Fall measure hitting home with tenants in Oakland
Oakland is taking the issue of displacement seriously.
Last week, the Oakland City Council voted to place a measure on the November ballot that would yet again expand tenant protection.
Currently, Oakland’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance, which prohibits property owners from terminating tenancy agreements without a good or just cause like failure to pay rent or repeated lease violations, covers buildings with two or more units with one noticeable exception: Apartments in duplexes or triplexes where the landlord lives in a unit.
Housing advocates say that is a loophole in the eviction ordinance because tenants in duplexes and triplexes don’t
have just-cause protections, which means they can be evicted for any reason. Tenant rights activists have long rallied against the owner-occupied evictions they believe are partially to blame for displacement in Oakland.
Now it’s up to voters to eliminate the exemption.
“If it passes in November, it would mean that evictions like the one that evicted Aunti Frances would be unlawful, and I see that as a huge benefit for addressing issues of displacement,” Rachel Gottfried-Clancy, a community organizer, said of the renter protection measure.
Gottfried-Clancy was referring to Frances Moore, the former Black Panther who is known for cooking and serving weekly meals to anyone who is hungry in Driver Plaza in North Oakland. Moore can see Driver Plaza from the steps of the three-unit building on 61st Street that she’s lived in for eight years.
She’s moving out in September.
The owners of the triplex want to make significant structural repairs, which they told me couldn’t be done with Moore in the apartment when I wrote about the impasse in December. The new owners are providing relocation assistance to Moore, who found another apartment in North Oakland, according to GottfriedClancy, who assisted Moore in her fight to stay in the apartment.
Now Gottfried-Clancy, 27, can focus her attention on her personal fight to stay in an apartment.
She’s facing an eviction from the North Oakland duplex she’s lived in for three years.
“The housing crisis is affecting everyone, and I actually feel really privileged because I have the knowledge and the resources to fight it,” said Gottfried-Clancy, who is awaiting a date for her eviction trial. “But so many people don’t have that, and they have so many more barriers — language ability, mobility issues, intimidation or harassment from their landlords.
“They’re not in a position to fight.”
Gottfried-Clancy, who works at a nonprofit that advocates for seniors, won’t have much wiggle room in the current housing market unless she moves deeper in the East Bay.
An analysis of the combined Oakland, Berkeley and Hayward housing market published in 2017 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showed just how tight rental conditions are. According to the report, the average rent in the Oakland, Berkeley and Hayward housing market rose 40 percent from 2011 to 2015 while median household income for renter households rose only 31 percent.
The cost of sleeping with a roof over our head is outpacing what many of us take home from our jobs. Surprise, the Bay Area is unaffordable for many of the people who live and work here.
For Oakland Councilman Dan Kalb, the reason for expanding renter protection is simple: If renters are abiding by the rules, they should be allowed to continue living in their apartment.
To Kalb, it’s about fairness.
“People should have the right to stay where they want to stay,” he said. “If they’re already living somewhere, they should have the right to continue to live there as long as they’re not breaking any of the rules.
“The protections and the rules that exist for some renters — most renters in the city — should also exist for renters who live in these smaller buildings.”
Opponents of removing the exemption for duplexes and triplexes say the ordinance would unfairly target the small owners who aren’t like the deep-pocketed real estate investors who buy and flip 25-unit buildings. An expanded ordinance, they say, would force owners to relinquish significant control of the property.
“I’m just not confident that this approach is fair just in light of the community of people who happen to own duplexes and triplexes,” said Daniel Bornstein of Bornstein Law, a firm that specializes in real estate litigation. “They tend to be small owners who often rely on the rental income for their ability to sort of eat.”
Bornstein told me he’s in favor of housing stability, but he believes removing the exemption isn’t sound public policy.
Bornstein, whose firm represented the property owner that evicted Moore, argues that duplexes and triplexes could lose value if the measure passes. Take property upkeep and renovations, for example. As the ordinance stands, an owner can move into a unit in a duplex or triplex and evict the other tenants so renovations can be done. Once the refurbished units are ready, they can be rented at market rate.
If the exemption is removed, renovations will become cumbersome. Owners would have to temporarily displace their tenants, pay relocation fees and then be obligated to offer the unit to the displaced tenants at the price they were previously paying.
“So what it does is it becomes a disincentive to improve housing stock,” Bornstein said. “While large real estate investment companies may have the ability to handle the complexity of the ordinance, small owners are confronted with a tremendous new regulatory regime that they simply don’t have the money nor experience to handle.”
If the last tenant protection measure put before voters in November 2016 is any indication, the upcoming measure will also pass. Two years ago, just-cause eviction requirements were extended to units approved before Dec. 31, 1995, by 75 percent of voters. The measure also requires landlords to request approval for nonstandard rent increases.
“People who work in Oakland and who happen to live in these smaller buildings as renters, they should be able to continue to live in Oakland, and we want to protect them and make sure that they’re not pushed out,” Kalb said.
Unless Oakland gets serious about building more affordable housing, people will continue to be pushed out.
“The crisis housing is affecting everyone, and I actually feel really privileged because I have the knowledge and the resources to fight it.” Rachel Gottfried-Clancy, Oakland community organizer