inner richmond and the outer richmond are fourth and fifth, so it's a huge amount of people, especially seniors and people with disabilities that we're looking at. that fear is real for people in the richmond as well. the growth in property values of homes in the richmond district coupled with excellent schools and improved public transportation and parks make it a very tempting target for many of the speculators out there that are looking to quote u.n. quote flip buildings and evict people. the high concentration of seniors in our district, i know there's a number of seniors who will be testifying in the inner richmond about 18 percent of the population are seniors in the outer richmond it's about 18.5 percent, way above the city's averages, so i know there are a high number of seniors that are renters in our district. currently there's a building at 15 ogt and anza

that's a renter's building. i want to thank mat for a story he broke, a story of ellis act evictions from an investor who admits to real estate conspiracy. in this 4-unit building michael winter and others include a single parent with child and two seniors under threat of an ellis act eviction. if the tenants are forced out like the we family in upton and many families like them, they will have no viable options, or very limited ones as mr. russo's report identifies in san francisco and they would likely be pushed out of the city. these stories are not unique to the mission, to russian hill, to the castro, but the richmond district has huge stories as well of people displaced by the ellis act and other no-fault evictions and in fear of their residence in our

city. i did want to say from the sf appeal article it's very clear who the culprits are as well in who's driving the fear and the displacement. the eviction according to the appeal article is driven by a group of speculators, craig good man and associates and craig malloyy who is stated goal is to flip the property for massive profits. we need to figure out as a city how to figure out how to keep these speculators from doing this. there are 80 buildings involved. tech workers moving to the city seems to me a very prdive approach as well as looking at the broader factors as well. early this month another resident as well working with me to convene the richmond no

evictions town hall and efforts to defend our homes in the richmond district and really raise the awareness of renters and everyone in the richmond district of what's happening and to support solutions like the great ones that supervisor campos and others of my colleagues are presenting and the mayor as well. a recent fire at 12th and clement also damaged a number of apartment -- an apartment building that displaced 8 residents. though we're hopeful all of them will be able to return to 24r units we've seen as supervisor campos has mentioned as many buildings are not repaired in a timely manner and tenants give up and move away but it's one of the ways that land lords instead of evicting people use different tactics to push them out and it's another example of why we need better data gathering as well. lastly, i'm aware of a number of landlords that carry out

what i would call unnecessary construction in order to make it for difficult for tenants to live peacefully in their units. it may not be to a level of harassment but at times it is. it pressure people to get the hell out or to move out of their units so they can be rented at much higher rentals. this is happening not opl the push out from ellis act units where you have some buildings vacating before others and the owner wants the units vacated as quickly as possible and we're working with different tenant organizations that would help address this problem as well. i want to thank the tenant organizations and community groups and supervisor campos as well. >> thank you, supervisor mar, supervisor yee >> thank you, chair campos and thanks for bringing this hearing to our attention. i

read over the report and some things -- it's a good report. there's a lot of information in there. i felt like there's some missing pieces to help me understand better what's, the report focused on the results of things and what i'm not understanding is what's causing these results. as supervisor mar was saying, is it the, are we blaming the tech companies that are coming in? is that really what's causing this? what's putting the pressure on to the market, the rental market? and i never quite understand this because being a native san franciscoan and seeing the changes over the years of what every group pushing out another group, i'd like to understand better, if

we can get more data. are these new type of employment really pushing out the people that have lived here for a while? and, if so, what are we going to do about it in regards to for our city to create the type of jobs that can keep our people here and not put undue pressure into our housing market. the other piece that i felt missing in this report was -- and i asked my staff this and i don't have the answers. is our city, where are we compared to other cities in the u.s. when it comes to building affordable housing? are we at par, are we below other cities, are we ahead of the curve or what? because i think it's important for us to understand that if we are indeed below average in terms of building enough

affordable housing then we really need to refocus on our approach of how city planning is going to accept the type of development that we see in the city. >> thank you, supervisor yee, and let me say i think all of those questions are excellent questions and our hope was that this report would provide an initial view of what's happening but clearly we need to delve into the why and i think that we have to be careful in making sure that we don't, you know, cast a wide net that doesn't recognize that there are also, you know, within the land lord community many responsible players and i know that the san francisco apartment association has been helpful in assisting some individual families. i think the speculators that supervisor

mar is talking about in many respects are making everyone look bad and i think we have to figure out, you know, what the real reason for this is. i will also point out that relative to where we are compared to other parts of the country, if you look at the front page of the examiner today it shows that the new numbers that have been reported in other cities demonstrate that san francisco has the nation's highest rents, even higher than new york city. that's where we're living today and so i think it's important to provide that context. before i open it up to public comment i want to give a representative from assembly member ammiano's office the opportunity to come and say a few words. i know that assembly member ammiano, who has been working with us on this issue, could not be here today, he is

working in sacramento so i would ask cecelia trent to please come. >> thank you, supervisors, for holding this meeting. the assembly man has long been concerned about san francisco in general and the ellis act in particular. he has seen how housing speculation has threatened our san francisco neighborhoods. aids patients have been particularly hard-hit by ellis evictions. with the absence of other affordable options this has forced many of them far away from the health and support resources that they depend upon and likewise this is a threat to seniors and people with disabilities who can be torn from the only affordable housing options they have. the assembly member has been consistently meeting with

supervisor campos as well as housing and tenants rights groups around these issues and is deeply committed to crafting state legislation to rectify them. residents should not be pressured unfairly to leave and if they are legally evicted they must be adequately compensated. the assembly member looks forward to continue working with supervisor campos and all stake holders with an honest plan to support those at risk. in conclusion, we all know that this is a tenant city and we'll do all that we can to protect our tenants. thank you. >> thank you and thank you, assembly member ammiano, for your leadership. i'm going to call out some speaker cards and i would ask if you could please line up on your right, the aisle, our left, and please come up as your name is being called and given the large number, and we have standing room only, i have been informed by the clerk of the board that we have an

overflow room, room 263. so speakers andrew long, victor flores, jose chan, michael lyon, ben caty, hennie kelly, beverly upton, jackie naylor, please come on up. >> yes, my name is andrew long, i might possibly be the only rental provider in this room at the moment. i have been coming it these kinds of hearing for over 15 years. different supervisors, different faces, but same issue. the reason we're having an uptick in these kind of no cause evictions is because of 30 years of bad housing policy. we have seen a continuous ratcheting up of the rent

control law on owners, especially small owners including the extension of rent control to small owner-occupied 2 to 4 unit buildings. we have an annual increase allowable of only 60 percent of cpi, which does not keep up with costs or inflation. this has caused rents for long-term tenants to be quite low, which is great for them, but it doesn't keep a building up. your rent control laws need to be more even-handed with the land lords. you are driving land lords, especially small land lords, out of business, and when they go out of business having to sell their property off the people who buy it are these tic developers. if you want to keep small owners in the rental housing business you need to reform the rent control laws to make it fair for land lords, especially small land lords, it needs to be more balanced, you need a 100 percent cpi, you need to

exempt small owner-occupied buildings to keep small owners in the building. otherwise anything you do, pardon my french, is just shoveling shit against the tide, rents will continue to go up and more and more places will be taken off the rental market. i think you need to address and incentivize owners to stay in the business and be more fair to owners, especially small owners. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> my name is jose chan,

(speaking spanish) i am a member of casa the experience i have had in san francisco has been one of displacement and eviction. three years ago my partner and i separated and to this day she has not been able it find an affordable place to live for her or my two children. they tried to rent apartments or rooms to her at a

rate that she cannot afford. my coworkers, my friends, members of my community, all have been evicted from our homes with their whole families. a lot of our friends and coworkers live very far away from me now and are

additionally in my apartment it hat been two weeks since our elevator has been out and there doesn't seem to be any movement by the manager or the owner of the prpt -- property to fix it. there are six floors and there are people, a lot of seniors that haven't left their home because the elevator is not working. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> yeah, hello, my name is don mcpherson, i am a member of casa justa and what i want to speak about basically is a couple things. the difference between the owners and master tenants, the violations and the communication between the dbi and the violations. no. 1, i think basically that

master tenants have too much control over their jurisdiction as they can play and move these people around and force evictions, force -- i will rephrase that -- force predatory evictions. the dbi, i've been dealing with the dbi for about 4 years on one particular case and i'm still there through their assistance. so i know you guys have been working hard on what you're doing, but this is a complex matter. it's not just a situation that speculators come in, buy houses and flip them. there is problems within the areas of the master tenants. they are also turning a profit. it's predatory. so i think you've done a lot, mr. campos, in what you said earlier and i think you guys are doing pretty

well and mr. yee brought up some interesting things also which i'm very interested in. so thank you. >> thank you, sir, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon my name is

victor, i am a member of casa gustad, just cause. i was living in a room with a roommate. we were doing fine until one day our master tenant told us she needed the room back. she didn't tell us why but one day we came home to a

notice that said we had a week to move out. we didn't move because we gnaw that wasn't fair and eventually the matter went into court. when we got to court, the master tenant hid all of the court paperwork that came into our apartment. she found it in the mail, hid it from us so we were unable to respond.

we were able to get, to find the court paperwork, respond to it, we went to court and we were able to negotiate a deal under which we were able to stay 3 more months. the agreement was that we would stay until november 7, at which point we would give the master tenant our key and she would give us a $5,000 check for moving out. she didn't do that, we met our side of the bargain but we have yet to see the check. we are now living in a different space, a much smaller space, and we're paying $700 for a bedroom that hardly fits two beds in it. >> thank you. i'm going to read a few more names. barbara

ray, anna guiterrez, henry austindorf. >> hello there, my name is hennie kelly and i am a member of senior disability action and the california alliance for retired americans. what some of you have said and especially thank you to my supervisor, eric mar, for talking about seniors in our neighborhoods. the evictions are hitting seniors very hard. they don't have the reserves, they don't have the jobs, they don't have the money to be able to move if they are evicted. this is a very difficult thing. and when norman yee, supervisor yee, asked, where does this all come from, it makes me think of

caberet, money money money money makes the world go around. this city is not a place where middle class people can live. this city is not a place where families can live. when we talk about beautiful schools in the richmond district, there's nothing sadder than schools without children. there's nothing sadder than neighborhoods without children. and you, david campos, when you talked about fighting for the soul of the city, that is exactly what we are doing here. we need places where families can live. we need to keep our diversity. what you are doing with this hearing will help to start but what you must do is finish the job. you represent the soul of the city. you represent the people here in this room. thank

you for this hearing (applause). >> thank you. thank you. and if i may ask, and i know that people, we want people to express themselves, but to make sure that the hearing flows and that everyone gets an opportunity to say i would say if you want to express your approval, maybe doing it without clapping, simply use the hand gesture. next speaker, please. >> my name is jeremy michaels and i'm a long-time san franciscoan who has lived in the castro neighborhood for the past 4 decades and in my rent controlled apartment for the last 18 years. i am also a gay disabled senior with aids who survived a number of health challenges the past 12 years

with the help of my exceptional doctors. i have also been fighting an ellis eviction by 3 speculators. these speculators intend to merge the 3 units in my building and sell it for a profit. it would mean i could no longer afford to live in san francisco because of my modest fixed income. i am here today to show support for any and all proposed legislation that would discourage the use of no fault evictions such as ellis and owner move-in evictions by real estate speculators as a means of circumventing city rent control evictions that have resulted in the displacement of scores of long time residents including seniors and the disabled so these speculators

can realize huge profits by repackaging these units. i have long said the only way to combat this was by the creation of new legislation. therefore i support the proposed ordinance by supervisor john avalos approved by the planning commission 6-1 that would put into place a new planning commission regulation that would ban mergers, demolitions for 10 years if there was a prior no-fault eviction. i am also in favor of dramatic increase of compensation to help discourage such actions in the future. >> thank you, mr. michael, and we appreciate your courage in sharing your story. >> speakers, you can use the mic with the podium if that's more convenient. please, next speaker. >> my name is tony robles, i'm

with senior action. i want to commend and thank supervisors campos, mar and yee for convening this hear and recognizing the state of emergency we are in and for yourself putting yourself in our shoes and being human because we are in a state of emergency and we've been in a state of emergency for a very long time particularly our elders. i live in d1 and i know there are elders there that are fearing ellis act evictions and evictions in general. we have a member of sda that's living in fear of that. we look forward to working with supervisor mar's office in any way that we can to help with that. the heart and the soul of the city is what is at stake. we have been overlooked. the

workers, the communities of color, latino, chicano, african american, we have been overlooked and it's almost as if we are an afterthought, you know. and it breaks my heart. i'm a fourth generation san franciscoan, i've been here a long time and i've seen what gentrification has done to our neighborhood. these proposals that you have to weaken the damage that's done by the ellis act, we look forward to working with your offices on that and, you know, making it more difficult, keeping track and data on these ellis act buyouts so that the city can react more forcefully in steming the tide because we don't want to, you know, like you said, supervisor

campos, we're really fighting for the heart and soul of our city and we don't want to lose it. i'm fourth generation san franciscoan and i want to stay here. >> michael, lyon, sta and gray panthers. thank you for holding these hearing and thank you for the legislation to deincentivize evictions. i'll be really brief. so much of this is being driven by the lack of affordable housing for people of all levels. what we really need is a complete moratorium on any market rate housing until everyone and all income levels in san francisco can have housing. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is beverly upton and i'm so honored to also in my day job be the executive director of the san francisco domestic violence consortium.

i've come before you hundreds of times over my last 15 years here to advocate on behalf of survivors of domestic violence and to find housing for them, be it shelter or low income housing or market rate housing to keep them safe. but today i'm here because my dear friend and i, jackie naylor live at 186 and 192 goth street and we've been there 23 years and 25 years in rent controlled flats and we started out a month ago yesterday by being threatened with an ellis act eviction. we were given an opportunity, you have the letters there, to negotiate but i can tell you the negotiation lasted less than 48 hours. they went right to threatening us with an ellis act. it's clear that this is the intention unless something changes. the building across the street from us they have already cleared out the residents of the two flats that we look