Responses to "a letter to a heartless landlord"
Thursday Oct 16 1997
<email address withheld by request>
Fact: Landlords get to declare all their expenses regarding evictions
on their tax returns - as justifiable losses.
Fact: Tenants as a rule don't get to declare all their expenses regarding evictions
on their tax returns - since most of them are salaried.
Fact: It no longer takes months and months to evict tenants in San Francisco.
The Municipal Courts have now speeded up the procedure. It generally takes
2 months at most. The Judges rotate so they have no idea who's evicting who.
Fact: Any tenant who is evicted gets that put on public record.
That means it's on the "database" that most landlords check before they rent.
Once you get an eviction on your record, you effectively can't rent in the
Bay Area, since nearly all landlords check. The data stands for 7 years.
Fact: Any tenant who tries to fight an eviction faces steep legal fees.
Attorneys don't do evictions on contingency. The Housing Clinics in
San Francisco lost funding by the city. The Tenderloin Housing Clinic
can now only represent people in the Tendeloin and Residential Hotels.
Moreover, they are very busy and can't take on all the cases they receive.
Fact: Evictions have tripled in the last year. They doubled in 1996.
That means that 5 times the number of tenants have been evicted in
the last two years.
Fact: Landlords have a very good lobbying agent - the SF Chamber of Commerce
They lobbied hard on the Hotelization issue.
Fact: The Hotelization Ammendment authored by Sue Bierman has now been
taken off the agenda of the Housing Committee twice. Mabel Teng took it off
this week at the last minute. Could that have anything to do with the article
in the Bay Guardian (10.15.97) page 21 authored by Nina Siegal?
Could it have anything to do with the fact that so many tenants were preparing
to attend the meeting? Could the missing "agenda" item have anything to do with
the Marina Cove tenants putting up such a fight about hotelization there by
their landlords Trinity Plaza?
Fact: Those tenants in the East Bay who think they have nothing to worry about
are sorely mistaken. Rents are going up there too as tenants flee to escape
rising prices from the peninsula and San Francisco. The Costa Bill
(see www.tenant.net/california) means otherwise.
Fact: Palo Alto, one of the most conservative cities in the Bay Area, has a
Committee on Escalating Rents. They are at least acknowledging there is a problem!
The Board of Supervisors in Palo Alto met this week to discuss this.
Where is the Committee for San Francisco? Where is there any acknowledgement by
anyone at City Hall that there is a crisis? (except from Sue Bierman and Tom Ammiano)
Randy Shaw (from the Tenderloing Housing Clinis has been stating for months that there
is a crisis here and nothing has been done.
email kevin@whisperdesign.com
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