Protesters march for housing reform

From the 16th Street Bart plaza to the corner of 22nd and Mission streets, nearly 100 demonstrators marched on Aug. 23, protesting the onslaught of evictions and market-rate developments while trying to drum up support for Proposition G–a ballot measure that would impose a steep tax on the reselling of apartment buildings city-wide.

The march, organized by Causa Justa, crawled through The Mission, stopping at buildings that have been sold with intent to “flip” and newly developed condos that go for more than $3,000 a month.

“The housing prices are incredibly out of reach for our community, and part of that is because of housing speculation–the buying and selling, the house flipping that has become such a common practice in the city,” said Maria Zamudio, a San Francisco housing rights campaign organizer with Causa Justa. “That is at the core of the affordability crisis, of the eviction crisis.”

But the demonstrators who took to the streets that Saturday hope that Proposition G, if passed by voters in November, will help to curb that trend.

“It’s limited what we can do with laws at City Hall, but building stronger people’s movements with Causa Justa and the tenant movement is really the answer for longer-term protections for our communities,” said District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar, who despite being on vacation attended the march, holding a ”People not profit” sign. “It’s horrifying what’s happening. More people need to be angry and really pissed off to try to change it.”

The anti-speculation measure would impose a tax on the sale price of properties flipped within five years. A building bought and resold within one year would be subjected to a 24 percent tax on the re-sale price. That tax rate would decrease every year until the fifth year is reached.

According to Zamudio, a one-bedroom apartment in The Mission currently goes for $3,250 a month. That costly rate, she said, is the direct result of the wave of gentrification that has battered The Mission District over the last two and a half years, displacing many longtime residents in the process.

“Property values in working class neighborhoods of color are less expensive than in other places. So if I’m a house flipper and if I want to make the most money on my investment, then I’m going to buy in The Mission,” Zamudio said. “It’s that mentality. It’s the systematic removal of working class people of color from their historic neighborhoods.”

Amid the frustrated chants of “Housing is a right” and “Evictions have got to go,” displaced and soon-to-be evicted tenants shared their tales.

Berta Mosqueda, who watched her children grow into adulthood from the confines of her home at 24th and Folsom streets over the last 28 years, was offered a buyout of $5,000 two months ago before her rented duplex was sold; she refused. She doesn’t know what her new landlord plans to do with the property.

“I don’t want money. All I want is stability. I want to live in peace,” Mosqueda said. “To go and look for a new place to live, I’m alone…I can’t pay that much rent.”

Maria Medrano, who was evicted from her home at 928 Capp St. after asking the landlord to make repairs, is living out of a truck with her husband. She told the crowd standing in front of the Cushman and Wakefield rental apartments at 19tth and Valencia streets that she had phoned the building inquiring about a housing unit. Medrano was allegedly told that “people like her” weren’t wanted as tenants.

The march finally came to a winding halt at the offices of Kaushik Dattani, a landlord who has been buying and selling a multiplicity of properties in The Mission. But tenants at one of those properties–at 20th and Folsom streets–are fighting back.

Patricia Kerman and her roommate Tom Rapp have been fighting Dattani since he threatened to evict them from their flat in February of last year. In August of 2013 Dattani served the pair with an Ellis Act eviction, but because Kerman is a senior, the tenants were granted a year’s extension. Their extension ended on Aug. 27.

“We want Dattani to take the eviction off the table,” Kerman told the crowd huddled in front of the landlord’s office at 22th and Mission streets, where marchers had left written messages for him on balloons and signs. “This is more than just about us,” she continued, “This is about the city of San Francisco. They’re trying to destroy the city that I love.”