Listen: Could a proposed law slow COVID-19 evictions? - San Francisco Chronicle
Humberto Navarro, a 57-year-old San Francisco native, says it felt like his blood emptied out of his body when his roommate told him they'd received eviction papers at their flat in the Mission District.
"I was like shocked as to where the heck did this come from?" he says."Why are we getting evicted?"
Navarro, who is on disability after being injured while working as a security guard, is being evicted under California's controversial Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict tenants if they take their homes off the rental market. He and his roommates have until April to move out.
He says he plans to sleep on friends' couches for a while as he cares for his elderly parents, one of whom is ailing, but that he'll ultimately have to leave his hometown and live with family in Guadalajara, Mexico.
On this episode of the Fifth & Mission podcast, reporter Lauren Hepler joins host Dominic Fracassa to talk about a bill advanced last week by a state committee, AB 854, which would require landlords in 21 cities with rent control — including San Francisco — to own properties for five years before invoking the Ellis Act.
That law wouldn't help Navarro, whose landlord has been an owner for longer than five years. But he supports it.
"I was born and raised in San Francisco, but this city is not the city that I was born and raised in and grew to love anymore," he says. "These owners and landlords, they don't care about the people. They just care about how much money they can stick in their pocket."
Photo above: Humberto Navarro, 57, checks his phone while packing belongings at his Mission District flat. Maria Carvajal, 81, the master tenant since 1978, is at right. They and a third roommate are facing Ellis Act eviction.
source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/podcasts/article/Listen-Could-a-proposed-law-slow-COVID-19-16777224.php
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