San Francisco Tenants Union

Tenant News and Events

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September 2010

UPCOMING EVENTS

RECENT NEWS

OMI Evictions of Children During School Year Passes & Becomes Law

Just Cause Eviction Protections Extended To All Buildings Facing Foreclosure

Supervisors Approve Renters Economic Relief Package But Newsom Vetoes All 3 Measures

Court Upholds Prop M

CitiApartments Losing Buildings To Foreclosure, Selling Others At A Loss

Tenants Union, City Attorney File Lawsuit Against US Post Office

Just Cause Eviction Laws Upheld

Rent Board Adopts Regulations Easing PG & E Passthroughs

Supervisors Defeat Water Rates Rent Hike

UPCOMING EVENTS, LEGISLATION & HEARINGS

RECENT NEWS & LEGISLATION

Supervisors Approve Legislation Banning OMI Evictions of Households With Children During School Year

Legislation prohibiting the evictions of households with children during the school year (roughly September until the end of June) for the purposes of a landlord or relative moving in to the apartment was approved by the Board of Supervisors on January 26 by a 10-0 vote, assuring it will become law as of February 26.. The legislation was adopted by a unanimous vote after Mayor Newsom said he would sign the legislation into law. Originally, the legislation would have banned OMI evictions of children, just as landlords cannot do OMI evictions on tenants who are senior, disabled or terminally ill. While a majority of the Supervisors would have passed that legislation, the Mayor promised to veto it and the votes to override the veto weren't there. The legislation is similar to legislation former Sup. Jake McGoldrick was unable to get adopted: he proposed banning all no-fault evictions of children during the school year (a common practice in Europe). OMI evictions make up over 75% of all no-fault evictions in San Francisco so Mar's legislation comes close to what McGoldrick had tried to do.

Legislation Extending Just Cause Eviction Protections To All Tenants In Buildings Facing Foreclosure Is Passed by Board of Supervisors

Legislation extending just cause eviction protections to tenants in buildings which are facing foreclosure was passed by the Board of Supervisors by a 10-0 vote, assuring it will become law. Currently, rental units in buildings built after 1979 do not have any just cause eviction protections as banks foreclosing on property were evicting any tenants living there. Now these tenants will have the same rights as other tenants and banks will not be able to evict them after a foreclosure.

Supervisors Approve Renters Economic Relief Package But Newsom Vetoes All 3 Measures

Late on Friday, July 10, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Renters Economic Relief Package passed by the full Board of Supervisors on June 23. The Board had adopted some significant amendments to the package, in hopes of averting a Mayoral veto but Newsom was determined to veto the measures from the beginning. These amendments limited the rent increase protections to tenants who have lost jobs, had wages cut significantly or who are dependent on government benefits but not receiving any cost of living increase. The Newsom veto means he isn't willing to help those individuals very directly affected by the recession. His allies on the Board (Michaela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty, & Sean Elsbernd) all voted against the measure, indicating they, too, are not interested in helping those hit hard by the recession. Sup. Sophie Maxwell was recused from voting because of her ownership of rental property but the City Attorney asked for a ruling on her conflict by the Fair Political Practices Commission. The FPPC has ruled, however, that Maxwell does have a conflict of interest and can not vote. That makes a veto override impossible as we would need to get 2 of the 4 Supervisors who voted against the measure to change their votes and 3 of them (Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, & Sean Elsbernd) have never voted for pro-tenant legislation before, .

Court Reverses Itself–Upholds Prop M!

Prop M was upheld almost in its entirety at the May 19 hearing before Judge Charlotte Woolard in a sharp reversal of an initial decision which struck down Prop M and specifically upheld a landlord's right to threaten tenants with physical harm. The definitions and prohibitions against harassment of tenants by landlords are now in effect, as is the right to go to the Rent Board and have rents reduced when harassment occurs. The bad news is that the Judge struck down the provision providing for attorneys fees for tenants whenever they prevail in any eviction case .Landlords will almost certainly appeal the ruling. Click here for the judge's ruling.

Summary & Text of Prop M

Tenants Union, City Attorney File Lawsuit Against Post Office

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, along with the SF Tenants Union, has filed a lawsuit against the US Post Office to force the Post Office to deliver mail individually to tenants in residential hotels. Click here for press release.

CitiApartments Puts A Dozen Buildings on Market At A Loss In Addition Over 100 Buildings Lost to Foreclosures

The Lembi real estate empire seems to be crumbling fast as CitiApartments is starting to dump buildings, putting 12 properties on the market this month for prices far below what they paid for them. The properties include 2185 Bay St., 1305 Lombard St., 2050 Powell St., & 646 Corbett St.,

In addition, the Lembis are losing many properties to foreclosures. Wells Fargo Bank filed court action on March 23 to foreclose on 8 CitiApartments properties. This follows UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) foreclosing on over 50 buildings in February and another lender, CIM (a real estate investment company), filing for foreclosure on 23 buildings earlier in March. The, notoriously bad landlord CitiApartments seems to be in deep financial trouble. The CitiApartments business model was based on forcing out long-term tenants paying affordable rents and replacing them with market-rent paying tenants. This strategy failed as tenants organized and refused to be intimidated from their homes. Their main strategy was tenant harassment coupled with buyout offers. Tenants should be aware that CitiApartments has now reneged on numerous such buyouts, refusing to pay after tenants had moved.

To see if your building is one of the foreclosed properties:
Click here for the properties which UBS foreclosed on. These are final and UBS is now the landlord. CitiApartments had been managing these properties but on April 1 UBS named a new manager for the properties, Laramar Properties, a Chicago based property management company. Click here for SF Business Times article.
Click here for addresses of the 31 buildings which CIM or Wells Fargo is foreclosing on. These buildings are still in the process of being foreclosed and CitiApartments remains the owner but the 2 banks have asked that receivers be appointed to begin managing the properties.If you want to track the process you can click here to access court cases by number. The case number for buildings which CIM is foreclosing on is 485708. The case number for buildings which Wells Fargo is foreclosing on is 486494.

CitiApartments Loses 51 Buildings To Foreclosures & More Expected To Follow; Lembi Strategy of Harassing Tenants Out Fails In Wake of Tenant Resistance & Failing Economy

CitiApartments lost 51 buildings this month to one of their financers, UBS (a Swiss based investment bank). Over the last seven years CitiApartments aggressively bought apartment buildings in San Francisco with the strategy of then forcing low rent paying tenants out and replacing them with high rent paying tenants. Tenants fought back, though, organizing CitiSTOP a coalition of CitiApartment tenants, tenant organizations and labor unions. Ultimately, the strategy seems to have failed and more CitiApartment foreclosures are likely in coming weeks or months. Now the Wall St. Journal reports that dozens of more buildings may be foreclosed on and Citi Apartment's days may be numbered. Click here for article.

Click Here For A List of the Foreclosed CitiApartment Properties

Click Here For Information on Tenants Rights In Foreclosures

Court Upholds Just Cause for Eviction Law

In a major victory for tenants, the California Court of Appeal has upheld Oakland's Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance against a landlord challenge. The landlord zealots who brought the case claimed that the ordinance should be struck down as preempted under state law.

The ruling was strongly pro-tenant puts to rest many of the arguments that landlords have been using for years to attack local eviction protection laws. Now it is clearer than ever: California cities have the right to protect tenants from unfair evictions by enacting "just cause" ordinances. The ruling should also help fight off the landlords' lawsuit against Prop M, the 2008 anti-harassment law passed by the voters. For the text of the Court's decision, click here.

Rent Board Adopts Regulations Easing PG & E Passthroughs

Tenants whose landlords pay for PG & E will get some relief from automatic PG & E passthroughs allowed under the rent control law as the Rent Board has adopted new regulations governing how these passthroughs get calculated. The new regulations provide that the "base year" for calculating the increases can be no more than 5 years ago. Landlords had been using base years dating back to the tenant's original move in date, often 20 or 30 years ago, without any form of indexing to account for inflation over these years. Long term tenants will see the most significant impact of the new regulations.The new regulations do not address the inherent unfairness of these passthroughs which is that tenants already pay for increased PG & E costs via the annual rent increase (which is calculated on the annual Consumer Price Index; PG & E costs significantly impact how much the CPI rises or falls and when PG & E costs go up, tenants pay a higher annual rent increase) and the automatic Passthroughs means tenants pay PG & E increases twice .

Supervisors Finally Defeat Water Rent Hike

Sup. Alioto-Pier's legislation to give tenants hefty rent increases to pay for water & sewer costs was finally defeated by a 7-4 vote (Alioto-Pier, Chu, Dufty, & Elsbernd, supporting the rent increase) after numerous delays. Tenants already pay for water & sewer cost increases in the annual rent increase and landlords can petition the Rent Board if those costs increase beyond that. Alioto-Pier wanted tenants to pay these costs twice (or three times in some cases).

GET ACTIVE!

The SFTU asks all tenants to help lobby when legislation is before the Board of Supervisors. We only have rent control because tenants have gotten involved. If you want to be on our legislative alert list, contact us. We'll tell you when we need tenants to call, e-mail, fax and write Supervisors. Come to the hearings! See Get Active for Supervisors' names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Get Active! Contact Supervisors!