Transcripts For SFGTV 20131115

Asked that question for my own benefit i shift my attention from other people and my desire for them to change their behavior where i wield no power, to recognizing how i have contributed to the situation and how i might change my behavior to affect a change and influence others to do likewise. A question which i have not heard being asked in this hearing or in any other situation is why are an estimated 70,000 rental units being withheld from the market . Nobodys been surveyed, i havent been asked, i have been withholding two or three rental units at a time. I deem it important to investigate and determine seemingly to me rental Property Owners at a time when market values are high are withholding rental units from the market for a particular reason or reasons which its appropriate be determined in your continuing investigation. I thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Hello, my name is sarah brant, i want to thank you supervisors for holding this and fighting for our citys soul or whats worth of it and im so sorry im in none of your districts. I appreciate you and i hope you will continue to create laws that catch up with our loopholes because i think thats whats happened in part. I was raised in San Francisco, i went through the Public Schools here, then i taught in our Public Schools for 15 years. I have taught the children of some of the people in here, it turns out, and i have also for the last 15 years lived in a building that real estate vultures have now renamed the area safeway heights, which is very exciting sounding. I thought we were on the flats but whatever. Our building was bought in december by a predatory Investment House flippers known as urban green. They bought Many Properties at once so i know they are not planning to move in and the day they bought it, i sent them an email, not knowing who they were, and the representative made it clear that changes were coming and the changes was that we would all be removed one way or another to make room for tics because that was the business model. My building includes me, a senior with a disability, my 97yearold neighbor who cannot be here but she sent her picture because she was really excited, she wished she could be here but she cant quite get down the stairs. So we are being evicted on the week of her 98th birthday. She asked that i tell you guys that although she has shes very funny she has an amazing longterm memory but her short term memorandumly is not so good so when i come home and i check in on her shell say i read this terrible story about how this elder and this is an epidemic and it is terrible and i have to continually tell her that she is one of those people. You can put her picture on the projector so we can see her . Can we have the Technical Support from sfgtv here . Do i do anything. There you go. Isnt she cute . She wanted to make sure you got a nice picture of her. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisors, members of the committee, you said we need to save the soul of San Francisco. San francisco just sucked the soul out of me. 38 years ago, i wanted to emigrate to the most famous city of the world, San Francisco. I was seeking freedom and i was seeking equality as a gay woman and to escape political oppression. So 1987 after two decades of working as a Program Director of a nonprofit i finally bought my property in bayview and 4 years later, unfortunately, he only had 4 years to enjoy his house before he was killed by sfpd when we talk about the merits of the middle class i feel i want to tell you im one of the faces of Collateral Damage of the middle class at the hand of the greedy developers. I am now losing my fight against illegal foreclosure perpetrated by bank of america. I had it leave my house, which is now an empty shell, devoid of any of the memories of me or my child. I was lucky enough to get into Bridge Housing but i came this close to dying on the street. Please do the right thing. We need your support. Thank you. Thank you very much. Im going to read a couple more names reading names . Hi, my name is lopez and we are being evicted. We live in 10 unit building in the mission district. Im kind of representing everybody here. We are a lot of elder people, disabled, children, i am for me it is terrible to hear all the testimonies here but at the same time its like feeling the strength of these people and also want to ask you for more support and also thank you for your support and that no giving up on us in the city. One thing is clear for us in our building, we dont want money, we dont want compensation, we want our homes. No money can buy, my childrens were born in the house and weve been living and investing in our buildings and we dont want to leave. I am one of the persons who spoke said what are we going to do with our children. We also teachers, what are we going to do without teachers who can afford here to live . Who can live without all the people who work with the youth in Different Levels . So i want to put this thought in your minds and be thankful for this hearing and just keep helping us. We are not giving up. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Hello, my name is jennifer jamesison, i am a Third Generation San Franciscoan, i run a dog rescue and i am on commissioner on the welfare commission. I am here to talk about costa hawkins, its a state act, if you are not familiar with it, it allows a land lord of a home with an in law unit to petition the board to redesignate the house back to a Single Family dwelling thereby breaking the rent control and raising the rent exponentially. We moved in two years ago to the rate of 2,000 a month, our land lord has raised the rate to 4,000 which he knows he cant afford. Costa hawkins is legal but we cant be the only people this is happening to. The evil stepchild related to ellis. Because of the status of the rental market i am now faced with being forced to leave my home and my xhuept. Community. Im not a part of a protected class, im probably one of the members of the middle class weve been talking about but ive also been unemployed for two years. Im someone who believes in this city and bleefrs in the community, i believe i am a part of the people who are being squeezed and i hope with all of my heart that you will continue the work of keeping San Francisco a place for everyone to live not just rich people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. Next speaker, please. Linda chap man from knob hill. First of all, my family has been 4 generations in San Francisco but not the fifth, its impossible. I would suggest that you do Pay Attention to that first gentleman who spoke, you know, about the on site home owner in the building with tenants because a lot of my family members had that and still do. I dont. In many cases they really are looking after the tenants and the problem is when the speculators take it instead. Of course there is a problem of people who move in and another and you have to think about that. A generation ago a knob hill buildings were being emptied out, huge buildings, many, and i worked with henry britt and others to create the rent control laws and others that provide protection. Now the same type of thing is happening then. In fact i lost my aeplt i apartment because one of the Developers Got together with the owner on that. I was asked by one of the Small Chinese Property Owner families who were involved with this to meet with each of you, she gave me your names, you three and a few other names, and i wasnt able to get appointments last week. Our supervisor arranged for 60,000 to be paid to a Neighborhood Group that doesnt want that, that wants to have market rate housing only because thats what they want in their neighborhood in order to eliminate that possibility. Methodist still wants it and i would like to talk with you. Thank you. I know that our offices are available, staff to make sure we can do that. Next speaker please. Good afternoon, my name is lotta garrity, i came here in the summer of love, 1967, met my husband and got married here. Im a registered nurse and hes an artist. We have loved this town ever since and i feel like we have contributed to it. Ive been working in the Health Profession for all those years and my husband has worked with San Francisco relief map to turn people on to the town and what it really means geographically. We were evicted or we were threatened with an eviction a year ago, we live in a 6unit building in the mission, weve been there 32 years. This whole year has really been a miserable year because its been a lot of intimidation and we didnt get ellis yet but thats the threat. Im asking you, these stories have been heart breaking to me. I mean some, golly, it just takes your breath away. I am asking you you to form a moratorium on evictions for 6 months. I dont know how you do that and im sure Dennis Herrera knows how you do that, but it really must be until we come up with some kind of solutions because im a nurse and ive worked in emergency rooms. This is really an emergency. This is a serious, serious emergency. So if you could do that for us and then we could come up with some solutions, there have been some Good Solutions raised today. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much and thank you for your service to San Francisco. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, my name is doug woods. My parents were, met well, they didnt meet but they were married here in San Francisco in 1947, i lived in the bay area my entire life, i lived in San Francisco in my current apartment for 35 years in the lower haight and although im not currently threatened with eviction, that is always hanging over your head these days. You never know. And a lot of my friends like beverly and jackie and over here are or have been evicted and im seeing the people who are and were my friends being kicked out of the city, essentially, because as many people have testifid, there really isnt any alternative. Theres no place to go except to move to fresno or alaska or something. I just wanted to advocate for all of them and myself. I have been a musician in this town for 20 years and feel like i have contributed to the cultural the culture that made the city the place that all these speculators are capitalizing on. So thank you very much. I think we deserve our place here too. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, i am mary johnson. If you can speak into the mic please, thank you very much. I am mary lou sampson, fighting for my home against foreclosure. They gave me an undisclosed adjustable mortgage, the payment and rate went up so much at the same time, our speculator bought my home who is evicting me when i could not afford the payment when it went up from 1,854 to 3,394. I kept being denied my loan notification which made me feel hopeless. I made 20 percent on a 700,000 house. Being evicted by these real estate investors, speculators, the richer get richer and the poor gets poorer and people should be protected from being displaced in San Francisco. Okay, due to unexpected expensive repair costs and legal costs i am now forced to live in an unfinished house. I was given the impression i would be living in a fixed loan of 1,654 through the life of the loan but later found the loan would be increasing until it came up to 3,954. I paid the 3,954 but i cannot keep paying it. In august 2010 they sent two guys in my house to destroy or change my lock and took the valuables in my house without notice although i had not been foreclosed. They were driving me out of the house forcefully. The lender evergreen has sold my loan, my loan has been transferred and sold more than once since then for a profit. To this point i didnt know the real loan owner. Thank you, maam, if you can close and finalize your thoughts. I am just saying that housing speculators who buy these houses for cash and driving the Common People out for cash money should be charged more, foreclothesing houses and selling these houses more expensive. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisors, my name is julian lagos, i am with the coalition state park merced. There are evictions going on on the east side as many of you know. We have been fighting development in park merced since 2005 and we will continue to fight it. I just want to let you know we had over 200 section 8 evictions last year that your analyst didnt cover. 200 section 8 evictions. The Development Agreement that the City Attorney hammered out with our land lord will call for 1500 evictions in the next few years. We believe its a piece of paper thats not worth its weight in gold. There was no input from tenants and wed like to see your legislation cover those evictions that we consider come under the Development Agreement. We also believe that the board needs to look at constructive evictions. We have a graup of tenants at 310 arballo that face what we consider constructive eviction because of a cell phone tower thats being put in there. We have tenants over near 800 brotherhood way that are constantly day in, day out dealing with the pounding going on with a Condo Development thats being built on brotherhood way. The plaster is coming off their walls. So we believe that there are solutions. I would respectfully disagree with the solution that you are putting out in terms of registering buyouts and doubling the relocation payments. Were calling for this board to look seriously at using the powers of imminent domain and seizing these properties. My name is catherine, ive been a working professional on the west side of the city for the last 25 years, im a 20 year resident at park merced and i am not under any kind of threat of immediate eviction, however i think i am in line for what we might call a constructive eviction. Ive been here before to talk about the cell towers, it isnt just the one at 310 arballo and 9 smart meters below my kitchen sink. Theres Development Going on as julian was talking about. Those buildings, they literally cut out the hill side and now they are building 180 buildings that will start in the low millions. So with the imminent, who knows what will happen with the park merced project. But with all the considerations going on i think there are constructive evictions into the hundreds if not thousands over at park merced in the coming years so im just here to throw my comments in to the mix and thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello, i am teresa flandic, i live on lombard street and our building as well as the building at the end of lombard street, we are all being evicted february and april is when we need to leave. So imagine how many moving vans for a total of 21 people would be going down lombard street. But i am seeing and doing some research, it is urban green, peter iscandar who also goes under the name of master builders, sometimes San Francisco Affordable Housing llc, also newly i have found out hes also has a Company Called bubble real estate. He bought a building on the corner of greenwich and stockton and evicted elderly, disabled, 5 years later it is on the market so he bought it from the seller, so the seller sells it for 1. 2 million, it is now on the market for 3. 6 million. And theres another building, an additional 2 million profit within a few years. If someone could please research the speculators as well as the number of units that are being taken off the market in any given neighborhood. We are devastated, there were 3 additional buildings on stockton aaround the corner from lombard and stockton where people were evicted, families, one was a threat, not knowing that they had rights. So the other issue is how can we, how can we also help others learn that they have rights, how to protect themselves. I would really hope that we could do Something Like that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And i want to open, just make sure that anyone who has not spoken who would like to speak, even if you did not fill out a speaker card, if you can please line up as well, we want to hear from you. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi, my name is dominic, i lost my rent controlled apartment of 18 years last year. It was the longest i ever lived in one place, i lived here for 31 years, i have been hiv positive for 31 years and i have been bipolar for 32 years. I was going to tell the details about what happened but they tried to evict me for not being cooperative in dealing with the bedbugs which was not fair at all because i had done a good job of trying to deal with the bedbugs, even getting home protective services and Adult Protective Services to help out. I ended up being railroaded. The owner of the building ended up making a choice he would rather hurt me than help me. The lawyer i got was at the very least hardly competent and im scared to think about what he was at the very worst. I ended up having a panic attack when i realized my land lord was out to evict me and i ended up having a nervous breakdown when my lawyer told me we wouldnt win in court and i ended up working out a really lousy move out agreement and i got shafted by my land lord and my lawyer. I ended up homeless for 6 months. Three of those months it take dnd to process my application for disabled housing. Im glad you are having this hearing. I think its true a lot of tenants like me do not know their rights and i think the land lords and Property Owners are protected more than tenants are in this city. Im hoping that, i heard you talking about some what you wanted, that they actually do go into effect and protect people like me in the future. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello, i am really glad that this is happening. I am glad that i am seeing the ellis act in the newspaper headlines. I was an ellis act evictee back in 2005 and people didnt even know what the ellis act was. Well, a lot more people know about it now. One idea that i heard of some years ago on the state level, which nobody seems to be talking about now, was it wouldnt solve everything but it would be a step, would be requiring that the Property Owner has to have had the property for 5 years or more and i make that 20 years. That would discourage some of it. Yeah, i lost my place where i lived for 36 years, raised 3 children, they were mean, they did all the stuff that you hear about, you know, the harassment. They even tried a lawsuit at one point, it was like baffling and they lied on the legal documents so i got help from the tenderloin housing clinic. Those people are really good, thank you, steve collier. Yeah, i dont know what to do about it. I have thoughts about, they could have some kind of Mental Health survey that Property Owners would have to take and if it disclosed that they were incapable of feeling either compassion or ethical standards they would be prohibited from owning property. Yeah. But meanwhile i do appreciate the efforts, what you are trying to do. Its a step. Its a step. But it is a crisis, as people have been saying, and i have to say after listening to all the other people and their stories, this is a case where misery does not like company. I wish nobody had to go through what i went through. The only reason im still in San Francisco is because at the last minute when i was totally freaking out i was introduced to somebody whose roommate was moving out. So basically at the age of 67 i moved into a room in an apartment with a complete stranger. Thank you very much. Where i still live, im 75 now. Thank you. Thank you, maam. Next speaker. Hi, my name is andy blue. Thank you, supervisor campos, for holding this hearing, thank you, supervisors yee and mar for listening to all of us today. Clearly its a crisis, the line never seems to end of people who are dealing with this crisis. Im with evictionfree San Francisco and we formed earlier this year to hopefully address this crisis and we are trying to call out land lords specifically like urban green, were actually having a meeting this very evening of tenants from urban green to figure out how we can hold land lords and speculators that are putting their profits over the interests of human beings so i would invite anyone who is an urban green tenant or anyone who is facing an eviction from a speculator or facing an ellis act eviction, et cetera, to check out our organization, evictionfree San Francisco. I dont know how much time i have, i came back i wanted to speak on behalf of a chandra gil who is on your list. He and a dozen other folks who lived at 17th and mission were evicted from their housing this year. Id like to read you what he wrote. Two years ago a dozen of us had a vision to create a space that not only provided Affordable Housing but gave back to the community. Every monday we shared food with hundreds of people at 16th and mission, we provided a 2,000 square foot event space to Community Groups and in april this year our building was bought for 16 million and very soon they were given notice to evict, that they were going to be evicted. For five months we lived through unbridled abuse, lockouts, guards who demanded identification for us to enter our homes. One of us afflicted with aids is now homeless. Our evictors, native San Franciscoans, well connected San Franciscoans abused us without fear of repercussions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, mr. Blue. Supervisors, i am diane carpio, resident of the city and county of San Francisco for 20 years, my daughter is a native