square foot event space to community groups and in april this year our building was bought for $16 million and very soon they were given notice to evict, that they were going to be evicted. for five months we lived through unbridled abuse, lockouts, guards who demanded identification for us to enter our homes. one of us afflicted with aids is now homeless. our evictors, native san franciscoans, well connected san franciscoans abused us without fear of repercussions. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mr. blue. >> supervisors, i am diane carpio, resident of the city and county of san francisco for 20 years, my daughter is a native. yeah, there's -- this is

definitely a huge, huge, issue, the bigger -- the other piece of the puzzle is the affordable housing aspect of it. and you know with all the funds that we're going through hud and the office of redevelopment and i mean -- it's just appalling that it's gotten to this point. then we had the bid's which the city gives businesses increasing assessments and that impacts all the residents around it. there's realtors, formula retail realtors under the guise of various llc's and they are all connected here and there and really the attorneys,

bornstein and bornstein, mentioned earlier, i was in a courtroom, there's no court reporters or attorneys, the eviction collaborative is wonderful however just having somebody there to divide you through the entire process is absent. but those guys are rock stars. but it's an unfair advantage for people going in and daniel bornstein, i was almost threw up i was so disgusted by his behavior, he stood there and he went, she bounced a check. how do you like that? she gives us a check and it bounced. it was just a pathetic display of power and kind of the culture of what these attorneys are being trained to do. and that's a problem. so looking into that aspect. >> thank you. thank you very much. next speaker. >> ted galackson, san

francisco tenants union, i could talk for an hour about this but i don't have the time. this is indeed a crisis, tenants are panicked about unferry 76s and all the evictions. we need to do what we can as quickly as we can. i think what david, supervisor campos, has been talking about is very good. we need to get control of these buyouts, there's about 3 of them to every ellis act eviction. these are indeed evictions, tenants are not voluntarily taking them, they are being bullied into taking them. the numbers are extremely dramatic. we need to bump up the money for ellis, i would suggest we may want to look at even more than doubling it and come up with a formula to the actual length differential, a tenant being evicted under the ellis act should get their rent subsidized for the next year so

they can get back on their feet. tenants working with the san francisco displacement coalition have proposed a number of things, one being the increase in displacement. right now tenancies in common are completely unregulated, completely unlimited, there's thousands of people that get created, these are the drivers for the ellis evictions, the drivers for the buyouts, the drivers for harassment and we need to get control of all of them. i want to thank supervisor campos on working on anti-harassment which is a big part of this package because tenants are being bullied out of their homes so the rent can be increased. it's a war on tenants and we are losing right now and we need all the help we can get from the supervisors and the mayor. thank you. >> thank you, mr. gullickson,

thank you to the tenants union for what you do. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm share -- sarah short from the san francisco tenants union. it's very validating and what both the report showed and what we all know to be true is that indeed it is a crisis. it is an epidemic and we have no time to wait before we take measures to curb this greed that's wrecking havoc on our community. in relation to what ted said prior, i really appreciate reading that there's a coalition forming to deal with the ellis act on the state level. that absolutely needs to happen and i wanted to acknowledge that. but i also want to also reinforce that we need to continue on the path of doing everything we can locally as well to create solutions

that can at least help mitigate the impact when people do get evicted or make it much harder to ellis or to disincentivize the evictions that are taking place through use of the ellis act and again a coalition of tenant groups have presented some of those ideas and some are being taken up and we read about them in the paper this morning. these ideas include the extended relocation payments, making it harder to convert because of requirements for code upgrades and plans the mayor mentioned today. supervisor avalos has a plan concerning where there is construction and plans to

upgrade a home. what i want to say about all that is just that we need all hands on deck and we need to continue with the mayor and the board of supervisors, all of us in the community and all the tenant groups to make sure that we move forward with all of these great proposals and that we keep the momentum steadily onward and don't stop until we get there, until we reduce significantly the number of ellis act evictions and all other type of evictions that are happening right now. thank you. >> thank you, miss short. i also want to call on marlo knight, i'm sorry. next speaker. >> good afternoon, members of the board, steve callier, tenderloin housing clinic as well as all the other housing groups are supporting this broad package of local legislation to limit the incentive to do he will ils act and speculative evictions. i want to talk a little bit to

supervisor yee's question which is sort of what is driving this. one thing i always tell people is that i'm glad now the lexicon has become accepted by even the mayor, these are speculators. these aren't land lords who are doing this, these are speculators and the speculation comes from a lot of money that's coming in to fund the speculators now that we have an era of relatively easy money. the fed window is at zero, you have a lot of wall street money, money throughout the country in that is coming in funding this speculation and it's cheap money so it can do a lot of damage. we find time and time again that the land lords who own these buildings are not the ones invoking the ellis act. when they sell or die or retire, whatever reason, the speculators come in like vultures and do their work. so

unfortunately because of the nature of real estate holdings, they are llc's, they tend not to be transparent, they tend to be hidden, they are llc's owned by other llc's so it's hard to know who is driving the particular speculation. but that's what it is, it's speculation coming from a lot of money coming into the city and you need to also target not just the funding of it but also the lending. there's been a development in real estate lending now that allows for fractional shared mortgages, which is where a bank will lend percentage ownership interest in a tic, not on the whole building. >> thank you very much. thank you for your work. next speaker. >> hello, my name is patricia kirkman and i came to san

francisco in 1970 when i first set foot here i fell in love. when people asked me where i'm from, i tell them detroit by birth, san francisco by choice. i've been living in my flat in the mission since 1987 -- 86, 86. i am being ellis acted, i am a senior on disability. i have a very low fixed income, trying to find alternative housing i have been told i don't make enough for low income housing. i am looking at shopping carts and i am terrified. i haven't had a good night's sleep in i can't tell you how long. i wake up in the middle of the night and i hear everyone's story and my heart goes out to them because i know what they are feeling. that's why i wasn't going to speak, i figured this would

happen. anyhow, you have to do something. it might not be enough for me right now but you can't do this to any more people. and i don't mean you personally. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, i am mitchell with the affordable housing alliance and i want to try to furtherance supervisor yee's question about why this is happening. i want to tell you a story, about 30 years ago there was a land lord in a rent controlled jurisdiction who wanted to empty his building out of all his tenants. so he went to the california supreme court, i'm shorting the story a little bit, and he said i need to empty my building from the tenants but they pay their rent on time, no one is creating a nuisance, there is no illegal activity, i don't have an approved condominium conversion, i don't have a just cause but i've come up on one

on my own which is i think i have a constitutional right to go out of business and that involves kicking out all my tenants. the supreme court thought about it for a little while and said, yes, you have a right to go out of business and the way to accomplish that, the normal way someone would do that is go out of business, sell the apartment building to someone else, they will continue to oopt it. now people like california state senator say the ellis act is being abused but another way is to say the ellis act is acting as intended. the business is going out of

business, foertsing -- forcing out the tenants and changing its use. i applaud the ellis act, we need to do these things but we should repeal the ellis act, we must amend it and change it as part of any package coming from this committee. thank you. >> thank you, sir. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, i am marla knight, a retired city college teacher and a fourth generation san franciscoan. i live down the street from teresa on lombard. we were bought by urban green investments in mid-november. a week later we got the letter of intent that they were going out of the land lord business which they had been in one week. on february

24 of this year we received our notice of ellis act eviction so we are due to vacate on the 4th, 2014. i support your proposal, especially the moratorium. i hope it will apply to us too. i'm also a volunteer tutor at telegraph hill community center and i really would like to continue contributing it my community. as all of my co-tenants, we have a couple asian immigrants who are 89 and 92, respectively, and they are section 8 resip cipients and they are being evicted too. urban green chose not to do a value added and do market rate but just evict us all. anyway, i really really hope that this matter, these

proposals go forward quickly. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi, i've evan juisilary, it's me with the pictures. you may need someone to get here and record. you know i been here 89 hours of dot com, then moved and took our private self off 829 ft. leafenworth where they were moving two people in with incomes from around the country. san francisco has a history of pacific heights with people moving from la and you got to think ellis act was voted from san francisco, remember george moscone and harvey milk was killed, aids was coming out in san francisco and people went in and voted for the ellis act and you took advantage of people at a

horrible time. san francisco, you know it's amazing, knob hill and the mission all round this city you have taken all the people houses and i can't believe the young educated uppies are coming here with at the twitter and pushing people out. it's time for someone with common sense. i have the first family on the back of me. the mayor should take history 49. the paepl who drive in want apartments in this city so they are coming in to take what they didn't realize the city would get transportation, they want to come live here now because they have put so much green gas

out in those 9 big counties they are coming here and it's time for you to join the community housing partnership and find out why people's apartments are being taken. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> thank you very much for having this hearing. i was born and raised in the mission and we survived the dot com and i thought the dot com was bad, that was nothing. i mean you talk about, people have talked about a crisis, you have to treat it as a crisis and the way you treat it as a crisis is you have a state of emergency and san francisco needs to declare that. we have enough supervisors who are very intelligent that could declare an emergency, you got a mayor who today said he's signing on to get on board, so let's declare a state of emergency. you know when we started our mission no eviction two months ago, we have organized over

3,000 people already who have come out of everywhere and i was shocked. i thought it was the mission again under attack by these people moving in. growing up in the mission, nobody wanted to live in the mission. but now everybody wants to live in the mission and now i'm finding out that it's not only happening in the mission, being here today and seeing seniors, white people, gay people, african people, asian people, and you talk about people from all over the city. that's we have a crisis, it's not only in the mission, it's the whole city. and you look at, we got 37 cranes up right now in downtown san francisco and if you look at the new cranes that will go up next year, why is it all this development is going on and why are we not having housing that's affordable for people who make under $40,0 a year being built? in the mission

right now i ask you to investigate, we have 5 sites that the city could build immediately affordable housing and i'm sure if you go to every other neighborhood and do an inventory of possible sites that affordable housing could be built immediately, let's get it done. gracias. >> thank you very much. are there any other member of the public who would like to speak in seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, i don't know if you want it add anything to what has been said but the one thing that i want to note is that what's remarkable about this hearing, and i'm trying to find, trying to find the positive, is the fact that we have had a pretty diverse and united group of people from all parts of the city, all

neighborhoods, who have come together to talk about the need to act quickly and to act in unity and i think if there's a silver lining to this crisis, to this epidemic, is the fact that it is bringing people together. the beauty of what i have seen in the last few weeks is that as we have gone to events, demonstrations, marches, you have people from chinatown, people from the mission, people from knob hill, people from you name it, going to different neighborhoods saying what happens in one neighborhood impacts me. and there is a poet who said that individually we are one drop, but together we are an ocean. and i think that this ocean of unity, this ocean of people, is going to make

sure that we remain a city that works for everyone. so i want to thank all of you, i want to especially thank the people who had the courage to come out it this hearing and share their own individual stories. it's not easy to do that. it was heart-breaking, it was very moving and the fact that people are themselves going through a very tough time and yet they are coming here not just because of their own experience but because they want to do the right thing for other people and help other people, that's san francisco at its best. and i think that san francisco has the ability to change the course of what's happening and i know that this is only the beginning and with that i will ask my colleagues that we continue this hearing to the call of the chair so that we can come back to this issue to

see what progress has been made at the local and at the state level and i think that the idea that sarah short noted of all hands on deck, that's what needs to happen. we have to have all hands on deck to change what's happening here. with that, if we can have a motion. so we have a motion by supervisor mar. again i want to thank everyone who came out, thank the budget and legislative analyst, i especially want to thank hillary ronan in my office who has spent many hours putting this together so the hearing is continued to the call of the chair. mr. clerk, do we have any other business before the committee. >> there are no other items before the chair. >> thank you very much, this meeting is adjourned. (meeting adjourned).

>> hi, i'm with building san francisco. and we have a special program of stay safe today where we're going to talk about what you can do to your home after an earthquake to make it waterproof and to be more comfortable. we're here at spur in san francisco, this wonderful exhibit of safe enough to stay. and this is an example of what your home might be like after an earthquake. and we have today with us ben

latimer from tvan. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> we'll talk about things you can do you don't have to be a professional contractor to make your home more livable after an earthquake. >> i want to talk about things a homeowner can do. we have comfort and we have things like a little bit of maybe safety if your front door is ajar and waterproofing if you have a leak in your roof, or if you have broken glass on the window. >> so unr, one of the most important fib use is keeping outside out and inside in. let's look at windows. >> let's assume this window is broken in the earthquake. we have wind and rain blowing in. one of the most important things you need to do as a homeowner is secure the plastic properly. if you just take staples or nails and put them into the plastic, we're going to get a strong wind and rip it right off. what i'm going to have somebody do is they're going to have -- this is an old piece of shingle. you might have -- everybody has a piece of wood in their

basement. it doesn't have to be fancy. they take out this rusty screw begun, and hopefully you have one of these. >> there is one at the neighborhood support center. >> at the neighborhood support center. you're going to wrap this plastic around this board, take your screw. and then screw that in. >> you need a permit for this? >> you do need a permit for this. and you can contact the former head building inspector to get that permit. that's it. now when the wind blows, it's tight and it's not going to pull through, having a single point of contact. >> great. what about this door? take a look at this door. what can you do? let's say it doesn't shut tight. what can you do? >> for the sake of argument, we're on the inside. i can't lock my door at night. i have a very similar, very similar idea. i'm going to take my 2 by 4. i can put it across the jamb in

the door. one. two. maybe i want another one up here, maybe another one down there. but i can go to sleep. and that quickly, i can get it off in the morning. >> terrific. what about the roof up here? we see people throw blue tarps over their roof after an earthquake. that seems reasonable. >> i think the blue tarp is reasonable. the things that people want to know that they need to know is if you have multiple tarps, how you overlap. starting from the bottom and moving up so that you're overlapping this way. so, rain running down doesn't slide under your tarp. >> right. >> and the same technique we did over here, as silly as it may sound, wrapping the end of that blue tarp with your board and then securing that if you can underneath, if you have to on top is fine. but making sure that you don't have an area where the wind is going to get under and bill owe that tarp. >> the wind can rip it right off. >> and then you're back up there again.

>> let's go inside and check out what we can do inside. >> old fun. here we go. >> so, ben, i see you have nails, universal tool right here. >> man's best friend. duct tape. let me show you a couple things we can use this for after an earthquake. this window right here, because it's off kilter, we have open seams all along. i have a lot of air coming through. i want to stay comfortable at night. i want to keep that air out. it's as simple as that, all the way around. >> excellent. >> now i don't have any air coming in. let's say this one is one that would annoy me. everything is a little off. my doors won't stay closed. i take a piece of my favorite duct tape here, close it up. and at least it will stay out of my way when i'm trying to live throughout my day. if we're not talking about pressurized water, we're talking about just the drain, sometimes they're going to get a crack here. >> right, sure. >> and you're going to get a leak. duct tape around that is going to help us get through until we can get a plumber out and get

that fixed as well. let's say we only have electricity in one room, so we're running extension cords across the house. if i'm going to run an extension cord from one room to the other, i don't want kids tripping on it. i don't want to trippon it. i take my trusty duct tape, tape it to the floor, and i don't have to worry about it getting kicked. >> great, great. look at this. let's look at the duct tape here because we see a big -- >> yes. in the event of an earthquake, i don't think we're going to have too many -- too much debris that's safe to put into a plastic bag, even as strong as it might be. these are called vice bags. this is what they use to put rice and things when they ship it. this is something where i take my glass, i can take broken pieces of wood, i can take anything sharp and fill it. and it's not going to puncture and come out. it's not going to fall all over the floor. i've not going to have it sticking out, maybe scratch myself, cut myself or anything like that. these are a great thing to have. >> you have a little go-to box for emergencies.

that's great. thanks very much for joining us, ben. it's really been interesting. and i want to thank you all for joining us here at the spur urban center. and we'll see you again

>> >> the meeting will now come to order. welcome to the meeting. my name is malia