May News

SFTU Endorsements For June 5 Election

The Tenants Union has made its endorsements for the June 5 election:

Tom Ammiano-Assembly District 17
Phil Ting—Assembly District 19
Mark Leno—Senate District 11

San Francisco Ballot Measures
Proposition A – No
Proposition B – Yes

Democratic Central Committee District 17
John Avalos
David Campos
Dean Clark
Petra DeJesus
Matt Dorsey
Chris Gembinski
Gabriel Haaland
Leslie Katz
Rafael Mandelman
Carole Migden
Justin Morgan
Leah Pimental
Stu Smith

Democratic Central Committee District 19
Mike Alonso
Wendy Aragon
Kevin Bard
Chuck Chan
Kelly Dwyer
Hene Kelly
Peter Lauterborn
Eric Mar
Trevor McNeil

Sup. David Chiu Introduces Legislation To End Illegal Conversion of Apartments to Hotels

Bolstered by web sites which make it easy to rent out apartments as hotel rooms and a lagging market for "tenancies in common." tenants are now facing a new and serious threat: the conversion of rent controlled apartments to hotel rooms. Web sites like Vacation Rental By Owner are currently listing hundreds, maybe thousands, of these conversions. Tenants are paying a steep price too: research found that tenants had been evicted (most commonly by the Ellis Act) so the landlord could convert the apartments to these lucrative short-term rentals. North Beach has been particularly hard hit, with blocks near the cable car line typically containing at least one or two such buildings. Tenants are also suffering because the conversion of so many apartments has further dwindled the supply of available rental units in an already extremely tight rental market, which has caused rents to increase significantly.

The irony is that these conversions are illegal: the city's APartment Conversion law (Chapter 41 A of the Administrative Code and the the city's Planning Code both prohibit such conversions). But a lack of enforcement by city agencies has resulted in landlords blatantly ignoring these laws. Chiu's legislation will make it easier to enforce these laws by giving non-profits (e.g. the SF Tenants Union) the right to sue violators. It also closes a loophole which has enable corporations to rent blocks of rooms to use as hotel rooms for their employees (e.g. airlines needing to house pilots and flight attendants overnight in SF).

Occupy Wells Fargo Shareholder Meeting Tuesday, April 24, 11 AM

When Citi Apartments embarked on its plan to buy up San Francisco apartment buildings and then evict rent controlled tenants (and replace them with market rent paying tenants), it teamed up with Wells Fargo Bank as its partner, in a common bank-landlord collaboration known as "predatory equity." Predatory equity schemes like the one Wells and Citi did in SF typically involve a financial institution investing in the acquisition of apartment buildings where the landlord plans to increase profits by driving out rent controlled tenants (or in some cases in New York City trying to remove rent controlled protections from the buildings); the idea is both parties will profit hugely from the displacement of low income renters. Wells is also quite active in financing Ellis evictions and facilitating the evictions of tenants for condo conversions—again predatory equity schemes where they make a lot of money off the misery of the 99%. Then there;s their foreclosure evictions...

On April 24, Wells Fargo will hold its annual shareholder meeting in San Francisco and the Tenants Union, other housing organizations and Occupy SF Housing coalition will join with Occupy SF To occupy and shut down the shareholder meeting. Join us–meet at Justin Herman Plaza (foot of Market Street) at 11 AM on April 24 to then march to the shareholder meeting a few blocks away.

Occupy SF Housing Joins Occupy Wall St. West & Shuts Down Banks Which Evict Tenants & Homeowners On January 20 Day of Actions

SFTU & Occupy Shut Down Banks In Excelsior & the Mission

Hundreds Come Out For Occupy SF Housing Day of Actions

OccupySF Housing Day of Actions December 3

In conjunction with OccupySF, the Tenants Union, Causa Justa:: Just Cause, Housing Rights Committee. Eviction Defense Collaborative, ACCE, Tenants Together & others held a day of actions focused on the role banks play in the evictions of tenants via their financing of real-estate speculators.
Banks: No more Evictions and Foreclosures for Profit!
Tenants and allies marched in 4 neighborhoods (Bayview, Castro, Mission & Tenderloin) starting at 11 AM protesting how banks and real estate speculators work hand in hand to evict tenants for profits. The neighborhood marches then converged on Justin Herman for the mass march. Well over 500 people then marched to Wells Fargo and delivered a letter demanding the bank stop financing evictions. The march then went to the offices of the Building Managers & Oweners Association (BOMA), a leading lobbyist for landlords and the leading voice calling for the eviction of OccupySF from Justin Herman Plaza, and delivered BOMA an eviction notice for being a public nuisance.

Just Published & Now Available: Tenants Rights Handbook 13th Edition

Available only with a Tenants Union Membership