Original Post Date
2018-07-11 01:44 PM
Original Body
Ziar Hughes
Eviction killed 100-year-old Iris Canada for a house she called home for 60 years. She was a black elder who raised children in the home, Peter Owens, the landlord was trying to flip it into a condo Ms. Canada tried to fight her hardest to keep that
House.
The planning commission rejected Peter Owens (the owner who kicked out Iris
Canada) when he attempted to turn her house into a Condo this is wrong that they're kicking out elder if this was my granny I would have a problem too if my granny got treated that way.
Kimo Umu
The Ellis Act is a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to “go out of business.” This landlord-written law has been used to enable speculators to buy apartment buildings filled with long-term tenants and “legally evict” all the tenants living there so that after a short wait, they can re-rent all the vacant units for any insane price they want.
Eviction is elder abuse – POOR Magazine did precedent-setting work naming that Ellis Act evictions of elders are elder abuse under 368 code
“Any person who knows or reasonably should know that a person is an elder or dependent adult and who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, willfully causes or permits any elder or dependent adult to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any elder or dependent adult, willfully causes or permits the person or health of the elder or dependent adult to be injured, or willfully causes or permits the elder or dependent adult to be placed in a situation in which his or her person or health is endangered, is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not to exceed six thousand dollars ($6,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years.”
Eviction is elder abuse and yet we still accept our laws to kick out our elders who are 60 years or elder. It’s a shame that a city like San Francisco says it wants to take care of its residents but landowners have the audacity to kick out a 99-year-old woman (like Iris Canada) onto the streets which causes anxiety and pain for our elders. Elders get ill and sometimes die from the stress because it's too much to bare at one time.
Evictions for everyone is a problem it's like a cycle of life, it happens so much we get used to hearing our communities getting kicked out of their homes because of poverty and the struggle people with a welfare check face every month.
In the end, we poverty scholars understand that we need elders so they remind us of the mistakes of the past and help guide the future of our children.