Homes Not Jails Building Takeover

On Saturday, April 7, 2007 at the 24th St. BART Station Homes Not Jails, with the SF Tenants Union, the SF Peoples’ Organization, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, Religious Witness with Homeless People, St. Peter’s Housing Committee, some other organizations and approximately 150 housing activists, protested Ellis Act evictions.

The Ellis Act is a state law that was originally intended to allow small property owners to get out of the rental business, e.g., when a couple owns a building, as they age they may not want or be able to keep up with all that is necessary to have tenants, so this law would allow them to get out of the rental business.

Unfortunately, there are some pretty big loopholes in the Ellis Act that allow speculators to purchase buildings (possibly from those who have inherited them from elderly relatives who have passed away) and then go out of the rental business THAT SAME DAY! This is not crazy talk, it has been done. And the people who are most affected by these evictions are seniors, disabled people and families who may have lived in their apartments for 30 or 40 years. It is unconscionable that the State of California allows this to happen. There have been THOUSANDS of these Ellis Act evictions in SF, depleting our rental stock by that much. Housing activists have been calling for the repeal of this act for years, or at least getting rid of the loopholes.

Until that happens, Homes Not Jails is known for taking action.

After the rally at 24th & Mission, we marched only a few blocks
to a building where seniors, disabled and families had been evicted under the Ellis Act OVER 4 YEARS AGO, AND THE BUILDING IS STILL SITTING EMPTY!! Why were these people’s lives disrupted for what appears to be no reason whatsoever?

Several people had already taken over the building when we got there, including Ted Gullickson of the SF Tenants Union and Sister Bernie Galvin of Religious Witness with Homeless People.

The battlecry was “If they are going to take our homes, and especially if they are going to allow them to sit empty after taking them, then we are going to take them back!” The point was to call the City’s attention to these empty Ellised buildings, and hopefully our Supervisors can find a way to reclaim them. How can we allow these things to happen at one end, and then claim to care about the homeless problem at the other?

Police formed a line in front of the building to keep the rest of us out. A bucket on a rope was passed down so that the protesters could put some bread and fruit in it for those inside, but the police made short work of that by confiscating the bucket. Too bad the Giants Baseball Team wasn’t there – they may have been able to recruit the few people who managed to throw the fruit far enough to be caught by some of those inside!

Please everyone, contact your CA State Senators and Representatives and tell them that the Ellis Act must be repealed or at least changed to prevent these speculators from coming into our town and evicting our neighbors. If you are a renter in SF, you may be next!
'
I had to leave after 2 hours so don't know what came next.

All photos may be seen at http://www.flickr.com/gp/81834230@N00/epaWN 1