The good times roll — right over some

There seem to be signs every day that San Francisco is changing dramatically and rapidly.

Some are the stuff of watercooler office talk, like the 291square-foot condo at Seventh and Howard streets that just sold for $415,000 in cash. That’s about the size of two parking spaces, by the way.

Others are the stuff of nostalgia, such as last week’s closure of the beloved Capp’s Corner restaurant in North Beach after a lease dispute. Or last call held Saturday night at the Lexington Club, the city’s only remaining lesbian bar, after a major rent hike on the Mission District space and the loss of clientele.

Still others come in pure data, and the statistics, facts and black-and-white numbers show that these are the best and worst of times in San Francisco — depending on how you look at it.

First, the good news: A newly released report from Measure of America shows that San Franciscans are healthy, wealthy and well educated. We’re exceptionally good-looking and have great senses of humor too, though the survey didn’t track that.

The measures go into the American Human Develop-

ment Index, which ranks all 435 congressional districts plus the District of Columbia and is modeled on how the United Nations ranks the wellbeing of populations by country.

In District 12, represented by Nancy Pelosi and ranked 14 out of 436, San Franciscans can expect to live 82.6 years at birth, three years longer than Americans as a whole. When it comes to education, 54.1 percent of those in District 12 have at least a bachelor’s degree and 22.2 percent have a graduate degree, compared with 29.6 percent and 11.2 percent of the nation overall.

Median wages in 2013 for those 16 and older who work were $50,055 in District 12, nearly $20,000 more than Americans overall.

Our neighbors in District 18, Silicon Valley, came out on top in the American Human Development Index, while those in District 21 in the San Joaquin Valley came in at the very bottom at No. 436. There, just 8.3 percent of residents have bachelor’s degrees and just 2.4 percent have graduate degrees. They make about $20,000 a year.

Districts around San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., fared best while rural areas fared worst, said Kristen Lewis, co-director of Measure of America. She said it was notable that the biggest gaps came within states — not between them.

“The top districts are all in these global, international cities. ... They have vibrant, diverse economies and they attract workers from all over the U.S. and the world,” she said.

“The districts at the bottom face a serious challenge of economic isolation, concentrated poverty and low levels of education,” she said. “Even though they’re not so far apart, they’re worlds apart in terms of the choices and opportunities that the people living there have.”

Wait — wasn’t that supposed to be the good news?

Well, the bad news is that San Francisco’s booming, vibrant economy continues to result in higher numbers of evictions, according to another new report — this one from the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition.

There were 2,210 notices of evictions filed with the city’s Rent Board for the year that ended Feb. 28, a 54.7 percent increase from five years ago.

The number of Ellis Act evictions — used to clear a building that’s going to be taken off the rental market — actually dropped last year to 113 from 216 the year before. The authors of the report believe landlords held off on Ellis Act evictions to see the outcome of November’s Proposition G, which would have taxed apartment buildings that were quickly flipped for a profit.

The proposition failed, and the report said Ellis Act evictions are already rising again and will probably continue to do so. In February alone, the owners of 13 buildings filed Ellis Act petitions on 40 households.

It appears that while Ellis Act evictions went on hiatus last year, landlords tried to evict tenants through other means; all other forms of evictions rose. For example, nuisance evictions, used to evict tenants who create a nuisance for the landlord or other tenants, continue to rise. The Chronicle recently exposed the landlord of a Chinatown residential hotel who tried to evict tenants for hanging laundry outside and placing Chinese New Year decorations in common areas. The eviction notices were withdrawn.

“It’s a combination of what we call low-fault and fake-fault evictions, where essentially there are trumped-up charges, and the hope is that tenants will be scared enough that they’ll simply leave,” said Sara Shortt, director of the Housing Rights Committee.

And the loss of a rentcontrolled unit in today’s market usually means a “one-way ticket out of San Francisco,” Shortt added.

Shortt and other housing advocates behind the reports are trying to educate tenants about their rights and what they should do if they receive an eviction notice. But since efforts in Sacramento to reform the Ellis Act appear to be going nowhere, housing advocates are also considering pushing for policy changes in San Francisco, including going back to the ballot with another attempt at taxing speculation profits.

Gen Fujioka, policy director at Chinatown Community Development Center, said that since the mere threat of a tax on speculation last year temporarily stalled Ellis Act evictions, the actual passage of one could have a big effect.

“The data shows that Prop. G did impact the market and discouraged some of the Ellis evictions and speculation,” he said. “I think that’s an indication that local action and local policy can have an impact.”

Mayor Ed Lee didn’t take a position on Prop. G last fall. (“Very Ed Lee,” quipped Shortt.)

His spokeswoman, Christine Falvey, said his efforts are concentrated on achieving Ellis Act reform in Sacramento, boosting money to provide lawyers to tenants who are wrongfully served eviction notices and pushing for the creation of more affordable housing to relieve some of the stress on the rental market.

“Protecting tenants in the homes they’re in now is a priority,” she said.

But considering the rapid changes in San Francisco, housing ad- vocates don’t have a lot of optimism that the mayor’s moves will come in time. And they believe that what Erin McElroy, a member of the Anti-Displacement Coalition, calls “hyper-gentrification” will continue. In other words, unique institutions like Capp’s Corner and the Lexington Club will continue to close, people who can afford it will continue to pay outrageous sums for property and tenants will continue to receive eviction notices.

Shortt said you have to find the humor in it.

“A lot of people are joking about how the irony is that people who are paying huge amounts of money to claim their stake in San Francisco while displacing others are going to wake up one day to find that they live in Walnut Creek,” she said.

And when it comes to health and prosperity, its 11th Congressional District clocks in at only No. 58.