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.
OAKLAND — In the face of soaring Bay Area rents and what experts decry as a public health crisis, the Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to strengthen protections for the city’s tenants.[…]On Tuesday, Marc Janowitz of the East Bay Community Law Center told the City Council that while he supported the amendments, they don’t go far enough to protect tenants.
California tenants have a new arrow in their quiver: a law to protect them from being unfairly placed on rental blacklists that jeopardize their credit ratings and shut them out of the housing market. Signed this week by Gov. Jerry Brown, the measure is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. [2017] Unpopular with landlord groups, the bill was a squeaker in the Legislature, narrowly passing through the Assembly in May and the Senate in August.
Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill Number 2819! A California law to protect innocent tenants from damaged credit and blacklists if eviction actions are resolved in their favor.
A months-long effort to evict a quadriplegic senior from his South Berkeley apartment is over, after the management company apparently gave up. “Your eviction lawsuit is finally over,” attorney Meghan Gordon of the East Bay Community Law Center told tenant Michael Pachovas in a letter this month. “I will be closing your case at EBCLC because this matter has been settled,” she added.
Fueled by the injustice he encountered as a student advocate, Phil Hernandez ’16 has turned a simple idea into a California bill to protect tenants involved in eviction lawsuits. While working with the Housing Program at the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), Hernandez assisted clients who suffered from what he calls “a big flaw in landlord-tenant law.”
While working with the Housing Program at the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), Hernandez assisted clients who suffered from what he calls “a big flaw in landlord-tenant law.” Under existing rules, a tenant must win an eviction suit within 60 days—or else the court records become public and end up on the tenant’s credit report.
