Housing Authority Criminalizes our Black & Brown children to get us out of Public Housing to make room for RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration-)
Over the last few months calls have flooded the
POOR Magazine office from families and elders in desperate search for help and support to battle land thieves that utilize the ELLIS act to
break laws that are in place to "protect the people", but that are overlooked and flat out ignored.
As the hipster-tehkkies invade the once family-oriented "City by the bay", that has its roots deep in the colorful, rich cultures of African, Raza, Samoan, Fillipino and Asian (and many more cultures) influence, the families and elders who gave their blood, sweat, money and tears for generations into the security of knowing they have contributed to the life of the Bay Area, now watch helplessly as our homes are being stolen from us.
Home prices have risen by 22 percent in the past 3 years while evictions under the
Ellis act have gone up 170 percent in the same period, as well as a spike in "child
criminalization" evictions with the so-called Gang injunction law. Starting in 1993 and
labled as a "boutique" real estate law firm, tyrants
Bornstein &
Bornstein are receiving a lot of praise from real estate
devil-opers (as we call them at POOR) and investors on their success in evictions and for the free classes that are taught where the tenants are looked upon as "a problem" and the landlords are taught things such as "How to throw somebody's grandma out on the street and really feel good about it." Daniel
Bornstein, founding partner of BS & BS and attorney for Wells Fargo and his firm have pursued thousands of unlawful
detainer actions, from owner move-in terminations to non payment of rent with success.
The firm has recently claimed a victory when they represented McCormick and Baron in the eviction of Sabrina Carter and her young children from Plaza East (PE) apartments under the "child criminalizing" act of failing to keep her eldest son away from her and the property. When Sabrina's younger son was shot and wounded a while back, the property management had failed to follow protocol and disregarded the letter from the DA'S victim services to relocate Sabrina's family to a different property for the safety and mental well-being of her family. After signing a "railroad" stipulation with her lawyer present, agreeing to keeping her eldest son off the rental property in order to maintain her housing, Sabrina is now battling an eviction because she cannot "control her son", and Sabrina also claims that once she signed the stipulation, her son all of a sudden became a target of the
po'lice and says that the
po'lice has been inside her home when she was not present.
She says that she has also been harassed and intimidated by the lawyer for PE apartments, (Bornstein & Bornstein). Ms.Carter has jumped through every hoop to comply with the stipulation and exhausted every resource to get intervention for her son. "I have done the best I could do with telling him to stay away- I have filed restraining orders, I have signed documents banning him from the property and I even have a letter from the judge stating that I have complied with McCormick and Baron to the fullest extent, but the truth is that he is a grown man that's going to do what he wants." Despite all Sabrina has done, she and her two younger sons face homelessness through the criminalization of our children.
With attorneys like Bornstein, J. Marquez and Judge Quidechay, who presides over and orders most of the evictions that are 'unlawful detainers" in the city of SF, the people are starting to connect the dots of this gentrifukation conspiracy and now realize that all these so-called "we're here to help you" non profits are eating out of the same plate with those who slap the eviction notices on our doors.
It looks as if
RAD (rental assistance demonstration) is moving in fast now with the 800 million dollar grant it just received, and many non-profits are indeed jumping on the bandwagon to get a slice of the
gentifukation pie. In November of 2011, congress authorized HUD to implement RAD as a budget-neutral demonstration program with two components, allowing for the conversion of assistance for both public housing and HUD assisted properties that have expiring subsidies.
The first component allows public housing and moderate rehabilitation (Mod Rehab) properties to convert, under a competition limited to 60,000 units, to long term section 8 rental assistance contracts. The second allows rent supplement (Rent Supp), rental assistance payments (RAP), and Mod Rehab properties to convert tenant-based vouchers issued upon contract expiration or termination to project-based assistance.
There is no guarantee that low- income families will be a part of RAD's plan to move in and "improve the communities", and while the ELLIS act continue to wipe out our communities, who are these "improvements" for?
Are they for Sabrina and the 7 other families that were evicted in the same week? Are they for 71 year old Raza artist and curator Re'ne Yanez who is well known in SF as a cultural Icon and artistic Godfather to a generation of 'Chicano' artists, who now faces an ELLIS act eviction despite a terminally ill wife with stage four cancer and he himself is in remission? Their eviction is scheduled for July 24th while Mark Zuckerburg and his wife bought their 10 million dollar " Pied-a-Terre" in the Mission and plan to do 1.6 million dollars in renovations that will include "A new basement garage, complete with a turn table pad so cars can get in and out more easily", according to the SF Chronicle.
