“I know of no authority that gives the U.S. government the ability to circumvent and ignore the application of Oakland’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance as it attempts to remove these lawful occupants,” said Meghan Gordon, an attorney who is the director of the East Bay Community Law Center’s housing practice.
In the view of Frank Martin, deputy director of the East Bay Community Law Center, the legal services offered by Keep Oakland Housed will give pause to property managers looking to evict tenants as a ploy to boost rent.“Generally speaking, 90 percent of landlords have lawyers and 90 percent of tenants do not,” he says. “That makes for an imbalance and leads to people losing their cases even when they have legitimate reasons for why they couldn’t pay their rent. Having lawyers who will negotiate settlements with landlords or who show up in court with tenants levels the playing field.”
GORDON: I’d say that we’re seeing not only more evictions but we’re seeing evictions on a bigger scale, because there’s so much money to be made by developers now.
“I go from a block where there are tents lining the sidewalk, to a block where there are Teslas and Mercedes lining the sidewalk,” said Osha Neumann, a staff attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center. “It’s almost like we’re dividing into two species. And it’s increasingly difficult for people to move from the streets, from the bottom, anywhere up away from there.”
Shallyn Wells, an attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center, shared the story of her client, Samantha Lao, at today’s committee hearing. Lao lives in the upper unit of a duplex. Her downstairs neighbor left after a new owner purchased the building and evicted them. The new owner now claims to be living in the bottom unit, but Wells claims that this isn’t true, and that instead the landlord is simply using the exemption to get rid of Lao and increase the rent.
On Tuesday, Hardy attended a rally in front of City Hall, where about 40 tenants rights groups and renters demanded that the city take action to close 10 loopholes in Oakland’s renter-protection laws. They said those gaps allow unscrupulous owners to hike rents and displace low- and middle-income tenants.
OAKLAND — Evictions from live/work spaces in Oakland continue with alarming frequency in the wake of December’s Ghost Ship fire, despite efforts by city leaders to work with landlords to prevent displacement in a city where affordable housing is a rare commodity.
One East Bay agency said they have seen an increase in the number of calls from immigrant tenants whose landlords have threatened to report them to immigration authorities after they made complaints about their living conditions.
At the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, staff attorney Ubaldo Fernandez said the agency has seen an uptick.
With the recent rain we have had multiple reports of flooding, trees down and damage to homes.
We checked in with Meghan Gordon, housing attorney for the East Bay Community Law Center who says tenants have been dealing with mold as well as leaking from roofs and windows.
“Every landlord in the area has an incentive to evict their tenants so they can increase rent, sell it for more money or turn it into condos,” said Braz Shabrell, housing attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center, who is assisting Oakland tenants facing evictions after Ghost Ship.
