Six North Beach households could lose the apartments they\u2019ve called home for decades after new owners bought their building last year and soon began trying to evict them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Faced with soaring San Francisco rental prices, the tenants say they face an uncertain future and could be forced out of the city they love if they lose their rent-controlled apartments.<\/p>\n
Yok Lin Chui has lived in the building on Powell Street for more than 50 years after immigrating from Hong Kong in 1971. She said she uses neighborhood buses to get around and has easy access to Chinatown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m so old now, where should I go?” she said through a translator, growing visibly upset when asked what she would do if forced to move. “I don’t know how to take a taxi.”<\/p>\n
Chui\u2019s neighbor, Meagan Cunningham, moved into the building in 1987 as a child and still lives there with her adult son, Max. She\u2019s a voice-over artist and used to work in a neighborhood restaurant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is such a big part of my history, this neighborhood,\u201d she said. \u201cGood times, bad times, but I\u2019ve been here for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
But decades of shared history could be coming to an end.<\/p>\n
Seven new owners bought the building in February of last year through a tenancy in common (TIC), an arrangement that allows each buyer to own a share of the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last fall, the new owners invoked the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to evict their tenants if they want to withdraw the property from the rental market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ellis Act is such a disgusting thing,\u201d said Bernard Dethiers, a building tenant of more than 30 years who described Cunningham and her son as family. \u201cIt\u2019s just immoral to do the Ellis Act. I mean, it\u2019s perfectly legal. But it\u2019s immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two of the new owners previously rented a unit in the building before buying into the TIC, according to Cunningham, which she said makes the ordeal even more uncomfortable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s neighbors evicting neighbors,\u201d Cunningham said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dethiers \u2013 originally from France \u2013 said he also received an offer from the ownership group to buy into the TIC, but refused.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was going to happen to my neighbors?” he said. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t do anything that would hurt them or be involved in any kind of eviction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the terms of the Ellis Act, the tenants are supposed to move out by November. But they decided to fight the eviction, seeking help from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, a nonprofit that offers legal aid to low-income San Francisco residents.<\/p>\n
Steve Collier, the organization\u2019s managing attorney, said he believes the Ellis Act shouldn\u2019t be used as an eviction tool for brand-new owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find that the Ellis Act primarily is used by people who just bought a building,\u201d Collier said. \u201cIt\u2019s simply used as a vehicle to displace rent-controlled tenants.\u201d<\/p>\n
If forced to leave, Collier said his clients would be hard-pressed to find a home in the city that they can afford. One of his clients currently pays about $600 a month, he said, and nobody in the building pays more than $1,300.<\/p>\n
While the Ellis Act requires landlords to offer relocation payments to their displaced tenants \u2013 which vary in amount depending on the circumstances of each renter \u2013 Collier said they\u2019re not enough for many rent-controlled tenants to afford market-rate housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n