San Francisco LGBTQ activist Cleve Jones uprooted from Castro one-bedroom after new owner doubles rent to $5,200
March 24, 2022
Cleve Jones has called the Castro neighborhood his home for five decades. The gay activist first moved to the city in 1973 from Arizona as a 19-year-old and was quickly swept up in the burgeoning LGBTQ political movement of the era, becoming a protege of pioneering gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and a community organizer in his own right.
In 1987, the neighborhood was also where Jones founded the Names Project, the organization behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt. When Jones published “When We Rise: My Life in the Movement” in 2016, the book chronicled the evolution of the Castro as an LGBTQ neighborhood as much as it told his own story.
Even during those times when I was away from the city, I was never really away,” Jones, 67, said recently. “I was always coming back. That’s my hood.”
But this week, Jones is moving out of the rent-controlled, one-bedroom flat in an 18th Street duplex he’s lived in since 2010. The move comes after he received notice of a significant rent increase from the building’s new owner, who argues that the unit is not his primary residence. Jones denies that is the case, but has decided he does not have the stamina to fight what would likely be a protracted legal battle to remain there.
For those familiar with San Francisco’s often volatile real estate and rental issues, the dispute between Jones and his new landlord is probably not surprising. What is unusual in this case is the high profile of the tenant in question.
The new owner of the duplex is San Francisco resident Lily Pao Kue, 30. Zillow shows that she purchased the property on Feb. 18 for $1,585,000. Since making the purchase, Kue has initiated some construction work on the building, installed new security cameras, had a car belonging to Jones’ friend and roommate towed from in front of the property, and notified Jones that she planned to more than double the rent.
Jones showed The Chronicle a letter he received from Kue on March 18 informing him that she had determined he had vacated the unit and was invoking a Costa-Hawkins petition, which would allow her to raise the rent from $2,393 to $5,200 as of July 1. Costa-Hawkins is a state law that sets some requirements for cities with rent control, including allowing a landlord to raise rent to market rate once a tenant moves out.
Kue says that she is seeking a hearing on her petition with the San Francisco Rent Board, but is waiting for a staff member to be assigned to the case.
“I want Cleve to continue the tenancy and let the judge determine the petition,” Kue said in an email. “I will be gracious and accepting of law.”
The San Francisco Rent Board did not immediately respond to questions about the case.
Experts say there are a few ways to prove residency in a property. According to Janan New, the executive director of the San Francisco Apartment Association, a driver’s license address and utility bills are among the documents that can be used as proof. The San Francisco Tenants Union also lists numerous factors, including the presence of personal possessions and that the tenant resides there except for “reasonable temporary periods of absence.” Jones said he believes he meets these requirements.
Jones said he feels that he and his roommate, Brenden Chadwick, have been harassed by Kue, citing her towing away Chadwick’s car without notice and installing the security cameras that allow her to monitor their comings and goings. He also is concerned that the construction work on the property could endanger archival materials from the LGBTQ movement he has kept there. She denies that she has harassed Jones and Chadwick.
Kue, who described herself as a stock market investor who previously worked as a janitor and as a farm laborer after immigrating to the United States from Thailand, calls the duplex her “dream home.” She said that since the dispute over the duplex became public, she is worried about harassment from Jones’ social media followers. She said she has filed a police report after comments she’s seen in response to Jones’ post about the situation on Facebook.
Rather than further contest Kue’s plans, though, Jones and Chadwick plan to move out this weekend and look for a new home in the Castro, which means they would lose any potential relocation payments if Kue were to lose her Costa-Hawkins petition and choose to pursue eviction.
“If I were a younger man, I would fill the sandbags and I’d batten down the hatches and would drag this out for as long as possible,” Jones said. “Part of me feels quite guilty that I don’t have it in me to do it. I am not in good health, I’m HIV-positive and one of the longest-living HIV survivors. … And I’m old.”
Still, Jones is not going quietly. On Sunday, supporters of Jones plan to take part in a rally at 11 a.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza focusing on his situation and similar issues facing other renters in the neighborhood. A 2021 story in The Chronicle reported that since 2009, there have been 614 no-fault evictions in District Eight, where the Castro is located, and that most are either because of owner move-ins or Ellis Act evictions, where the owner decides to stop renting altogether.
While Jones said he expects to survive financially, “It is very clear how an event like this could be truly catastrophic for so many others.”
“Cleve recognizes that this is happening and has happened to so many other folks,” said District Eight Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who will be at the rally. “But he is such an iconic figure and so associated with that neighborhood. It’s heartbreaking.”
Tina Aguirre, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District manager, told The Chronicle that housing security in the neighborhood is especially important for older residents and people living with HIV, and that the district is “saddened” by what Jones is experiencing.
“The fact that he is a community icon, organizer, and AIDS activist underscores that this can happen to any of us,” Aguirre said.
Kue said that she installed security cameras on the property to monitor construction workers. But in checking the comings and goings from the building, and seeing that many of Jones’ posts on Facebook indicated that he had been staying in Guerneville, she said she determined that the unit on 18th Street was not his primary address, and that there was “overwhelming proof” that Chadwick was living there alone.
Jones said he was told by Kue that she planned to move into the vacant unit above his after construction on the property was completed, and that she planned to move her mother and grandmother into the unit he and Chadwick occupied.
Jones said Kue began discussing buyout options with him, but said she did not want to involve attorneys. Kue said she still does not have an attorney representing her. Jones, though, hired Dave Crow of the tenants rights firm Crow & Rose.
Crow said he believes the rent increase notice was not legal because Jones had not moved out of the property.
Jones denies that he ever vacated his unit, but says that, for his health, he has spent time during the two years of the pandemic at a “fairly primitive” cabin he owns in Guerneville.
“When COVID happened, of course, that became my refuge,” Jones said of the cabin. “I’m 67, I’m immunocompromised. So I’m guessing that that’s her reference to me vacating the unit. But of course it’s a lie. I never vacated. I never moved my stuff out and continued to spend time there.”
Among that “stuff,” Jones said, are materials from the LGBTQ movement going back to the 1970s, including Milk’s famous bullhorn, the quilt his great-grandmother made that inspired the creation of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, and items connected to the filming of the 2008 biopic “Milk,” in which Jones was a central character.
To protect them from possible damage, Jones has given the National AIDS Memorial some of the materials related to the Names Project while the GLBT Historical Society Museum now has Milk’s bullhorn.
“My office is right there on Castro Street, my doctor is right there on Castro Street. The hospital is right down the street. … Guerneville is lovely, but it doesn’t have the kind of specialized health care that’s necessary for people in my circumstance.”
Jones said he needs to remain in the city for his work as community and political coordinator at Unite Here, the North American Hospitality Workers Union.
Jones said he, like many longtime survivors of HIV, cannot afford to retire because many of his potential earning years were spent battling serious health complications from the virus instead of working.
Still, Jones said he’s turned down requests to create crowdfunding campaigns to assist him. He said he’s also received offers of legal help and housing, but has not felt at risk enough to accept help that others in the community likely need more.
“I’m going to be just fine, but she’s going to do this to someone else,” Jones said. “This old gay guy is being forced out of his home, but the real issue is one more gay elder has been lost and one more rental unit has been lost.”
Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TonyBravoSF