease.

Currently, these provisions are set to expire at the end of 2012. H.R. 4766 would eliminate the sunset in the current law and extend the PTFA protections indefinitely. Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) joined Mr. Ellison in introducing this bill. H.R. 4766 was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

Despite the fact that many banks and their agents violate the PTFA, there is no question that the law has had a big impact in California and across the country. The PTFA provides tenants much-needed time to find new housing when they are pushed out after foreclosure. Of course, the PTFA does not solve the fundamental problem which is that banks continue to evict tenants after foreclosure for no good reason, but the federal law does provide an important minimum protection for tenants.

Tenants Together is tracking the progress of the federal effort to extend the PTFA beyond the current sunset date. For more information on the PTFA and other tenant protection laws, be sure to sign up for our email updates at www.tenantstogether.org. The PTFA is also discussed in our recent Shelterforce article entitled “The Federal Move to Protect Tenants.”

Dean Preston, the Executive Director of Tenants Together, publishes a weekly column for Beyond Chron.

Federal Report Released on Best Practices for Bed Bug Control in Multifamily Housing

2010-03-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

With funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, The National Center for Healthy Housing recently issued a report titled:

What’s Working for Bed Bug Control in Multifamily Housing

From the report's summary:

There is no silver bullet for eliminating bed bugs. They present a challenge to modern pest control that the industry is still struggling to meet. To make up for the lack of chemical power we have for battling this insect, additional people and tools must be involved. Bed bug success stories usually involve people who live and work in a building (including a pest management professional) coming together as a team to battle this pest. Throughout this paper you will see how communication and cooperation among residents, staff, and the pest control service provider are keys to success.

Read the full report.

***

The New York Times published a fascinating article this month about a renter's "best friend" in detecting apartment bed bug infestation.

Dogs like Cruiser, the one featured in the article, can "can inspect a room in minutes, whereas lesser mammals like human beings need hours to conduct a visual inspection," according to the article.

Bedbug-sniffing dogs, adorable yet stunningly accurate — entomology researchers at the University of Florida report that well-trained dogs can detect a single live bug or egg with 96 percent accuracy — are the new and furry front line in an escalating and confounding domestic war.

Panel to Review Torture Memo Author’s Anti-Rent Control Ruling

2010-03-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

By Dean Preston

Torture memo author Jay S. Bybee, now a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, authored a controversial decision in September 2009 to invalidate a local rent control law in the city of Goleta, California. The Goleta law provides a strong form of rent control (known as “vacancy control”) for residents in mobile home parks. Last week, the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit ordered review of Judge Bybee’s anti-rent control ruling. Chances are the decision will be reversed, sparing mobile home residents in Goleta (and elsewhere in California) from higher rents and loss of equity in their mobile homes.

It is hard to think about Judge Bybee without thinking of his involvement in the infamous torture memos. After news of the torture memos came out last year, the New York Times called for Bybee’s impeachment. The Times wrote: “these memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution.” Nonetheless, to this day, Judge Bybee sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

In September 2009, Judge Bybee infuriated rent control advocates by authoring a decision striking down a mobile home rent control ordinance. In the decision, Judge Bybee bent over backwards to conclude that the park owner was denied “investment backed expectations” because of the ordinance, notwithstanding the fact that the park owner bought the park with full knowledge of the rent control law.

At the time, I noted the irony in Judge Bybee’s decision: “the very person that couldn't find a right to be free from torture in our constitution has now found a constitutional right of mobile home park owners to be free from a City's rent control law.” As I pointed out then, the legal reasoning of Judge Bybee’s opinion was totally flawed.

It appears that a majority of the sitting judges on the Ninth Circuit may agree that Judge Bybee’s decision was lawless, much like his torture memos. On March 12, 2010, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski ordered that the controversial Guggenheim v. City of Goleta case will be reviewed en banc by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: “Upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that this case be reheard en banc ... The three-judge panel opinion shall not be cited as precedent by or to any court of the Ninth Circuit.” En banc review means that a panel of 11 judges will now review and decide the case.

The Ninth Circuit now has an opportunity to get this right. In the meantime, park owners cannot rely on the Guggenheim case to collect higher rents from mobile home residents across the state, most of whom are low- or middle-income and struggling in the current economy.

The big park owners share a common goal with other landlord zealots in California: eliminate rent control wherever it exists. They failed to accomplish this goal at the ballot box when their measure, Prop. 98, was defeated by a large margin in June 2008. So they have turned to the courts, trusting that unelected judges will serve their interests and accomplish what they have been unable to accomplish through the democratic process. Judge Bybee was willing to oblige. However, expect the Ninth Circuit to follow the law and reverse the erroneous Guggenheim decision.

Dean Preston is the Executive Director of Tenants Together, California’s Statewide Organization for Renters’ Rights. For more information about Tenants Together, visit www.tenantstogether.org.

U.S. Census Bureau says renters are among the "hardest to count"

2010-03-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

With the 2010 census set to begin in a few weeks, advocates for "hard to count" groups -- which includes minorities, the homeless, the poor, and renters -- are trying to raise awareness about the importance of accurate counting for these communities.

From the Patterson Irrigator:

“The census has always been important, but more now than ever,” said Sallie Ayala-Perez, regional coordinator for the National Association of Latino and Appointed Officials’ census outreach in the Central Valley. “It’s imperative we count everyone, because we cannot afford to miss out on any money that will help our community survive this economic crisis.”

. . . Census workers have said they realize getting an accurate count might be hard to actually accomplish, as California has 22 percent of the nation’s “hardest to count” populations. Those groups traditionally include the homeless, poor families, minorities, children and people who are isolated by language.

This year, the U.S. Census Bureau has also acknowledged that renters, families living in large households and individuals whose homes have gone through or are in foreclosure should be considered part of that group.

People should know that the "census bureau is legally prevented from sharing someone’s personal information with anyone else. That pledge of confidentiality extends to other government agencies, such as the FBI, the CIA, the welfare department, the immigration department and even the president."

Wells Fargo is now East Palo Alto's largest landlord

2010-03-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, predatory landord, Page Mill Properties, officially lost all 1816 of its rental units in East Palo Alto to foreclosure.

With no bids made on the properties at the foreclosure auction, Wells Fargo Bank assumed ownership and became the largest landlord in the city.

The story has been widely covered in the media, including the San Jose Mercury News, KGO-TV, the San Francisco Business Times, and Palo Alto Online.

Many in East Palo Alto are glad to see Page Mill leave town.

"This creates the opportunity for justice to be done and for the law to be observed," said William Webster, a member of the city's rent stabilization board who attended the auction. "This may be the beginning of a new era of greater responsibility."

Stay tuned for more posts on this evolving story.

Legal aid lawyer calls out lenders for bullying and displacing tenants

2010-03-02T17:13:00.000-08:00

Robert Doggett of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid appears on Fox News to talk about the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, a federal law signed into law last year that gives tenants in foreclosed properties the right to stay in their homes for 90 days or the term of their lease, whichever is longer.

Unfortunately many foreclosing lenders, and the real estate agents they hire, are bullying tenants and not respecting their rights under the law.

Dogget says that Fannie Mae has been one of the worst offenders. Read more in his blog posts: Fannie’s Lawyers Falsely Certify Compliance With PTAF in eviction context and Fannie itself won't certify compliance with PTAF-slows program to stablize neighborhoods.

California Attorney General Should Follow Connecticut AG’s Lead: Go after banks, realtors and lawyers that violate tenant rights

2010-03-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

by Dean Preston

Across our state, realtors and lawyers working on behalf of banks are violating federal law by illegally pushing renters out of their homes after foreclosure. The results are devastating, with thousands of tenants being driven into homelessness and communities left with vacancies and blight. Responding to a similar pattern of illegal evictions in Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently announced a new initiative to aid tenants of foreclosed properties. Blumenthal issued cease-and-desist letters warning law firms, real estate companies, banks and loan servicers to stop illegal evictions. Here in California, tenants want to know whether Attorney General Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown, Jr., will follow Blumenthal’s lead and take decisive actions to protect vulnerable tenants.

The Protecting Tenants At Foreclosure Act of 2009 (PTFA) allows tenants to stay in their homes after foreclosure for at least 90 days or until the end of their lease term, whichever is later. In cities with just cause for eviction ordinances, tenants may not have to vacate at all after foreclosure. Despite these laws, real estate agents and lawyers working for banks routinely violate tenant rights. Our organization, Tenants Together, operates California’s only statewide hotline for tenants in foreclosure situations. We receive calls every day from tenants around the state who are being lied to about their rights and illegally evicted from their homes by bank lawyers and real estate agents.

Blumenthal’s February 2010 press release is worth quoting at length, since it shows a profound understanding of the damage that these illegal evictions have on tenants and entire communities.

“Evicted tenants are typically current on their rent, but face eviction because of their landlord's financial troubles. In many cases, real estate agents have pressured tenants to leave, without informing them of their rights under federal law. Some banks begin eviction procedures immediately upon completing foreclosure, despite the consequences for tenants and a federal law that requires a 90-day delay.”

"Tenants have rights to remain until their lease ends -- rights that deserve respect and enforcement. We're warning banks and real estate interests: foreclosure is not excuse for illegal eviction. These cease-and-desist letters send a message to powerful property owners that foreclosure gives them no right to engage in automatic eviction en masse.”

“Fast-track evictions not only harm tenants, but turn vacant properties into eyesores and even crime havens, diminishing values neighborhood wide.” "Tenants should remain in homes as long as possible -- potentially providing extra income to the new property owner, and benefiting everyone.”

"Tenants in foreclosed properties -- victims of their landlord's financial failures -- deserve to be treated fairly and lawfully when forced to find a new home. Law firms, realtors and lenders have moral and legal obligations to provide fair notice and time for tenants to find alternative housing after foreclosures. We are alerting law firms, lenders and real estate companies that they must follow this law or face legal action."

"Foreclosures devastate property owners, but also tenants whose lives are unfairly uprooted and incredibly inconvenienced. Searching for alternative housing can be difficult, costly and time-consuming -- requiring reasonable advance notice before eviction."

Blumenthal’s office sent the cease-and-desist letters to at least 15 banks and mortgage servicers, nine law firms and six real estate companies.

California has more than its share of real estate agents and attorneys engaging in illegal efforts to displace tenants. Attorney General Jerry Brown should take strong action to protect these tenants and hold realtors and lawyers, as well as the banks that employ them, accountable. In addition, the Department of Real Estate and California Bar Association should investigate and discipline their licensees who violate federal, state and local tenant protection laws.

Please take a minute to write Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office (or call him at (800) 952-5225) and urge him to go after banks, lawyers and real estate agents that violate the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act and other tenant protection laws.

Wall Street Journal covers CalPERS' predatory equity investments

2010-02-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

In today's Wall Street Journa l, reporter Craig Karmin covers the story of CalPERS' predatory equity investments in an article titled "Backlash Hits CalPERS Property Deals." With partners, Page Mill Properties (in East Palo Alto) and Tishman Speyer/BlackRock (in New York City), CalPERS invested some $600 million in schemes that had a devastating impact on tenants.

It's a story that has now been widely covered from the Sacramento Bee to the New York Times.

For more than a year, Tenants Together has been pressuring CalPERS to adopt policies that will prevent its involvement in predatory real estate investments that are predicated on displacing tenants to turn profits.

The WSJ report comes on the same day that Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's announcement that he will be introducing legislation to prevent state public pension funds from investing in predatory real estate investments (see previous post.)

The article includes accounts from East Palo Alto tenants who were forced to deal with Page Mill Properties' abusive practices as the city's largest landlord:

Eric Oberle, a history teacher, moved out of the East Palo Alto complex in August 2008, a few months after the new owners raised his monthly rent to $1,450 from $1,095. Page Mill officials told him that they had incorporated each property separately, which they maintained exempted them from rent-control laws.

Before he left, Mr. Oberle recalls the quality of life at his building deteriorated. "There was a Kafkaesque feeling to it," he says. "People would park their trucks in the driveway, so we couldn't get our cars out for hours. The owners removed all trees in front of the building. They would repeatedly measure the inside of the units, or would keep checking the gas, constantly invading our privacy. They wouldn't repair laundry machines, which all stopped working about the same time."

Assemblymember Ammiano introduces bill to prevent public pension investments in predatory schemes that displace tenants

2010-02-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

We're very pleased to announce that State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has introduced AB2337, a bill that would prohibit the use of state public pension funds in "predatory equity" real estate investment schemes.

Predatory equity is a particularly nasty form of real estate speculation that has a devastating impact on tenants and their larger communities. In these schemes investors knowingly pay far more for properties than they are worth based on actual rental income. The investment model is predicated on displacing low and middle-income tenants so that rents can be drastically increased or so that units can be vacated and converted to high-priced condominiums.

California public pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, have both been the subject of nationwide media attention for their controversial investments in predatory equity schemes in California and New York. Tenants caught in one such scheme in East Palo Alto have faced unjust evictions, excessive rent increases, harassment, serious maintenance neglect, etc. The very future of EPA as one of the last affordable communities in the Silicon Valley region has been seriously threatened.

Today's Wall Street Journal covers this very topic in the article, "Backlash hits CalPERS property deals."

"It is unconscionable that hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds have been used in efforts to evict tenants from New York to California,” said Ammiano. “Actions speak louder than words and CalPERS needs to make its claim of socially responsible investing a reality.”

For more than a year, Tenants Together, along with tenants, activists, and elected leaders from East Palo Alto, has been pressuring CalPERS, the nation's largest public pension fund, to adopt its own policies that would prevent it from becoming entangled in predatory equity schemes. CalPERS' failure to take action has made the move to create legislation to address this issue a necessary step.

“The retirement funds of working people should not be used to evict working people. We applaud Assemblymember Ammiano for introducing this important bill that will ensure that public employee pension funds are not invested in predatory schemes that displace renters,” said Dean Preston, our executive director.

CalPERS a co-author and signatory to the UN Principles of Responsible Investment, has taken pride in being a leader in socially responsible investing. Yet it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars, with partners Page Mill Properties in East Palo Alto and with Tishman Speyer/BlackRock in New York City, in speculative real estate schemes that have proven disastrous for tenants.

The investments have also proven financially irresponsible to the public employees who have entrusted the pension funds with their retirement savings. It appears CalPERS will lose at least $600 million and CalSTRS $100 million in predatory equity schemes on both coasts as the risky investments faced push back from tenants and the properties eventually went into foreclosure.

Chris Lund, a tenant and spokesperson for the EPA Fair Rent Now Coalition who has witnessed first hand the devastating impact the schemes have on communities, also applauded the introduction of AB2337. "At its heart, this bill introduces greater transparency and accountability into California's pension fund investment decisions, something that will benefit communities across the country."

Tenants Together Members Fight Bank Evictions and Win: CNN Covers Their Stories

2010-02-18T13:16:00.000-08:00

Thousands of tenants in California have been unlawfully evicted by post-foreclosure landlords, typically banks. With the help of Tenants Together, a growing number of tenants are standing up for their rights and winning.

Today, CNN profiled the victory of two Tenants Together members. Sandra Pearson, a Santa Maria tenant, got OneWest Bank to dismiss an eviction lawsuit against her and allow her to stay in her home through the end of her lease. Owen Casper, a San Diego tenant, fought back against an aggressive real estate agent and got Fannie Mae to offer him a new, year-long lease. Now both of these tenants have the security of knowing they can continue residing in their homes.

As Sandra posted on our Facebook page, "Remember that song - I fought the law and the law won? Today I'm singing - I fought the bank and I won!"

Read the full article CNN article by clicking here.

Fannie Mae Taking Steps in the Right Direction

2010-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

In response to TT's February 2, 2010, letter to Fannie Mae, calling it out for contracting with real estate agents that harass and mislead tenants living in its foreclosed properties, Fannie Mae has taken a big step in the right direction. Fannie has informed TT that it is offering one year leases to eligible tenants and, further, that in response to our letter it is sending “communication to all Fannie Mae agents that not complying with the letter and the spirit of the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act and Fannie Mae’s rental policies will result in termination.” The letter also makes other commitments about which we have requested more information.

Tenants Together will continue to work with Fannie Mae to assure that tenants living Fannie Mae foreclosed properties are treated fairly. We’ll keep you updated on our progress.

The Federal Move to Protect Tenants

2010-02-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

Tenants Together Executive Director, Dean Preston has published an article in the latest issue of Shelterforce, the journal of affordable housing and community building from the National Housing Institute.

The article includes an overview of the protections afforded tenants under the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, the first federal tenant rights law in nearly 20 years.

Preston states in the piece:

"It is not clear whether the PTFA was simply a one-time legislative response to mitigate abusive conduct by banks toward tenants after foreclosure or whether it signals a new era of federal concern over the plight of tenants. With an estimated one-third of Americans living as tenants and struggling to make ends meet in the current economy, now is a perfect time for the federal government to take a more proactive role to protect tenants."

Read the full article at the Shelterforce website.

Tenant Victory! Fannie Mae Scrambles to Save Face by Offering Tenant New Contract

2010-02-10T12:15:00.000-08:00

On Friday, February 8, just three days after Tenants Together issued a press release calling out Fannie Mae for contracting with real estate agents that aggressively and illegally push out tenants living in their foreclosed properties, Fannie Mae scrambled to save face by offering Owen Casper, the San Diego tenant and cab driver whose story was profiled, a new one year contract.

Owen reports that two Fannie Mae representatives visited him at his home, treated him very nicely, and offered him a new, one year rental contract. As Owen explains, after Fannie Mae felt the public pressure, things quickly changed and “a tense situation that started pretty bad, ended pretty good.”

Tenants Together is very happy about Owen’s victory. However, it is not enough for Fannie Mae to address these incidents on a case-by case-basis. If Fannie is serious about following the federal law and its own policies, it must respond to the letter Tenants Together sent it a week ago demanding that it comply with tenant protection laws and its own policies, establish a tenant-friendly complaint system for its tenants to file complaints over harassment by its contractors, and that it terminate all its contractual relationships with real estate agents, lawyers, and contractors that provide false or misleading information to its tenants.

Guardian UK reports real estate agents in the U.S. flout federal law and bully tenants in foreclosure

2010-02-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

Sasha Abramsky of the British newspaper, the Guardian, has published some solid reporting on how real estate brokers and agents bully tenants after foreclosure as though the Protecting Tenants in Foreclosure Act (PTFA) "didn't exist."

Tenants Together's report "Hidden Impact: California Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis" is cited in the piece and Program Director, Gabe Treves, was interviewed at length for the story. Abramsky will be publishing a complete Q and A with Treves in the coming weeks.

Under PTFA tenants with outstanding leases have the right to remain in their homes for the the terms of their leases (with some exceptions) and tenants with month-to-month agreements are entitled to 90-day notices. Yet, it remains the practice of foreclosing banks to hire real estate agents who mislead or intimidate tenants into leaving their homes before they have to.

It is not uncommon for tenants in these situations to come home and find intimidating, anonymous, and legally misleading, posters stuck to their doors. One such starts with "Attention!! This property has been foreclosed and is now bank-owned. The eviction process has started. The property is being monitored." The words are in bold and the text is circled for emphasis. Another begins: "To whom it may concern: We were informed this property was vacant. We have changed the locks." Another resorts to financial intimidation: "The eviction process has been started by the bank. It is in your best interest to avoid having an eviction added to your credit report. It is very difficult to rent a property with an eviction on your credit report."

Read the full article at the Guardian UK website.

FTC nails tenant screening company -- $100,000 fine

2010-02-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

A tenant screening company named First Advantage SafeRent must pay a $100,000 fine for rejecting tenant requests to check information on reports used by landlords to screen prospective tenants. According to the Federal Trade Commission's press release:

A tenant screening agency that rejected consumers’ requests for their files and failed to recheck information on their consumer reports after they had disputed it has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law. The settlement order requires the company to pay a $100,000 civil penalty and bars future violations.

The settlement also includes an order forcing the company to promptly provide copies of the report to tenants upon request, and to investigate disputed contents in reports.

Inaccurate tenant screening reports can have devastating contents, making it extremely difficult for tenants to obtain housing. Federal law allows tenants to get copies of their reports and challenge inaccuracies.

To learn more about your rights under the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, check out the FTC's fact sheet.

Tenant Activists Call Out Fannie Mae for Throwing Out Tenants After Foreclosure

2010-02-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

Fannie Mae is being called out by tenant activists for pushing tenants out of their homes in violation of both the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act and its own written policies.

Tenants Together, which operates a hotline for tenants in foreclosure situations, announced in a press release today that it has received a growing number of calls from tenants living in properties acquired by Fannie Mae at foreclosure. Tenants in these properties report being harassed and misinformed by Fannie Mae-contracted real estate agents in violation of their rights both under tenant protection laws and Fannie Mae’s own, recently adopted policies.

Additionally, Tenants Together has sent a letter to Fannie Mae demanding that it comply with tenant protection laws and its own policies, establish a tenant-friendly complaint system for its tenants to file complaints over harassment by its contractors, and that it terminate all its contractual relationships with real estate agents, lawyers, and contractors that provide false or misleading information to its tenants.

In Texas, Robert Doggett, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid reports that Fannie Mae is being as bold as to serve tenants with Notices to Vacate that spell out how it will go about violating the federal law. Check out his blog post.

The impact of foreclosures on the mental health of tenants

2010-02-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

The Merced Sun-Star has published an outstanding series of articles titled "Houses of Blues : the Extreme Stress of Merced's Foreclosure Epidemic." The series is the product of a four-week investigation of the psychological and other health problems wreaked by the local foreclosure crisis. The paper partnered with California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting to gather the stories of dozens of people caught in the mortgage meltdown, many of them tenants.

One of the articles, "Renters, beware of trapdoor" focuses specifically on the immense stress foreclosures are putting on unsuspecting tenants.

"For a homeowner, it is hard, but for a renter in a home, being swept from underneath with no notice, it is rather abrupt and scary," said Jannel, 28.

Another article, "Foreclosure takes heavy toll on hearts and minds," sites a study published in October in the American Journal of Public Health about residents undergoing foreclosure in Philadelphia:

The findings are grim. More than one-third of those residents met the screening standards for major depression, such as feelings of sadness and changes in appetite or sleep patterns, said the article's lead author, Dr. Craig E. Pollack, a Rand Corp. researcher and assistant professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. That compares to about 13 percent for people living in poverty.

Read the series online at the Merced Sun-Star.

Breaking news: Court of Appeal strikes down fee award for predatory landlord

2010-02-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

David Taran's companies (Page Mill Properties, Woodland Park Management LLC, etc) have been at war with the City of East Palo Alto and its residents. In one case, the predatory landlord successfully sued the City and then got an order directing the city to pay the landlord's attorneys fees of over $20,000.

The Court of Appeal has thrown out the fee award, holding that the City is not on the hook for paying the fees of a landlord who sues and wins under East Palo Alto's Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

Check out the Court of Appeal ruling here.

Congratulations to the City of East Palo Alto for this victory. At least this will prevent some funds from going to bail out David Taran and his failed venture in EPA.

The Eviction Tax: Time for Banks to Pay for the Displacement They Cause

2010-02-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

By Dean Preston

In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced his intention to tax the largest financial institutions “to recover every single dime the American people are owed.” His desire to recoup direct costs of bank bailouts is a positive step, but a tax on banks must go further by addressing ongoing misconduct. Every day, banks are throwing people out of their homes. Banks should be taxed for each post-foreclosure eviction they perform.

Banks have a choice after they foreclose on property. They can evict all residents or they can keep residents in their homes. Banks choose to evict all occupants of the properties they acquire through foreclosure, even if the residents are willing and able to pay market rent to stay in their homes.

Amazingly, not a single governmental policy discourages banks from making the choice to evict, a choice that is ruining lives and costing our communities millions of dollars. It is time to change the incentives. Taxing evictions would be a good start.

Bank evictions have major societal costs. People displaced from foreclosed properties are increasingly forced into homelessness, inflicting trauma on families and requiring government expenditures to house and provide basic services for displaced persons. Those who find replacement housing often must move to new areas, severing them from places of employment, schools and other support networks. Evicting residents after foreclosure also causes vacancy and blight, triggering a downward spiral in neighborhood property values and property tax revenues. All of this is due to the decision of banks to evict residents after foreclosure.

Our society can tax conduct that has costs that are not adequately addressed by the market. Such taxes, referred to by economists as “Pigovian taxes,” are levied to correct the side effects (also know as “negative externalities”) of market activity. For example, some jurisdictions impose a “carbon tax” on corporations spewing excessive pollution into the environment. The tax helps deter corporations from polluting while addressing environmental damage and other related social costs. Likewise, a cigarette tax helps deter smoking and address health care costs that result from tobacco usage.

An eviction tax would have several benefits. First, by driving up the cost of evictions, it would discourage banks from evicting after foreclosure. Banks would have a financial incentive to keep homes occupied. Second, the tax would help offset the costs to society of evictions. There is no good reason banks should not pay their fair share of these societal costs that result from their decision to evict residents from their homes. Third, the tax revenue, or at least some of it, could be used to fund direct relief to the people evicted. Former homeowners and renters who are forced out of their homes often need assistance to find new housing, cover new security deposits and pay for other moving costs. An eviction tax would raise revenue and modify behavior, while providing long overdue relief to the victims of predatory banks.

Banks have refused to change their unconscionable (and fiscally unwise) practice of kicking residents out of their homes after foreclosure. So far, displaced residents and society at large have paid the costs of these senseless bank evictions. An eviction tax would be an appropriate response to the mass evictions being carried about by banks across our nation every day.

Dean Preston is the Executive Director of Tenants Together, California’s statewide organization for renters’ rights. For more information, visit www.TenantsTogether.org.

New York Times publishes excellent letter and article on predatory equity

2010-02-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

The New York Times published a great letter today from one of it's readers who calls out CalPERS and CalSTRS for their investments in a predatory equity scheme in New York in which profits were premised on the displacement of middle-income tenants.

One outrageous aspect of the “failed” deal for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, where the buyers have turned the keys over to the lenders, was that pension funds for teachers and public employees in California — California State Teachers’ Retirement System and Calpers — squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on an investment predicated on pushing middle-class tenants like New York City teachers and public employees out of their apartments and shrinking the supply of affordable housing for those constituencies and other middle-income New Yorkers.
-- Ellen Freilich

This follows an outstanding piece by Gretchen Morgenson from Saturday's edition of the Times about a rash of predatory equity schemes in New York City titled "All Those Little Stuyvesant Towns."

Morgenson reports that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is preparing to sue private equity firm, Vantage Properties, for it's practices as a predatory landlord. In a letter warning Vanguard of impending litigation the AG's office contends that Vanguard:

engaged in a “systemic pattern of harassment” to generate significant tenant turnover. Increasing turnover was central to Vantage’s business strategy, the attorney general’s office said, so that it could charge much higher rents after renovating the newly vacant apartments.

Replace "Vantage" with "Page Mill" and you'll get an almost perfect description of what Page Mill Properties, backed by a $100 million CalPERS investment, attempted to do in East Palo Alto:

“Vantage’s ability to satisfy its projected profits largely depends on its ability to evict rent-regulated tenants and raise rents to market levels,” wrote Alphonso B. David, chief of the Civil Rights Bureau in the attorney general’s office, in a letter to the company last week. Vantage tried to force out long-term tenants “by serving baseless legal notices and commencing frivolous housing court eviction proceedings,” he wrote.

The article is definitely recommended reading. Attorney generals in states where predatory equity schemes have been perpetrated may find it particularly interesting.

A Crucial Moment for Affordable Housing in the Silicon Valley

2010-02-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

By Andy Blue

East Palo Alto stands at a crossroads as one of the last affordable communities in the Silicon Valley. Today, more than half of the city’s rental housing stock was scheduled to hit the foreclosure auction block.

Although the auction has been postponed because of ongoing negotiations between the city and the receiver appointed by the courts to run the properties in lieu of the defaulting predatory landlord, the matter of what will become of half the city's rental housing remains a very urgent one. It is imperative that tenants, advocates, elected officials, and the foreclosing lender, Wells Fargo Bank, work together to make certain that safe, affordable housing is preserved in the City of East Palo Alto.

For the past two years, EPA residents have suffered the predictable and devastating consequences of a “predatory equity” scheme at the hands of the city’s biggest landlord, Page Mill Properties and its founder, David Taran. “Predatory equity” is a nasty and reckless form of real estate speculation that has resulted in the displacement of countless tenants across the country.

In these schemes, investors knowingly pay far more for rent-regulated properties than can be justified by the actual rental income at the time of purchase. To turn profits, investors push out existing tenants – through excessive rent increases, evictions, and harassment – so that they can be replaced with higher-rent tenants, or so the units can be sold off as high-priced condominiums.

Starting in 2006, with bank loans and a $100 million investment from CalPERS, California’s public employee pension fund, Page Mill began an over-leveraged buying spree of 1800 units of rent controlled housing on EPA’s west side. By December 2007, Page Mill began aggressively raising rents and stepping up evictions. Still, things did not go as David Taran and his fellow investors had hoped.

While many low income residents were indeed forced from their homes and rents were drastically increased, tenants and organizations such as the Fair Rent Coalition and Youth United for Community Action challenged the greedy scheme that threatened their community. They fought back by filing lawsuits, staging rallies, and getting their stories in the media. Now, with foreclosure looming on Page Mill, it appears the tenants and advocates have outlasted the predatory landlord, but the community has paid a terrible price.

Many are glad to see Taran’s company lose ownership of the properties. In fact, there was a sigh of relief when the court appointed a receiver to manage the properties recently and Page Mill disappeared into the night, literally abandoning their offices without notice. However, the celebration must not come too early. A similarly bad situation may play out again in EPA if all the parties involved do not make certain to prevent it. With the property on the auction block, a significant risk exists that a new group of speculators will buy the property and continue the assault on affordable housing in EPA. Much turns on whether the property will again be overleveraged, or whether it can be transferred to a responsible landlord.

In New York City, where a number of similar high-profile predatory equity schemes have begun to collapse, we see a model for how tenants, city officials and lenders can work together toward an acceptable outcome that preserves affordable rental housing.

As the Ocelot Capital Group went into default on its large portfolio of over-leveraged rental properties in the Bronx, the properties degraded into virtual squalor. But in December, advocates and city officials proudly announced that a responsible investor, with a favorable record of preserving and refurbishing affordable housing, would be purchasing the debt on the properties en route to outright ownership. Significantly, Congressman Jose Serrano and Senator Charles Schumer took leadership roles by intervening to protect tenants from further abuse.

As lender Wells Fargo considers buyers for the properties in EPA, it must prioritize the impact this decision will have on the tenants and the entire community. The bank should work with residents, community organizations and city officials to transfer the property to a responsible buyer who will preserve affordable rental housing. The portfolio must be sold at a price that reflects its true value, based on pre-Page Mill rental income in compliance with the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, not on an imagined value based on what investors think they might earn in a predatory equity scheme.

Nonprofit affordable housing organizations should be consulted about their interest in acquiring or managing some or all of the portfolio. Investment groups, such as Preservation of Affordable Housing, that are committed to preserving affordable housings, should also be brought to the table.

As in New York, elected officials, including Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein should take an active and vocal role in this process, using their influence to see that a responsible buyer is selected.

East Palo Alto has suffered enough. Now is the time to ensure the preservation of affordable rental housing in this community for generations to come.

UPDATE: This piece was quoted in a Mercury News article by Jessica Berstein-Wax about the delay of the foreclosure auction.

This was republished at Beyond Chron.

SF Landlord using Ellis Act to evict seniors in their 80s and 90s

2010-01-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

For more than a year a landlord in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood has been trying to use the Ellis Act to evict his tenants, all of whom are seniors and all of whom have lived in the building for more than 20 years.

The landlord, Jim K. Ma, wishes to vacate the building so he can convert the units and sell them as tenancies in common (TIC). Many of the Chinese American tenants are in their 80s and 90s including a 90 year-old World War II veteran.

As State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano was quoted in a New York Times articl e, “This is a Grinch that stole a bit of humanity here. The weather is cold, the tenants are older. It’s a very, very crass abuse of the Ellis Act.”

Tenants and advocates have stage rallies denouncing the evictions and the Chinatown Community Development Center is suing the landlord on behalf of the tenants. This week CBS 5 TV ran a story on the evictions that included a telling interview with Steven MacDonald, the attorney representing the landlord.

According to MacDonald, there's no reason to worry about evicting 90-year-old seniors from their homes because these tenants are Asian Americans and their families are "brain surgeons. . . they're smart, hard-working industrial people, addicted to the acquisition of real estate."

According to the CBS 5 report community advocates responded to such remarks saying, yes these tenants have families, "but they are low income and can not support these renters."

Watch the TV news repor t and raw footage of the disturbing interview with the landlord's lawyer below (video coming soon).

Phil Jackson breaks NBA silence on mega-landlord Donald Sterling's troubled history

2010-01-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

Back in November, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it's biggest ever settlement in a rental housing discrimination case. NBA team owner and LA mega-landlord Donald Sterling was forced to pay $2.73 million to settle allegations of race-based housing discrimination. (Sterling has been sued multiple times for discrimination and early this month a group of tenants from one of his buildings announced a suit claiming he was responsible for the building burning down.)

Shockingly, from the time that the Department of Justice charges were initially filed, through the announcement of the record settlement, and to this very day, the response to the situation from the ever image-conscious NBA commissioner, David Stern, has been nothing but silence.

In effort to bring increased attention to the insidious crime of housing discrimination, Tenants Together launched a campaign calling on David Stern and the NBA to denounce race-based housing discrimination and to discipline Sterling.

Many sports writers and housing advocates joined us in calling upon the NBA to take clear and decisive action. Still, Stern and the NBA have refused to comment or investigate.

Finally, this weekend, LA Lakers Coach, Phil Jackson broke the NBA silence on Donald Sterling's troubled history (see video below) and his comments have brought renewed media attention to Sterling's conduct as a landlord and has once again raised the issue of the League's inaction and silence in response to a landmark housing discrimination case.

Please sign the petition calling on the NBA to denounce race-based housing discrimination and discipline Donald Sterling at NBAshowyoucare.org

Big win for disabled renters

2010-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

Garrance Burke reports in an Associated Press article that under the terms of a settlement announced Wednesday by the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Stockton-based A.G. Spanos Companies will be required to retrofit 82 apartment buildings in 14 states to ease access for the disabled.

In what is likely one of the largest settlements "of its kind":

the companies will pay about $7.4 million to rehab up to 12,300 rental apartments, and will set up a $4.2 million fund for disabled renters and homeowners across the country who want to redo their own homes, bringing the total cost to about $14 million, the housing advocacy group said.

Read the full article.

Corporate slumlord benefiting from federal stimulus tax credits

2010-01-12T13:25:00.000-08:00

California Watch , a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, has uncovered the story of large corporations working in California reaping tens of millions of dollars in new federal stimulus funds, despite previous pollution violations, criminal probes, and allegations of fraud.

The story by Will Evans has been picked up in several media outlets including the Contra Costa Times, the OC Register, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Tenants and advocates in San Francisco were surprised to hear that Denver-based corporate landlord, AIMCO was the beneficiary of some $13 million in stimulus tax credits to rehabilitate its housing complex in Los Angeles. As the article states:

"This federal assistance comes after the company paid $3 million in 2004 to settle a lawsuit from the city of San Francisco over complaints that it operated mold and rodent-infested buildings that posed serious safety hazards. Residents continue to complain about AIMCO’s management."

Tenants in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, "have complained for years of slumlord conditions and bad management at the AIMCO apartment complexes."

An AIMCO resident Dorthy Peterson said, "If they really wanted to make sure that low income housing was built properly and for residents that were going to be treated like human beings, then they would not give it to an AIMCO."

And Sara Shortt, the executive director of Tenants Together member organization, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco said tenants and advocates trust AIMCO, "as far as we can throw them."

Read the full article at CaliforniaWatch.org.

Sending renters off to war -- literally

2010-01-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

As President Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, deploying tens of thousands of troops, renters are disproportionately bearing the burden of fighting America’s wars.

Approximately 75% of America’s military personnel are renters. This is in sharp contrast to the general figures for rest of the country. While about 65% of Americans are homeowners, a mere 25% of military personnel own their own homes.

At the same time as Americans of all political stripes use rhetoric about “supporting the troops,” our government policies continue to promote homeownership and punish renters. Such policies, such as homebuyers' tax credits with no corresponding credits for renters, disproportionately harm military personnel.

Just once it would be nice to hear a politician who is talking about “supporting the troops” call for tax credits for renters, protections against unfair evictions, greater funding for section 8 vouchers or other polices that would benefit not only military renters, but the millions of other Americans who rent their homes.

East Palo Alto activist Re'Anita Burns

2010-01-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

East Palo Alto activist Re'Anita Burns is celebrated in this article from YUCA. Among other efforts, Re'Anita has worked with Page Mill tenants to stand up for their rights. Re'Anita joined Tenants Together last year in our trip to meet with CalPERS' staff to let them know the ugly details about the Page Mill/CalPERS partnership.

Tenants Together congratulates Re'Anita for her courage in standing up to Page Mill Properties. Against all odds, East Palo Alto tenants and organizers ultimately sent this abusive landlord packing.

SF Judges Accused of Bias Against Tenants

2010-01-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

A scathing article published today in the online newspaper BeyondChron.org criticizes San Francisco Superior Court judges of pervasive anti-tenant bias.

"As 2009 drew to a close, the Appellate Panel at SF Superior Court quietly upheld the eviction of long-term San Francisco resident, Susan Suval. Without any explanation, the court rubber-stamped the erroneous trial court ruling that allowed a landlord to invoke the Ellis Act despite a written agreement with the City that he would do no such thing.

The case stands as the latest example of judicial bias against renters in San Francisco’s Superior Courts. Despite its progressive political climate, San Francisco continues to be one of the worst places in California when it comes to judicial bias against tenants."

Read the full article here.

Winter newsletter is now available online

2009-12-31T12:54:00.000-08:00

The latest edition of the Tenants Together newsletter is now available online.

Included in this edition:

*Federal law protects tenants at foreclosure
*Growing number of cities adopt "just cause" laws
*CalPERS to lose $600M in predatory equity schemes
*Local highlights from across the state
*State legislative updates
*Court watch and more!

If you prefer receiving a print copy of the newsletter, please become a member today and we'll send it to you.

One roadblock to meaningful representation for the poor falls -- LSC halts enforcement of rule against clients recovering statutory attorney fees

2009-12-22T00:31:00.000-08:00

The Legal Services Corporation will no longer enforce the rule that barred clients represented by legal services agencies from collecting attorney fees. Until this recent move, clients represented by private sector lawyers could recover attorney fees provided by statute, but clients represented by legal services lawyers were barred from recovering these fees. Any legal services agency that collected attorney fees from a defendant risked losing its LSC funding.

Here's the LSC's update on the new nonenforcement policy on fee restrictions:

"The Fiscal Year 2010 appropriation for LSC lifts the statutory prohibition on the recovery of attorneys' fees by LSC-funded programs. In light of that action, LSC's Board of Directors voted on December 15 to suspend enforcement of LSC's regulation prohibiting grantees from claiming, collecting or retaining attorneys' fees. The suspension went into effect December 16, when the President signed the appropriations bill."

The attorney fee rule is one of a serious of restrictions that has handcuffed attorneys representing the poor. Other restrictions include a prohibition on LSC funded groups initiating class action litigation or participating in lobbying efforts on behalf of their clients. Meanwhile, funding for legal services agencies has been gutted due to Republican led efforts since the mid-1990's.

The restrictions and funding cuts have devastated the ability of legal services organizations to advocate for their low-income clients.

For low-income tenants who rely on local legal aid organizations, nonenforcement of the fee rule is an extremely important first step toward restoring meaningful access to the courts. The remaining restrictions should be removed promptly, and funding for legal services organizations should be dramatically increased.

TV News story covers the devastating impact of a predatory equity scheme on East Palo Alto

2009-12-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hank Plante of CBS-5 News in San Francisco covers the story of the devastating impact Page Mill Properties' predatory equity scheme has had on the community of East Palo Alto. This report follows Bobby White's recent article in the Wall Street Journal about increased crime in properties that have been neglected by Page Mill Properties and CEO David Taran.

The report includes an interview with Tenants Together Executive Director Dean Preston where he explains how predatory equity schemes work and how the damage they cause communities is sadly predictable.

Watch for Page Mill PR spokesperson Sam Singer's classic remarks around the two-minute mark. According to him the recent "problems that are occurring are really the fault of someone else."

Page Mill's predatory equity scheme in East Palo Alto was partially financed by a $100 million investment from CalPERS, the state's public employee pension fund and has become the subject of increasing news coverage that explains the tenant impacts of such schemes, including stories in the Sacramento Bee and SF Bay Guardian, .

Tenants Together on Edge of Sports Radio with Dave Zirin

2009-11-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

Our Executive Director Dean Preston was a guest this week on Dave Zirin's nationally broadcast "Edge of Sports" radio show, a program that covers issues at the intersection of sports and politics.

Listen to Zirin's interview with Preston.

Preston explained why Tenants Together has launched the "NBA: Show You Care" Campaign which calls on the NBA and Commissioner David Stern to condemn racist housing discrimination and to discipline Donald Sterling, the Los Angeles mega-landlord and Clippers basketball team owner. According to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice this month, Donald Sterling is obligated to pay the largest settlement for rental housing discrimination in the department's history. So far the NBA has refused to investigate or even comment on the issue.

Zirin wrote an excellent piece in The Nation lamenting the NBA's silence on this issue. He points out the NBA's hypocrisy in how it deals with players vs. owners and calls for strict action against Sterling:

NBA Commissioner David Stern, always so PR-conscious when it comes to where players mingle, how players dress and whom players consort with after hours, has turned a blind eye to this disturbing pattern. Now these chickens have returned to Stern's back porch to roost. The NFL's union and players spoke out against Limbaugh. The NBA's should absolutely do the same. But even that is not enough. Owners are very fond of declaring "eminent domain" when they need to expel residents, bulldoze apartments and build stadiums. NBA fans need to declare eminent domain on Sterling. It was our game before it was ever his. Every fan of conscience needs to get in touch with the commissioner's office and say that Sterling has got to go.

Please watch the campaign video and sign the petition to the NBA at NBAshowyoucare.org.

Sacramento Bee Runs Front Page Story on CalPERS' Predatory Equity Investments in East Palo Alto and New York City

2009-11-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

We were very pleased to see the Sacramento Bee covering the story of CalPERS' predatory real estate investments on the front page of today's paper.

Read the full article: "CalPERS realty deals and image take a beating" by Dale Kasler

The Sac Bee story follows an excellent recent piece, "The pension fund evictions," from Ryan Riddle in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Tenants and advocates in East Palo Alto and Tenants Together have been working for more than a year to get the mainstream media interested in this story, and today's article is an encouraging sign that those efforts are starting to pay off. It appears the media is beginning to connect the dots between these reckless and greedy investment schemes and the devastating impact they have on low and moderate income communities.

This media attention wasn't soon enough to mitigate the awful impact that CalPERS' predatory equity investments in East Palo Alto and New York City have already had on countless tenants, but perhaps the light finally being shed on these issues will help move the public pension fund to reform its investment policies and prevent future debacles.

Here's a excerpt from today's article:

Advocates for tenants' rights say the California Public Employees' Retirement System didn't merely blunder into a couple of bad deals.
Rather, they say the $200 billion investment fund was party to a pair of schemes to jack up rents at the expense of thousands of working-class and middle-class tenants.
"There's absolutely no reason a public employee pension fund ... should choose to invest in that," said Dean Preston, executive director of San Francisco advocacy group Tenants Together.
The controversy could become another public-relations headache for CalPERS, which is struggling with heavy investment losses and a possible influence-peddling scandal. The system manages retirement benefits for more than 1.6 million California public employees, retirees, and their families.

We were also pleased to see that the article included quotes from tenants and allies in East Palo Alto including Mayor Rubin Abrica, Juliet Brodie of the Stanford Community Law Clinic, and tenant activist, Chris Lund.

Once again, we call on CalPERS to take responsibility for its involvement in these schemes and work with tenant advocates to adopt predator-free investment policies that will prevent it from ever again entangling itself in schemes of these type in the future.

Racist Landlords and the NBA

2009-11-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

Today Trina Chiasson of YouthNoise Play City posted an excellent piece on her organization's blog about race-based housing discrimination, encouraging folks to sign our petition which demands that the NBA condemn racist housing discrimination and discipline Donald Sterling.

YouthNoise Play City is a nonprofit that promotes sports for social change.

Thanks Trina for letting us repost!

Racist Landlords and the NBA
by Trina Chiasson
YouthNoise Play City

Yesterday a California renters' rights organization, Tenants Together, launched a new campaign called NBA: Show You Care.

Their goal? To prompt the NBA to discipline LA Clippers owner and big-time landlord Donald Sterling for his willful engagement in housing discrimination. A Tenants Together press release said this:

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Sterling “Engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating on the basis of race, national Origin, and family status.” The DOJ stated that Sterling “refused to rent to African Americans” and that his conduct was willful.

Indeed, Sterling was forced to pay a whopping $2.725 million in the largest housing discrimination settlement to date. But even this sizable chunk of change isn't enough to compensate for the damages caused by many years of racial discrimination and unlawful activity in the housing market. Many would like to see further discipline for Sterling's actions. Many would like to see the NBA acknowledge and take action to address racism within its ranks.

Political sportswriter Dave Zirin added: "Court testimony claimed that Sterling had said he did not like to rent to Hispanics because "Hispanics smoke, drink and just hang around the building." Witnesses testified that he also said, "Black tenants smell and attract vermin."

Woah. Is this really the type of leadership that we want to see in the NBA? I sure hope not.

Housing discrimination is insidious and largely invisible to enforcement agencies. Most people of color won't start a lawsuit after experiencing housing discrimination on a personal level. It's expensive and difficult to prove. If you're renting, you probably don't have the cash to hire a lawyer or the time to research tenants' rights. Most folks will just silently wonder: Is it just me? Is it a personal fault? Is it my credit score? My references? But then there's that nagging question: Or could it be the color of my skin?

How could one possibly know the precise motives behind an isolated decision to deny housing to a family or an individual? Generally, you don't know. That's why Sterling's case required a major lawsuit to look into broad demographic information and testimonials over a period of years. When lawsuits like this actually come to fruition, you know that there's something very wrong.

I'm hoping that this case involving a high-profile NBA team owner will serve as a warning to landlords all over the country that housing discrimination won't be tolerated. I'm also hoping that the NBA will step up its game and start a dialogue about how the organization plans to address racism in sports and beyond.

In the meantime, there's a petition that you can sign over at NBA: Show You Care "to urge the NBA to condemn racist housing discrimination and discipline Donald Sterling."

Go ahead; sign it.

NBA: Show You Care" Campaign Demands League Condemn Racist Housing Discrimination and Discipline Team Owner

2009-11-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

Join the Facebook group.

Sign the petition.

Tenants Together launched a new online petition and video today as part of campaign urging the National Basketball Association to discipline Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling. The campaign follows the announcement last week by the U.S. Department of Justice of the largest settlement ever obtained in a rental housing discrimination case.

Referencing the NBA’s own “NBA Cares” slogan, we are demanding, “NBA: Show you care” and have launched the website www.NBAshowyoucare.org. The website includes a short video and a petition to NBA Commissioner David Stern.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Sterling “Engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, and family status.” The DOJ stated that Sterling “refused to rent to African Americans” and that his conduct was willful.

This is not the first time that Sterling has paid out millions to make housing discrimination claims go away. In 2006, the Housing Rights Center in Los Angeles sued Sterling for discrimination, a case that Sterling settled for an undisclosed amount that included over $5 million in fees. Sterling has also been sued for harassment and employment discrimination based on race by NBA legend and former Clippers General Manager Elgin Baylor, a case that is pending.

According to the “NBA Cares" mission statement, “the NBA is dedicated to demonstrating leadership in social responsibility.” However, when sportswriters responded to the DOJ announcement by asking the NBA what it plans to do in response, the NBA has said it has no plans to comment or investigate Sterling. As noted by Jemele Hill of ESPN, “The Commissioner has offered only disappointing silence.” Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports asks, “Where is the outrage?”

We launched the online video and petition to put pressure on the NBA to discipline Sterling. “The DOJ busts this NBA team owner for denying housing to people based on the color of their skin, and the NBA has nothing to say?” commented Dean Preston, our Executive Director, “The NBA must take swift decisive action to condemn racist housing discrimination and discipline this team owner.”

The NBA’s inaction contrasts with how the National Football League and Major League Baseball have handled allegations of racism by team owners. In 1996, MLB suspended Marge Schott, owner and GM of the Cincinnati Reds, for over a year for racially insensitive remarks. More recently, the NFL excluded talk show host Rush Limbaugh from becoming a team owner after a firestorm of controversy over past racist remarks. Clippers’ owner Sterling was accused not only of making racist remarks like Schott and Limbaugh, but also of engaging in a pattern of illegal racist housing discrimination against minority tenants, yet the NBA has no plans to discipline Sterling.

The video and petition, along with more information, is available at NBAshowyoucare.org.

LA Real Estate Mogul Pays Record $2.7M Settlement in housing discrimination lawsuit

2009-11-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

The Justice Department announced yesterday the largest monetary payment ever obtained by the department in the settlement of a case alleging housing discrimination in the rental of apartments.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles Clippers owner and real estate mogul Donald T. Sterling has agreed to pay a record $2.725 million to settle allegations that he discriminated against African Americans, Hispanics and families with children at scores of apartment buildings he owns in and around Los Angeles.

From a statement by the Justice Department:

"Housing is a basic human need, and yet decades after passage of the Fair Housing Act, far too many still encounter barriers like discrimination. Particularly in times of economic distress and rising foreclosures, we must remain vigilant to ensure all individuals have equal access to housing," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "The magnitude of this settlement should send a message to all landlords that we will vigorously pursue violations of the Fair Housing Act."

Supreme Court Refuses to Protect Inclusionary Housing

2009-10-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

State Legislation Urgently Needed to Protect Affordable Housing Laws

by Dean Preston

California’s Supreme Court last week continued the judicial assault on affordable rental housing in communities across California. The Court denied review of Palmer / Sixth Street Properties v. City of Los Angeles -- an unprecedented and erroneous appellate court ruling that the state’s Costa Hawkins Act preempts a local inclusionary housing law in Los Angeles. Any hope that the Supreme Court would step in to correct this harmful appellate decision has now vanished. We need legislation to reverse Palmer, and we need it now.

The City of Los Angeles had filed a petition for review with the state Supreme Court seeking to overturn the erroneous appellate court ruling. Housing groups, including Tenants Together and the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, submitted an amicus brief in support of the City’s request. The Supreme Court rejected the request without explanation on October 22, 2009.

As with the original decision, there has been virtually no coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision. Few news outlets even bothered to cover the Supreme Court’s decision to leave Palmer standing, notwithstanding the fact that the decision will have devastating effects across the state.

Over 150 jurisdictions in California have some variation of inclusionary laws. As the California Coalition for Rural Housing notes, “inclusionary programs are putting roofs over the heads of tens of thousands of Californians.” Inclusionary housing laws exist are essential to the development of affordable housing, especially at a time of ever-shrinking government funds for affordable housing.

Because of the Palmer decision, inclusionary housing laws across the state are in jeopardy of being tossed out by over-zealous judges. Developers will aggressively assert the court’s decision to contest requirements that they include affordable rental housing in new residential developments.

The Palmer decision is simply wrong. The appellate court ruled that Costa Hawkins preempted an inclusionary housing law, notwithstanding clear legislative history to the contrary. The Legislature passed the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act in 1995 to limit the reach of local rent control laws. No appellate court has ever found that the Act preempts inclusionary housing laws, because the Act has nothing to do with inclusionary housing laws.

With affordable rental housing for tens of thousands of families at stake, it is extremely disturbing that our state’s highest court would not even deem the matter of enough significance to review the decision. It is now up to the state legislature to do what the Supreme Court should have done -- overturn the Palmer case and make clear that Costa Hawkins does not preempt inclusionary housing laws.

Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide

2009-10-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dr. Pop.org for leading us to this today.

The Center for Urban Pedagogy in New York connects artists/designers with advocates to produce Making Public Policy four times a year. The end product of the collaboration is a beautiful, brilliant, highly informative, and easy to understand pamphlet that unfolds into a color poster.

According to their website:

The series aims to make information on policy truly public: accessible, meaningful, and shared. We aim to add vitality to crucial debates about our future. At the same time, we want to create opportunities for designers to engage social issues without sacrificing experimentation and for advocacy organizations to reach their constituencies better through design.

The latest issue of Making Public Policy is called "Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide." Predatory equity, of course, is the notorious real estate investment model in which buyers pay more for rent-regulated housing than can be justified by the rental income, and then force out tenants so that they can raise rents. You can read our recent post about how CalPERS has invested California public employee pension dollars in predatory equity schemes in NYC and East Palo Alto.

Here's what the folks at Making Public Policy have to say about their latest publication.

During the boom, a new breed of speculator used private equity and oversized bank loans to buy up affordable housing. They tried to make a quick profit by converting it to luxury housing – putting over 65,000 families and their affordable apartments at risk. Post-crash, these predatory equity speculators can’t pay off their loans or sell their buildings. Foreclosure looms. Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide explains the financial mechanics of predatory equity and how to prevent it from happening again in the next boom. It provides tenants, advocates, and policymakers with information on tools like loan modifications and preservation short sales to save the hundreds of buildings in imminent danger of foreclosure. The poster was produced through a collaboration between Tenants & Neighbors, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and Glen Cummings.

To purchase Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide through paypal, click here. To buy more than 20 issues, or to purchase by check, please email us here.

To download a pdf version, click here.

People's Victory! US Court of Appeals Rules to Protect Section 8 Tenants

2009-10-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by Larry Gross, Executive Director of Coalition for Economic Survival

The Coalition for Economic Surviva l (CES) scored a major tenants' rights victory when the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled in BARRIENTOS v. 1801-1825 MORTON LLC, that Los Angeles' rent control law is not preempted by federal laws or regulations.

The decision, which has a national impact, specially provides Section 8 tenants living at Morton Gardens Apartments in Echo Park protection against their landlord's attempt to evict them.

In its ruling, the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, stated that "a landlord subject to the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance ("LARSO") served notices of eviction upon tenants whose rent is subsidized by the federal government, because it desired to raise the rent on the apartment units. Though LARSO prohibits eviction for that purpose, Morton asserts that a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation permits the eviction of an assisted tenant during the lease term for "good cause" grounds, which "may include [the] desire to lease the unit at a higher rental." We must decide whether HUD's "good cause" regulation preempts the operation of the City of Los Angeles's eviction control ordinance. We hold that it does not. We affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the tenants, permanent injunctive relief, and award of attorney's fees."

City of LA and HUD Lent Support

The City of Los Angeles and HUD, as well as the AARP Foundation, filed amici curiae ("Friend of the Court") briefs in support of our case. LA City Council President Eric Garcetti, who represents the Morton Gardens tenants, provided important backing and helped in securing HUD's support.

CES' Long Efforts to Stop Evictions & Preserve This Affordable Housing

For more than the last 20 years, CES has been assisting these tenants' efforts to fight off evictions. Morton Gardens was developed in 1971 as a low-income rental housing project through a HUD subsidized mortgage-secured low interest loan program.

Morton Garden apartments is a 66-unit building which is situated just over a hill from Dodger Stadium in Echo Park.

In 1998 the prior owners prepaid the subsidized loan in advance of the original loan maturity date, thus removing the federal rent restrictions. As a result, tenants in residence received "enhanced" Section 8 rent subsidy vouchers, which entitled them the right to remain in their units, paying the same rent and requiring landlords to accept these vouchers as long as the tenants decide to stay and Congress provides the funding. In addition, other tenants holding regular Section 8 vouchers have since moved in.

In 2003, the City and the tenants had obtained an earlier ruling from the 9th Circuit Court that upheld the application of the City's rent control law to the units, rejecting the owner's claim that federal law "preempted" local rent protections.

Eric Sussman, who along with other partners bought the building for $8 million in 2006, is not just any landlord. He teaches real estate at one of the nation's preeminent business schools, the UCLA Anderson School of Management. CES and tenants have argued that he should have known when he bought Morton Gardens that Section 8 tenants lived there and it is unethical of him to try to evict them just to increase rents.

The Morton Garden case involves two related, but distinct, federal tenant-based housing subsidies: "enhanced Section 8 vouchers" and regular Section 8 "housing choice vouchers."

The landlord was challenging the Congressionally enacted right to remain for the enhanced voucher holders, as well as the applicability of the city's just cause eviction law, which protects Section 8 tenants living in rent controlled units. Tenant attorneys citywide have been defending tenants against a wave of 90-day Section 8 termination notices, arguing that a Section 8 contract cannot be terminated until there is a vacancy and there needs to be a "just cause" reason under the rent control law to evict a tenant to secure a vacancy.

In 2007, tenants, outraged by eviction notices they received, rode a school bus to UCLA to protest outside his class. They held signs, chanted and then presented Sussman with a ceramic piggy bank, an award as the "Greediest Landlord in L.A."

Larry Gross is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES). He has been with CES for over 36 years, since its inception in 1973. CES is a grassroots, multi-racial, multi-ethnic tenants' rights organization serving low and moderate income renters throughout the greater Los Angeles area. CES is committed to organizing tenants to fight to ensure tenants' rights and preserve affordable housing.

Among CES' impressive track record of empowering tenants, securing concrete victories and achieving institutional change include leading campaigns to win rent control in the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. CES also led the effort to incorporate the City of West Hollywood and elected CES tenant leaders to the City Council.

http://www.CESinAction.org

CalPERS loses $600 million in predatory equity schemes that relied on mass displacement of tenants to turn profits

2009-10-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIA TENANTS DEMAND REFORM

CalPERS will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in predatory real estate investment schemes according to recent reports in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Jose Mercury News, and other publications. What has not been adequately reported is that these schemes are classic examples of what housing advocates call “predatory equity,” over leveraged investments that rely on the displacement of tenants from rent-regulated housing in order to turn profits.

CalPERS has effectively invested (and lost) the retirement funds of working people in projects that were designed to displace working people from their homes.

Tenants Together is calling on CalPERS to adopt predator-free real estate investment policies that will prevent it from ever again committing funds to these types of schemes that have displaced tenants and have proven to be such financial disasters. Tenants Together is also demanding a full investigation into the circumstances of CalPERS investments in predatory equity schemes to determine what CalPERS knew about these investments at the outset.

“CalPERS must never again make investments into schemes that are so devastating to local communities and to the retirement accounts of working people,” said Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together. “We need to know exactly how this happened so we make sure it never happens again.”

CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund, will lose $600 million in two separate real estate investment deals: one in New York City with partners Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty and another in East Palo Alto, CA with partner Page Mill Properties. Both investments have been the subject of considerable controversy as they have involved the mass displacement of low and moderate income tenants from their homes. They have also spawned multiple lawsuits and raised the ire of tenants, community organizations, public officials, and labor groups.

For more than a year, Tenants Together has been working with tenants, advocates, labor unions, and city officials in East Palo Alto, where CalPERS’ investment partner, Page Mill Properties, has been engaged in open conflict with the city and its residents. In 2006 Page Mill Properties began buying up some 1800 units of rent-controlled housing on the west side of East Palo Alto bordering an affluent neighborhood of Palo Alto. After acquiring the properties, Page Mill began implementing drastic rent increases (many far in excess of the annual increase permitted under the city’s rent stabilization ordinance) and forcing many tenants to leave their homes through unaffordable rents, harassment, and eviction lawsuits.

After learning that CalPERS was a principal investor in the project, Tenants Together, along with advocates and tenants from East Palo Alto met with CalPERS staff and testified before the CalPERS Board of Administration bringing the crisis to their attention and calling on them to intervene with their partner Page Mill to move it to rescind the rent increases and cease the unjust eviction of its tenants. Tenants Together also warned that predatory equity investments were extremely risky financially and reputationally for CalPERS.

Yet for months after, the situation continued to deteriorate in East Palo Alto as evictions and litigation continued. Finally, last month, Wells Fargo Bank reported that Page Mill was in danger of losing its properties after missing a $50 million mortgage payment. Soon after, its properties were put into receivership as an initial step towards foreclosure. If the foreclosure proceeds, as appears to be likely, CalPERS will lose all of its $100 million investment.

At the same time as its troubles in East Palo Alto reached a critical stage, CalPERS’ investment with Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty in New York City began to go bust as well. In this instance, a half a billion dollars worth of CalPERS retirement money was at stake. Again, it appears CalPERS will lose the entire investment.

Three years ago, Tishman Speyer and BlackRock devised a plan to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in New York City for $5.4 billion, a purchase that would amount to the largest real estate deal in American history. But as is the case with all predatory equity investment schemes, the buyers paid more for the property than could be justified by the rental income that the property was earning at the time of sale.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reports today (“An Apartment Complex Teeters,” 10/15/09), “the new owners predicted they would be able to convert thousands of protected apartments to higher market rents. These projections convinced CalPERS and the pension funds of several other states to make large equity investments in the deal.”

In other words, profit was expected to come at the expense of lower income tenants who would be pushed from their homes and replaced with higher-rent-paying tenants and knowing this, CalPERS signed on.

Apparently, like Page Mill, Tishman/BlackRock did not count on the fact that tenants would not so easily be forced from their homes. In the case of both of these schemes, tenants organized and resisted displacement. They dug in, brought their stories to the media, staged rallies, and filed lawsuits against the predatory investors. It now appears the tenants may outlast their landlord foes, though the future of these soon-to-be foreclosed properties remains uncertain.

Tenants Together, along with many other organizations and advocates from the affected communities, have pointed out that CalPERS, a co-author and signatory to the UN Principals for Responsible Investment, should never have invested in these kind of schemes that seek to displace low and moderate income tenants.

It remains unclear how much CalPERS initially knew about the nature of its investment with Page Mill because, as real estate reporter Sharon Simonson explains, (“Palo Alto Developer Losing $340 million with CalPERS Money,” The Registry, 9/9/09) the pension fund has “remained stubbornly mute on Page Mill’s activities or plans.”

Tenants Together requested from CalPERS a copy of Page Mill’s investment proposal to CalPERS, and the resulting investment agreement, via a Public Records Act request but the pension fund denied the request on the grounds of confidentiality.

The fact that CalPERS remains “stubbornly mute” on its investment with Page Mill leaves observers to guess between two troubling possibilities. Either CalPERS was unaware of the true nature of Page Mill’s plans for East Palo Alto, which is quite problematic in terms of the fund’s fiduciary responsibilities to its members, or it was aware of Page Mill’s plans, which is terribly problematic in terms of basic humane practices from a public pension fund that takes pride in its reputation for ethical investments.

Either way, “predator free” real estate investment policies must be adopted to prevent further investments of this type in the future.

Tenants Together has proposed “predator free” investment policies to CalPERS, similar to guidelines recently adopted by the Comptroller in New York City, to prevent pension fund investments in predatory equity schemes. To date, CalPERS has done nothing to move forward on adopting such a policy.

Right to Housing Event at Manilatown Heritage Foundation

2009-10-14T11:09:00.001-07:00

Last night Tenants Together was one of several co-sponsors for an event hosted by the Manilatown Heritage Foundation in San Francisco.

Chester Hartman (pictured left) gave an insightful presentation on "Right to Housing." Hartman is an urban planner, author, and Director of Research for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council in Washington D.C. and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at George Washington University.

Hartman actively organized the resistance to stop eviction at San Francisco's International Hotel in 1977. The event was held at the New International Hotel Senior Housing/Manilatown Center where the original International Hotel once stood.

Other co-sponsors for the event included St. Peters' Housing Committee, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Just Cause Oakland, Fair Housing of Marin, Asian Law Caucus, Bay Area Legal Aid, SF Human Rights Commission, National Housing Law Project, and Chinatown Community Development Center.

Emil de Guzman of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation

Hartman stressed that as a society we must reframe our thinking when it comes to housing -- it can't just be a goal to provide housing for all, we must consider it a universal human right. He also stressed the need for housing advocates to work hand in hand with advocates in the fields of education, public health, etc. as the issues and struggles in these different fields are closely connected. Only by building coalitions across disciplines will we ever be successful in achieving adequate and affordable housing for everyone.

Hartman explained that we must rethink the entire housing system and not leave it merely to the mercy of the free market. We need to emphasize grants vs. loans for housing, and create more community land trusts etc.

When asked about predatory lending and the foreclosure crisis, Hartman noted that tenants are the hidden victims in the crisis and that it's vital that their rights be protected and that lenders be held accountable for their treatment of the tenants in foreclosed properties.

Chester Hartman is the author of several books including City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco, and There Is No Such Thing As a Natural Disaster: Race, Class & Hurricane Katrina.

Governor Signs Two Tenant Bills, Vetoes Mobilehome Park Resident Bill

2009-10-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

In a big victory for tenants, Senator Mark Leno's bill, SB 290, was signed into law by the governor this weekend. The law makes the 60-day notice requirement for no-fault evictions permanent. The 60-day notice requirement has been law for six years, but was scheduled to sunset at the end of this year. The law provides much needed time for tenants who are evicted through no fault of their own to locate new housing. Tenants Together thanks Senator Leno (pictured left) for his continued advocacy for fairness and justice for California renters.

Please note that in the foreclosure context, federal law continues to provide 90-day notice.

In another significant victory, Senator Alan Lowenthal's bill, SB 120, was also signed by the Governor. The bill strengthens tenants' rights against utility shutoffs, especially for tenants in single family homes who have been denied protections that apply to other renters. The law is particularly important for tenants in homes going through foreclosure, as defaulting landlords and banks are notorious for failing to maintain basic utility services for their tenants. To read the new law, click here.

Tenants Together congratulates and thanks Senator Lowenthal for his successful effort to protect tenants from utility shutoffs. And thanks to Assemblymember Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont) who passed similar legislation last year that was vetoed by the governor. Tenants Together also thanks the Western Center on Law & Poverty, a nonprofit organization that sponsored both SB 120 and 290, and worked tirelessly to make sure these measures became law. Finally, we sincerely thank all of you who have supported these bills and who contacted your legislators and the governor to make sure these bills became law.

We will continue to work to make sure no tenant is denied basic utility services. This law is a big step toward that goal.

Unfortunately, the governor vetoed Assemblymember Pedro Nava's bill, AB 566. The bill would have required majority resident approval for mobilehome park conversions. Park conversions undermine rent control, making it particularly crucial that residents have a say in conversions.

According to the Governor's veto message: "While the intent of this bill is to preserve low-income housing, the fact that a majority of mobilehome park residents do not support a conversion is not an appropriate means for determining the legitimacy of a conversion. The law is not intended to allow park residents to block a request to subdivide."

We certainly disagree with the Governor and look forward to working with mobile home residents to oppose unfair conversions of mobile home parks.

Torture memo author rules against rent control

2009-10-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Remember Jay S. Bybee, one of the torture memo authors, rewarded by George W. Bush with a lifetime federal appeals court appointment? The NY Times called for his impeachment earlier this year, noting: "These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution."

Well, Judge Bybee is up to no good again, this time authoring a 2-1 decision in which a federal Court ruled against a CA mobilehome rent control ordinance. In this preposterous decision, the court bends over backwards to conclude that a park owner was denied "investment backed expectations" because of the ordinance, notwithstanding the fact that the park owner bought the park with full knowledge of the rent control law. Judge Bybee was joined by Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, a Nixon-appointee.

That's right, the very person that couldn't find a right to be free from torture in our constitution has now found a constitutional right of mobilehome park owners to be free from a City's rent control law.

The decision is flawed on many levels. Let's hope the Ninth Circuit reviews the case en banc so that this decision will not stand.

Hotline Caller Stands Up to Harassing Landlord, Shares Story on TV

2009-09-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Immediately after the home Anthony Moore, his wife, and four kids rent in Bakersfield was foreclosed, Anthony began to get harassed by his new landlord who wanted him out within 3 days. Anthony called Tenants Together's Tenant Foreclosure Hotline and learned that, under the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, he is entitled to stay in his home until his lease expires next year.

Empowered by this information, Anthony decided to make an example of his new landlord who he suspects is in the business of buying homes at foreclosure and prematurely evicting the tenants. Within a couple of days of calling our hotline, Anthony contacted his local ABC station and got to share his story on the evening news. Check out the video below.

Just Cause Oakland Celebrates 10th Anniversary

2009-09-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

Tenants Together member organization, Just Cause Oakland, celebrated its 10th anniversary last night at an extraordinary celebration titled: A Tribute to Justice / Un Tributo a la Justicia. The historic Sweets Ballroom in downtown Oakland, where the event was held was packed with folks paying tribute to justice and to this amazing organization that is building a powerful voice for Oakland's low-income tenants, workers, and communities of color.

The event was emceed by Adrienne Brown of the Ruckus Society and Joel Tena of the East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO) and featured an incredible line up of honorees, speakers and entertainment including the Rev. Jesse Jackson as a last minute addition, James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org, musicians Kev Choice and Las Bomberas de la Bahia, poet Aimee Suzara, and Santero on the turntables.

Just Cause Oakland member Audrey Miles

Maria Poblet, Co-Director, St. Peters Housing Committee and to her right, Just Cause Oakland Steering Committee member Charlene Wedderburn

Attendees were treated to a moving retrospective through oral histories and multimedia of Just Cause's work over the last ten years including its historic campaign in 2002 to pass the city's Just Cause Eviction Protections ordinance. Since that signature victory, Just Cause has worked with hundreds of residents over the years to stop unfair eviction in their buildings and homes. In 2003 Just Cause fought to protect 50 units of low-income senior housing in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza and were able to get all the units turned over to a non-profit to remain permanently affordable. In 2008 Just Cause successfully fought to keep the California Hotel and other affordable housing buildings open and in that same year fought hard against Prop 98, the landlord-funded statewide attack on rent control.

Certainly, a highlight of the evening was the Reverend Jesse Jackson's appearance which had been announced only a day before the event. The Reverend was very warmly received with a standing ovation and he kept the crowd on its feet throughout his brief speech, leading us in several spirited chants including "Housing is a Human Right!" and "Restructure loans, don't repossess homes!"

The evening's program promised a "Big Announcement" and indeed the exciting news was revealed that Just Cause Oakland and San Francisco's St. Peter's Housing Committee / El Comite de Vivienda San Pedro will be merging into one "fierce" transbay organization. As the St. Peter's website explains, the organizations are "inspired by a shared vision of deepening solidarity between African-American and Latino communities in San Francisco and Oakland, and contributing to the development of a vibrant grassroots movement."

We congratulate Just Cause Oakland on an extraordinary first 10 years and we congratulate Just Cause and its sister organization St. Peter's on their bold new venture together!

Poet Aimee Suzara

James Rucker, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org

Reverend Jackson with Tenants Together Program Coordinator, Gabe Treves