Seniors Sing Out Against Evictions Target Law Offices of Wiegel and Fried for Protest
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by S.H.A.C. San Francisco, CA-Members of the Senior Housing Action Collaborative (SHAC) joined up with members of the SF Tenant’s Union to spread a holiday message: STOP EVICTING SENIORS! They chose the Law Offices of Wiegel and Fried to kick off their carol tour. Wigel and Fried are the attorneys who represented to John Hickey Brokerage in their much publicized eviction of 84 year old Lola McKay last year. They are at it again. This time two seniors are on the chopping block; Norma Morgan and Alma Augueles. Alma Augueles is being evicted from her flower shop in the Mission. Alma is 55 years old and a native of San Francisco. Her landlord, Kaushik Dattani has hired Wiegel and Fried for their expertise in evicting seniors in order to displace Alma from her shop where she lives and works. According to Ted Gullicksen from the SF Tenants Union, "Unlike dot.coms who go unpunished for violating the planning code, Alma is being evicted.The irony is that she is actually adhering to the LIVE/WORK philosophy while many dot.coms do not." Weigel and Fried’s services have also been retained by the WCW Corporation in order to evict Norma Morgan and the other tenants from their four unit building in the Inner Sun -set. Norma is also a senior and she is disabled. She is a member of the Senior Action Net-work and she is fighting mad. "I have lived in San Francisco for 55 years. Weigel and Fried have been hired to assist this out of town corporation to maneuver through San Fran-cisco’s rent control ordinance in order to evict me. They are using the Ellis Act to sweep us all out. Thanks to John Burton’s Lola Mckay amendment I have one year to look for a place. However, six months have already gone by and I am not one step closer to finding an affordable roof over my head. I am simply asking for Wiegel and Fried to stay the evic-tion until I find affordable housing to move into." >p>The seniors and tenants from the Senior Housing Action Collaborative and the SF Ten-ants Union serenaded Weigel and Fried with revised holiday carols such as "I’ll be home-less for Christmas" and "Here Comes the Landlord" and presented them with stockings full of coal as well as their demands. Wiegel and Fried, however, were not the only recipients of these seniors mock-carols. The SF Association of Realtors and Mayor Willie Brown also received stokings full of coal. |