CP Photo: Jared Wickerham
Baird’s apartment building in North Oakland
On Feb. 27, 2020, Daniel Baird and his roommates received a letter under their door. Costello Management had purchased the North Oakland building they lived in just two days earlier and was terminating their lease so that it could begin renovations. Baird and his roommates had until the end of March to leave.
“It was a very shitty feeling, to put it blatantly. It was, like, pretty stressful, you know?” says Baird, who had been completing his final semester at the University of Pittsburgh at the time.
While this kind of forced departure is not technically an eviction — which requires a written notice and hearing — it has similar destabilizing effects, both for the people and communities affected.