Protest Targets Landlords Evicting SF Senior with AIDS

Eviction Free Summer to Protest at Landlords' Atherton and Union City Homes

SAN FRANCISCO -- This Saturday members of Eviction Free Summer, a group protesting speculators, landlords and investors who evict renters for a quick profit, will visit the homes of three South Bay Area investors who are evicting Jeremy Mykaels—a senior with AIDS who is being pushed out of his apartment in the Castro where he has lived for 17 years.

Protesters will gather at 10:30 am at the San Francisco Tenants Union (558 Capp Street, near 21st), then car pool down to rally in front of the landlords' homes in Atherton and Union City.

The three landlords bought Mykaels’ building in 2011, then served him with an Ellis Act eviction in September 2012. Being disabled, Mykaels received a year to move. His year runs out next month.

“These evictions are ruining people's lives for a profit, it's completely heartless and unnecessary,” said Christopher Cook, an Eviction Free Summer organizer. “Jeremy has lived in his apartment for many years and has nowhere else to go. He is a senior with AIDS and it is unacceptable that someone would toss him out in the streets to make a buck. It stops here.”

Mykaels was the subject of a Feb. 5, 2013 profile in the Bay Guardian (http://www.sfbg.com/2013/02/05/out-place?page=0,2). He told the weekly that, as a person with AIDS, “This is where my doctors are and where I'm comfortable. I'm not going to find a support system like this anywhere else in the world.”

Eviction Free Summer has drawn dozens of San Francisco tenants and advocates to protest landlords and speculators who are evicting city renters for profit. Most recently they protested landlord Rick Holman at his South Park offices, for evicting several tenants from the 17 Reasons Why building in the Mission District.
For more background:
• http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/07/03/eviction-free-summer-activists-show-outside-landlords-office-protest-eviction
• http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/5615/eviction-free-summer-campaign-protests-landlord-over-mission-district-evictions/