Housing Advocacy Project: Beyond Eviction Defense

The Housing Advocacy Project addresses the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area. The project provides legal assistance to individual non-English speaking API tenants and seniors facing homelessness,  as well as advocate for policies that preserve low-income housing and neighborhood diversity. Experience has shown that we can slow the rate of displacement and protect islands of diversity and stability. The project contains two components:

1) Provide direct legal services to low-income API clients.

Work to stop illegal evictions and rent increases is one key ingredient for stemming the displacement of displaced working families and seniors.

Timely access to legal services provides an essential firstline of defense for vulnerable families and seniors. Without representation,victims of abuses of existing laws would have no remedy. While several agencies currently provide legal assistance to low-income households,particularly in eviction cases, ALC is the lead legal services provider for Asian immigrants on housing issues in San Francisco.

2) Supplement eviction defense services with a broader range of assistance.

While direct legal services are vital, we know that they are simply not enough. Representing individual households one-by-one can only prevent some forms of displacement. Inmany cases, even a successful defense against eviction will provide only a temporary respite. Unscrupulous landlords are constantly finding and exploiting gaps and weaknesses within protective policies. Where existing laws fall short,traditional forms of individual legal representation also fails. In addition,many low-income APIs in need of protection of their affordable housing do not know how to access the necessary legal services.

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San Francisco Senior Rights Bulletin PDFs
(Latest Issue: Spring 2011)

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Housing and Elder Law Program Newsletter
2010 Wrap Up (February 2011; Issue 1)

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ALC’s Housing Advocacy Project orchestrates a far more efficient and effective community response, including:
· Collaborating with other community-based organizations to preserve affordable rental housing stock.
· Obtaining relief from city planning and other administrative agencies against conversion of affordable units to other uses.
· Recommending targeted reforms to correct deficiencies in existing public policies

ALC’s experience in recent years attests to the efficacy of these nontraditional approaches:

Vigorous Legal Defense While Organizing The Community

In 1999, almost a thousand San Francisco households received eviction notices based on a state law known as the”Ellis Act”-a new law entitling landlords to close down rental housing units. Of the scores of buildings that were being cleared of tenants, two were in Chinatown: a 26-unit residential hotel on Clay Street and an 8-unit apartment building on Grant Avenue. In both Chinatown buildings, a disproportionate number of residents were low-income and elderly, several in their nineties.

Because of the unambiguous language of the statute, there appeared to be no direct legal defense to the Ellis Act evictions. The state law left little that local communities could do to stop the closure of rental housing. As a result, only a handful of cases were seriously contested in courts. And those tenants could only hope for a few weeks’ delay in being forced to move out.

In the instance of the residential hotel on Clay Street,even before the eviction cases were filed in court, ALC worked out a plan with tenant leaders to publicly challenge the owner’s future development plans for the site. As the public campaign gained support, the owner responded by offering assistance to the most elderly, while offering nothing to younger families. But the owner’s efforts to divide the tenants failed. Ultimately, the owner abandoned his plans for developing the site and sold the property to the Chinatown Community Development Center, a nonprofit housing developer that will permanently keep the housing affordable.

ALC also fought the eviction actions at the Grant Avenue apartment. Then, through discovery in the court cases, we uncovered a connection between evictions and the previously approved plans for an adjoining commercial development. After garnering the support of the neighborhood – from home owners groups to notables such as poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti – ALC convinced the Planning Commission to re-open consideration of the commercial development. The success at the Planning Commission, combined with the defense against the evictions, inspired the owners to seek a settlement. In 2002, the owner dismissed the eviction actions and signed long-term leases to keep the tenants in their homes.

Policy Reform Advocacy

1) In late 2001, a widespread practice emerged of landlords threatening to evict tenants and then offering to allow tenants to “voluntarily” agree to surrender their apartments in exchange for more time to move out.Confidentiality provisions of the agreements barred the tenants from reporting the practices to government agencies. Immigrants and seniors appeared to be especially vulnerable in such situations.

Disturbed by this expanding practice, ALC and two other organizations met with San Francisco’s District Attorney and persuaded the DA’s office to intervene. The DA’s office then drafted and supported legislation regulating the waiver of rights by unrepresented tenants. In April2002, the city adopted an ordinance that has essentially eliminated the former abusive practice (San Francisco Ordinance No. 57-02).

2) ALC is presently representing over a dozen elderly tenants living in a residential hotel in Chinatown. The tenants received notice that the San Francisco Rent Board would be holding a hearing on a proposed rent increase for their building. They appeared for the hearing, but because no one spoke English they did not understand what was said, and the increase was approved. For some, the increase will mean that they will be spending more than half their income on rent. After the tenants were informed of the rent increase they sought advice from social service organizations and were referred to ALC. A city ordinance requires the Rent Board to provide language assistance to those who request it. But the Rent Board has no policy to inform tenants of the availability of this language assistance.

ALC has filed a complaint with the Rent Board and the city to change that policy and to offer the tenants a new hearing -with an interpreter.

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ALC’s Place In The System Of Care

ALC serves as a primary provider of legal services to Asian Pacific Islander residents on housing issues in San Francisco. To make our services accessible to low-income and/or senior APIs, ALC conducts an extensive outreach program with Know Your Rights clinics at senior meal sites, community centers, and community events. ALC is also the only agency in the city that provides legal representation in eviction cases to low-income monolingual API residents, regardless of age or immigration status. As a result, ALC receives referrals from a broad range of social services providers and government agencies.[1]

ALC works with a broad number of organizations to address what are often a multi-layered set of issues for families and seniors in crises. In the past two months alone, some of the organizations we have collaborated with include: Self Help for the Elderly, Kimochi Senior Services, Adult Protective Services of the City and County of San Francisco, Legal Assistance for the Elderly, and the Tenderloin Housing Clinic.

[1] In September 2002, ALC’s Housing Project received an “outstanding services” award from the San Francisco Immigrants’ Rights Commission for its work with the immigrant community.