![\"Darrick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Darrick-Chavis-text-2.jpg\")
A text message from Chavis to a tenant. Credit: Courtesy Veronica<\/p>\n
In text messages to tenants in each occupied unit, which The Oaklandside reviewed and reported on in July<\/a>, Chavis asked about their immigration status. Most or all of the tenants in the property are Spanish-speaking immigrants. Some live with their children or grandchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAre you legal my staff was asking?\u201d Chavis wrote in a text message to one tenant. When the renter questioned the ask, Chavis clarified: \u201cIn case we don\u2019t reach an agreement.\u201d The tenant took this as a threat to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they didn\u2019t accept a buyout.<\/p>\n Chavis told another tenant he wanted to make a move-out deal with him. When the renter declined, Chavis shot back, \u201cOk no problem, hope your legal you\u2019ll hear from my attorneys soon and yes we\u2019re checking,\u201d the lawsuit claims.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the tenants asserted their rights, Chavis racially profiled and threatened the tenants by illegally inquiring into their immigration status,\u201d the complaint reads.<\/p>\n Chavis did not immediately respond to an interview request for this story. When we spoke with him in June, he denied all of the tenants\u2019 accusations, saying, \u201cNone of it is true.\u201d He claimed the texts asking about his tenants\u2019 immigration status were not written by him.<\/p>\n On Friday, Nov. 14, the city of Oakland\u2019s rent program<\/a> sent an email advising tenants that landlords cannot legally ask about immigration status, threaten to disclose immigration status to authorities, or harass renters based on immigration status. It\u2019s unclear if the message was sent in response to the lawsuit that was filed two days earlier.<\/p>\n A \u2018harassment campaign\u2019<\/p>\n In their suit, the Fruitvale tenants also accuse the property owner of waging a \u201charassment campaign by attempting to make the properties unlivable.\u201d Despite the tenants\u2019 long list of pending maintenance requests, the landlord sent construction workers to the property unannounced for other projects, according to the complaint. The workers left piles of unsanitary debris, made noise for days on end, and blocked the driveway and door entrances, the lawsuit says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe pressure and the threats are constant and the presence of construction workers is making me sick and worried about my safety,\u201d an 89-year-old tenant named Ana said through an interpreter at a press conference Wednesday. The tenants and their attorneys requested that The Oaklandside use only their first names out of concern for their privacy and safety.<\/p>\n \u201cA home is not just an address,\u201d Ana continued. \u201cI raised my grandchildren in my home for multiple years and it\u2019s a place where I thought I would find peace and dignity in my old age.\u201d<\/p>\n Another long-time renter, Veronica, said her family has legal status but Chavis\u2019 alleged actions still made them concerned for their community.<\/p>\n \u201cI risked everything to come to this country, and I\u2019ve been here for two decades,\u201d she said Wednesday. Immigrants \u201care the workers that clean, that cook, that build for Oakland. And we\u2019re still told we\u2019re disposable.\u201d<\/p>\n Chavis refused to accept rent payments from June to October and ignored questions about where to send checks, according to the tenants. Their lawyers said they see this as yet another tactic in a campaign to push the renters to move out.<\/p>\n The Oakland City Attorney\u2019s Office contacted Chavis in June after receiving complaints from the tenants and an advocacy group, ACCE<\/a>, the Alliance of Californians for Community Action, which has been working with them. The city warned Chavis that the alleged eviction threats, construction work, and habitability issues were likely illegal and said the office would consider legal action if the problems persisted.<\/p>\n But \u201cnothing seems to stop him,\u201d said Leah Simon-Weisberg, director of Movement Legal, about why the organization ultimately decided to sue.<\/p>\n Adam Morton, one of the organization\u2019s attorneys on the lawsuit, said that the Fruitvale plaintiffs, due to their legal status, are in a relatively safe position to fight against the threats that he said are growing<\/a> against immigrant tenants in rental properties across California.<\/p>\n \u201cIt also helps that in Oakland we have local laws and protections that add an extra layer on top of the state laws,\u201d Morton said.<\/p>\n This is not the first time Chavis, who has a recent address in Fairfield, has been sued over his real estate dealings. We identified 15 other properties owned by Chavis or his company Franchise Investment Properties, including three in Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tenants in at least five of his properties, including the Fruitvale one, have sued Chavis, claiming habitability issues and other problems. In June, tenants in a San Francisco building Chavis bought in December 2024 filed suit<\/a> claiming he was trying to push them out illegally. In a 2016 case, a group of Oakland tenants claimed Chavis had charged them for illegal rent increases and threatened to call ICE on them, too. It\u2019s unclear, based on the public court record, how that case was resolved.<\/p>\n Chavis has a history with the criminal justice system as well as the civil court system. About 20 years ago, Chavis went to prison after pleading guilty to federal charges of mail fraud and filing a false tax return after participating in a scheme to defraud the city of Hercules<\/a>, where he worked at the time, of nearly $400,000. The money came out of a program intended to provide home repair loans to low-income residents.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of long-time Fruitvale renters is suing their new landlord, accusing him of trying to push them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[35124,16751,2872,143,145,144,26228],"class_list":["post-57032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-acce","tag-fruitvale","tag-immigrants","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-renting-in-oakland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}