Tenants fight back
Protest opposes ‘bullying’ of Chinatown housing residents
More than 100 Chinatown tenants took to the streets Wednesday to protest what they characterize as the latest attempt by real estate speculators to drive out low-income Chinese immigrants and replace them with more affluent renters willing to pay over $1,100 for an 80square-foot room with no bathroom or kitchen, roughly double what existing residents pay.
In particular the tenants were targeting Valstock Management, which last spring took
over a 100-unit single-roomoccupancy hotel at 1350 Stockton St., on the border of Chinatown and North Beach.
Tenants charge that since assuming management of the property, Valstock has aggressively sought to levy fines against tenants for everything from hanging laundry in the building’s light well to forgetting their keys to leaving shoes in the hallway. For hanging laundry outside windows — a long-standing practice in Chinatown — tenants have been fined $200, which they say is taken directly from their rent. Forgetting a key results in a $30 fine, they claim.
“Overall they are sending a message to the tenants that they are no longer welcome here,” said Gen Fujioka, policy director of the Chinatown Community Development Center.
Valstock, which manages several buildings in North Beach and Chinatown, has initiated eviction proceedings against seven tenants, according to Jessamyn Edra, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus.
In addition, the mostly Chinese-speaking tenants have been asked to sign 40page leases — in English — that include extensive rules. The leases are incomprehensible to the mostly monolingual residents in the building, Edra said.
“The new leases trap tenants into an agreement designed for them to fail,” Edra said. “There are hidden fines and charges that they may not be able to afford, and new rules they didn’t agree to.”
Huang Wong, a 67-year-old retired construction worker, said tenants live in fear of being fined or evicted.
“In the six years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anyone treat us this way,” said Wong. “They don’t even treat us like people. They treat us like dogs.”
In an email, Valstock CEO Samantha Seto said: “The health, safety and quality of living for all tenants is our top priority. The purpose of house rules is to ensure that all tenants have a clean and safe living environment. When a tenant violates house rules, he or she infringes on the rights of others. Evictions happen because of habitual violations.”
The email included before and after photographs of a light well hung with laundry and then completely clean.
The protest Wednesday was the third time Chinatown housing advocates have targeted landlords or management companies for allegedly using heavy-handed tactics to squeeze out the low-income residents who have traditionally occupied the single-roomoccupancy buildings.
The owners of the two other buildings, at 2 Emery Lane and 937 Clay St., used similar tactics, such as forbidding the hanging of laundry, according to housing advocates. In all three cases, vacant rooms have been marketed to young professionals and students.
So far, about 10 of the rooms at 1350 Stockton have been leased to young professionals at the higher rate, residents said. Valstock currently lists five vacancies in the building. One 80-squarefoot room, listed at $1,395 a month, is described on the Valstock website as “spacious and the perfect size for a student or professional who wants to experience the hustle and bustle of real San Francisco living.”
Chinatown has about 5,000 SRO hotel rooms, which represent about 45 percent of the housing stock in the neighborhood. Because of the tight spaces, residents have long used fire escapes or railings or windows to dry laundry.
“People have to figure out a way of living in these very compact units on very low incomes,” Fujioka said. “They are saying, ‘Change your way of life; conform to the tenants that we want— otherwise, get out.’ ”
At the protest, tenants marched around the block with signs that read, “Stop landlord bullying.” Edra urged tenants not to sign any new leases — which she called “a fast track to eviction.” Most of the tenants in the buildings have oral agreements.
“An oral lease in San Francisco is completely valid,” Edra said. “There is no reason to have new leases with all these new terms, except we think this is setting the tenants up for failure.”
“The new leases trap tenants into an agreement designed for them to fail.” Jessamyn Edra, attorney for the Asian Law Caucus