A graph showing 20 years of Ellis Act evictions in San Francisco from the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.
With a stature of over 6-feet, a soft-spoken demeanor and the perseverance that has battled AIDS for the last 12 years, 63-year-old Jeremy Mykaels would never give a landlord any reason for eviction. Unfortunately, not even being a disabled senior can save a tenant from an Ellis Act eviction and being forced out of their home.
San Francisco supervisors are considering declaring a State of Emergency over what they claim is an epidemic number of rising Ellis Act evictions, according to a CBS report earlier this fall. In the past year, landlords filed 1,757 eviction notices with the city, compared to 1,395 in the previous year, marking a twelve-year high. Within those evictions, nearly 200 of them were Ellis Act evictions, almost doubling from last year. An Ellis Act eviction is a state law that says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to “go out of business”. After living in his 460 Noe St. home in the Castro District on a controlled rent, due to his illness and inability to work, for 18 years, Mykaels was given an eviction notice in September 2012 using The Ellis Act.
“A month after they sold the house, the new owners’ lawyers started offering me money to move. Then they demanded that I moved, which I ignored because I wasn’t interested in going anywhere,” said Mykaels while describing his eviction process.
Since all of his health care providers and resources are within walking distance of his Noe Street home and the continuously rising rates for rent, Mykaels knew that moving out wasn’t an option. Instead, he decided to fight back. He made a website to gain support and aligned himself with the small, but mighty organizations around the city that are facing this issue head-on—Eviction Free San Francisco and The Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco—to accelerate his pursuit and make sure his voice was heard.
“His fight in general is going to help lots of different people who are fighting the same thing,” said Jennifer Cust, a member of Eviction Free San Francisco. “In the last three years, there have been 97 disabled seniors who were evicted, so it’s happening everywhere. He’s all about trying to help other people, to make this a public issue, which is really inspiring.”
A graphic being used on banners and posters around the city.
Eviction Free SF has organized various petitions, call-ins and rallies in effort to help Mykaels’ eviction. It wasn’t until they coordinated A Day of Action rally in front of his house in October, that the public and supervisors started taking note of his situation. Being a private person and dealing with constant fatigue because of his medication, the rally was an exhausting experience for Mykaels, but the lasting effects it left were undeniable.
“I think it’s really important for all of us in San Francisco to join the movement to stop this displacement,” said District 9 supervisor David Campos, who attended and spoke at Mykael’s rally. “We’re all in this together, we’re all connected by what’s happening. You can see that this is affecting the LGBT community. It’s sad that the people who were apart of making San Francisco this welcoming place, can no longer afford to live here.”
This epidemic of displaced tenants is happening everywhere in San Francisco, but the highest rates of evictions are occurring around the Castro, Mission, Potrero and Western Division neighborhoods according to maps displayed by Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. With rent demands soaring through the roof, long-time tenants are forced to move out of the city just to be able to afford rent. Everybody is at risk of an Ellis Act eviction because they can be issued without fault of the tenant, and speculators have shown no mercy in the evictions they dole out. Mission resident and teacher, Sarah Brant opened up about her and her 98-year-old neighbor’s eviction situation and just how brutal new owners can be.
“When you have lived in your home for 50 years and you have a great long-term memory, but your short-term is failing, if somebody removes you from familiar surroundings, they are essentially killing you,” said Brant while explaining her neighbors’ circumstances.
Most tenants don’t win against their Ellis Act eviction because it’s controlled at a state level, so its’ authority has more leverage than a tenant and their lawyer.
“There’s not a lot that we can do locally in terms of the Ellis Act,” explains District 8 supervisor Scott Wiener. “Fundamentally, there needs to be reform in Sacramento of the Ellis Act before we can change anything here.”
Mykaels’ pro-bono lawyer who helped him with this case, Steve Collier from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic was able to find just what they needed to win the eviction. Within the eviction paperwork, Collier found a rent technicality that forced the landlords to throw out the eviction. The discovery of this was lucky and not common among these cases and it unfortunately led Mykaels to unveil shocking information about his past rent.
“I went back through my rent increase history and found out that none of it was correct,” said Mykaels while discussing the result of his eviction. “They (landlords) overcharged me for every rent increase for the last 16 years.”
Finally at ease for the first time after a year in his home that he fought for, Mykaels hasn’t let his guard down in fear of another eviction. For the time being, he’s thankful for the support from the people and community around him he can still call his home.
“It’s not like going somewhere else is such an easy option,” said Mykaels. “I live here because as the one place in America, where as a gay man, I feel at home.”
Sidebar:
Eviction Free San Francisco has played a vital role in Jeremy’s eviction process, as well as many other tenants around the Bay Area. Their mission statement is, a direct action group, whose mission is to help stop the wave of speculator evictions that have been hitting San Francisco by holding accountable, and confronting, real estate speculators that have been displacing long time San Francisco residents for profit. Their main goal in this epidemic is to be the voice for these evicted tenants and to keep fighting back.
Sarah (Fred) Sherburn-Zimmer, one of the core group members in this all-volunteer, mutual aid, non-profit organizations that was originally Eviction Free Summer earlier this year, explains what they’re really here to do.
“We’re in charge of putting the pressure on landlords and really demanding that they stop. Because this is not an okay business model anymore and we are drawing the line.”
Eviction Free San Francisco’s official slogan and artwork by Robert Trujillo for SF Bay Gardian
They’re not going to give tenant counseling or legislative advice, Eviction Free is shedding the necessary light on these landlords and creating a militant mass movement locally to stop evictions and then going to stop it at the state level. While working closely with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project to conquer this citywide issue head-on, they ask volunteers to come ready to fight.
“We take action and handle the media aspects, like rallies, protests and marches. We get the word out and make people listen because someone needs to,” said Sherburn-Zimmer before their meeting in South Van Ness that they have every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month.
Castro Continues 