11-member family being kicked out under Ellis Act
Renters losing home after 25 years
Katia Hetter, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
Teresa Dulalas and her family, who are being evicted after 25 years in their home, are among the latest tenants in San Francisco to be ousted under a state law that landlords are using with increased frequency to empty their buildings of renters.
Advocates for tenants call the evictions -- under the Ellis Act, which allows them if owners promise to take their buildings off the rental market for a period of years -- a real estate speculator's ploy that makes a mockery of San Francisco's rent-control and tenant-protection laws.
Representatives for building owners, meanwhile, call the Ellis Act an important protection of the right of people to choose not to be landlords and to move in or sell off their real estate.
"It's like being stabbed in the back," said Dulalas, 40, whose 11-member family will have to move within the year from the three-bedroom home it rents for about $500. "Where are we going to go, especially in San Francisco? It's so hard to find affordable housing."
Dulalas joined a Tuesday night protest in front of her three-bedroom Folsom Street home that was organized by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the San Francisco Tenants Union to halt the Ellis Act evictions.
Petitions for Ellis Act evictions filed with the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board more than tripled in March compared with the same month last year, records show.
Landlords filed petitions to empty 39 units in March, compared with 12 units in March 2003, according to the rent board. Owners have petitioned to remove 221 units from the rental market over the six months ending March, compared with 83 units for the previous six-month period.
