Oakland Developer Evicting People Like Mad During Eviction Moratorium
The owner of Vulcan Lofts and nearly two dozen other East Bay apartment complexes is singularly responsible for nearly a third of all Oakland eviction notices filed during the eviction moratorium.
Some landlords have of course still been trying to serve eviction notices, despite Governor Newsom’s statewide eviction moratorium passed in March. But the San Francisco eviction moratorium technically expired December 1, 2020, and federal and state moratoriums expired January 31. President Biden did an eviction moratorium executive order that still leaves a lot of people exposed, but Newsom signed an emergency extension of the state order last Friday that pushes the California moratorium out until June 30, 2021.
The analysis showed nearly a third of those notices came from a single property owner: Madison Park Financial, run by prominent Oakland real-estate developer John Protopappas.
Madison Park has served 150 eviction notices for failure to pay rent since the city’s eviction moratorium passed.
“They want to harass people and bully people into thinking that they need to pay them all the money or sign up for a payment plan,” said Madison Park tenant Lili Thomas-Brumme. “It’s exhausting and infuriating.”
Thomas-Brumme, a set designer for commercial and film productions, said she fell behind on rent when much of her income dried up during the pandemic.