Tenants have arranged flowers in the backyard of their rent-controlled fourplex in north Oakland. They’re facing eviction via the Ellis Act.
By Danielle Kaye (@danielledkaye)
Alameda County and the City of Oakland passed temporary moratoriums on evictions to protect tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. But that hasn’t stopped some landlords from moving forward with evicting renters using the Ellis Act, a state law allows landlords to evict tenants in order to go out of the landlord business.
One of those tenants is Chris Kross. She says, “I’m an old-school punk rocker. I’ve been in the Bay Area for decades. I may have left for a little while here and there, but this has always been home.”
Chris was sitting at a picnic table in the backyard of a fourplex on Genoa Street in north Oakland. She shares the place with seven other people.
“We are like a family. We take care of each other, we love each other, we shop for each other, we take care of each other when we’re sick,” Chris said. “We spend time together — we laugh, we watch movies, we do gardening. We’re all very concerned about each other’s well being.”
This building is rent-controlled. Chris has been living here for about a decade. If she had to pay market-rate rent today, she couldn’t stay in Oakland.
“Now I’m disabled and not working, and on a fixed income from social security disability, which is less than $1,500 a month, which doesn’t go very far in the Bay Area,” she said.
On June 25, her landlord sent Chris and everyone else an eviction notice.
“When we got these notices, the first thing I did was broke into tears. I started sobbing and shaking, and I called all the girls. We had a family meeting up at my house and said, ‘What are we gonna do?’ Everybody was in total shock — total shock. So upset. Because this is our home,” Chris said. “I realize somebody else owns this building, but look around you. Look at what we’ve done to a place that had nothing.”
Oakland and Alameda County both passed eviction moratoriums to protect tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. But there’s an exception: the Ellis Act.
“The Ellis Act is state law that allows the landlord to declare they’re going out of business with regard to a particular rental property,” said Michael Sims, an attorney who represents the owner of the fourplex, Larry Raymond.
Raymond owns several properties in California. His attorney said Raymond hasn’t evicted the tenants of any of his other properties. Under California’s Ellis Act, landlords can evict tenants from rent-controlled buildings if they are going to stop being landlords.
“And that requires that everyone be removed from every unit. That’s going out of business. You can’t do it with regards to just one unit,” Sims added.
Clearing out rent controlled tenants also pushes up the price a building can sell for. Normally, tenants in buildings that are Ellised have four months to pack up and leave from the time they get their eviction notice. The Genoa Street residents get longer — up to one year — because many of them are above the age of 62 or have a disability.
Sims said his clients approached him about Ellising the Genoa Street tenants prior to the pandemic and they didn’t change their minds once the pandemic hit.
“We discussed the matter, the fact that it was during the pandemic,” Sims said. “But we decided that probably a year from now, the situation should be much better. And you have to look a year ahead of time.”
But with unemployment rates at historic highs and COVID still surging, now is a hard time to relocate — especially for low-income renters.
“I knew it was coming, but I didn’t know it would come during COVID. And COVID is a terrible time for us, and a good time for the landlords to do this kind of thing,” said Karen, another Genoa Street tenant.
Karen has been living in the fourplex for thirty years. She works as an art model, an interpreter and a translator — jobs that have all dried up due to COVID. Saving up money to relocate is nearly impossible.
“We’re not saying that you can’t evict us. We’re saying, you can evict us. But at this time, it’s not a good time. COVID eviction is not good, because you have to give me a chance to get on a subsidized list, give me a chance to know what’s happening,” Karen said. “One year? One year now is not one year. It’s less than a year, because it takes twice as long to do anything.”
Sims said the tenants have been “hostile,” which is why his clients want them out. “They want to stop having to deal with this unpleasant and ugly behavior,” he said.
He said the tenants have been verbally abusive, even pushed the landlord’s daughter during an inspection.
“Another one of the tenants assaulted the landlord’s daughter when she was there trying to manage the property. She pushed her,” Sims said. “And this tenant is like a foot taller and a lot heavier. The landlord’s daughter is only like 4’10 in height. And the tenant pushed her and called her a bitch.”
The tenants deny these allegations.
“She’s videotaping all my stuff, and I’m staying close to her, because I don’t know what she’s doing. So I stayed close to her. I never touched her, but I stayed close to her. Probably a foot and a half or two feet away at all times,” Chris said. “She went to open my closet, she went to open my cupboards in my bedroom where all my personal items are kept. I’m like, ‘You can’t do that,’ and she’s videotaping everything — everything.”
Chris and Karen say the eviction is retaliation; they reported an illegal rent increase in 2014. Oakland’s rent board reversed it. Then, there’s the money.
“They think that this rent control thing is really cramping their style in terms of profit. And I can’t blame them for that, because that’s how landlords think,” Karen said.
“Everybody was in total shock — total shock. So upset. Because this is our home. I realize somebody else owns this building, but look around you. Look at what we’ve done to a place that had nothing.” – Chris Kross
Leah Simon-Weisberg is legal director at the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment in Oakland. She hopes this isn’t a new trend. Leah said Ellis evictions are usually rare because there are so many other loopholes landlords can use to get out long-term tenants — but now, it’s one of the few ways landlords can get around emergency moratoriums on evictions.
“A fourplex, if somebody were to buy it empty, would be quite valuable for someone to sell, essentially as a version of condos,” Leah said. “And that’s what we anticipate: that most of the reason they do this is that they will either try to negotiate with the tenants to voluntarily vacate, which would then get rid of all those protections, or they would sell it.”
The real estate site Zillow estimates the property they’re in will sell for at least $1.4 million, vacant. Based on tax records, that looks like at least ten times what the owners paid for it. Under Oakland’s relocation ordinance, meanwhile, the tenants would get $10,000 each. Chris said that’s not enough to stay housed.
“There’s no place in the Bay Area that we can afford to move. They offered us the bare minimum that they are legally abided by to pay us to leave. It’s not sustainable,” Chris said. “What’s that gonna last? A month? Maybe two? We’re on the streets while it sits empty. Are you kidding me?”
She said getting evicted would force her out of the Bay Area.
“My life is here. My entire life is here. My family, my people, my doctors, my family, my everything,” Chris said. “To lose this — it would be life altering. And I don’t know that I can say it’s gonna be in a good way, because I don’t have many options.”
“I also think it’s pretty unethical that landlords are doing this right now,” Simon-Weisberg said.
Simon-Weisberg is advocating for policies such as a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would give people like the Genoa Street tenants the chance to come together and purchase the property, possibly with the help of a land trust. She’s also calling for regulation of short-term renting, like Airbnbs, so landlords don’t clear out their apartments to make them hotels.
Another policy change she wants to see? A statewide ban on Ellis evictions during the pandemic.
“Some cities have included Ellis and others haven’t,” Simon-Weisberg said. “Ellis is state law, and so I think it would be helpful if the governor clarified that you could not do an Ellis eviction.”
This story first aired on UpFront on July 8, 2020.