Causa Justa Just Cause | Hassle Free Housing Passes 1st SF BOS Vote

Hassle Free Housing Passes 1st SF BOS Vote

Hassle Free Housing Ordinance Passes First Vote 11-0 at SF Board of Supervisors

Growing Strength of Housing Rights Movement Creating More Protections for Tenants

homesforall After more than a year of pushing for Hassle Free Housing, the proposed legislation passed its first vote at the SF Board of Supervisors 11-0 on December 17, 2013

As San Franciscans face a housing crisis, where median home prices recently broke $1 million and evictions are skyrocketing, a growing number of tenants are complaining that landlords are harassing them to force them to vacate units without utilizing one of the 15 just causes for eviction.

In response, Supervisor David Campos worked with the tenant’s rights organization, Causa Justa :: Just Cause to introduce legislation that will create a complaint mechanism allowing tenants to report landlord harassment to the Rent Board.

After a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, the Rent Board will consider whether to undertake further proceedings including civil litigation or a referral to the District Attorney.
Hassle Free Housing would make the current anti-harassment tenant protections stronger and easier to enforce.

“It’s indicative of the growing strength of the tenant’s rights movement in San Francisco,” says Maria Zamudio, CJJC Housing Rights Campaign Organizer. “We have been consistently in the streets showing up for tenants all over the city and also consistently at city hall advocating for smart and needed policy to strengthen the protection tenants already have and establish needed regulations on the real estate speculation that is ravaging our City.”
Organizers for the campaign, CJJC and the SF Tenant’s Union and sponsored by Supervisors Campos, Avalos, Mar, Chiu,, Cohen and Kim, are hoping for strong, enforceable tenant protections.

“Solving the housing crisis will require action at many levels. This legislation is an important piece of the puzzle. Tenant Rights organizations like Just Cause/Causa Justa, report that approximately 80% of the complaints they receive from tenants involve landlord harassment,” explains Supervisor David Campos. “I seek to remedy this situation by creating an official mechanism for tenants to protest harassment that in many instances create havoc in their lives.”
If the proposed legislation is approved by Supervisors on a final vote, tenants would have an option to take their harassment claims to the SF Rent Board have a mediation session with the Landlord or Master Tenant and try and resolve the issue.

Says Benjamin Lorenzo CJJC member: “My landlord came to my house and demanded I move out. When I told him I wasn’t moving because I knew what my rights as a tenant were, he continued calling me everyday telling me to leave. His son comes to my door offering me money, his wife calls my job on a regular basis. The harassment me and my family face is putting my job on the line, creating stress in my home and making my children’s grades drop. We need this legislation to be able to make sure our rights are respected.”

Candelario Melendez, CJJC member and volunteer receptionist: “I see people come into the office everyday scared and stressed and even crying because of how much harassment they face from their landlords. One day a woman came in because she had been locked out of her unit without notice and didn’t have her children’s medicine. Our people cannot live in conditions like this anymore. We need to have stronger protections so tenants in our city can feel safe in their homes.”

While San Francisco has some of the strongest protections for tenants, including protections against harassment, landlords in our city are still using harassment tactics to illegally evict tenants.
Harassment is an effective and cheap way to evict a tenant because a landlord is making their housing situation so unbearable that tenants self-evict, leaving behind a vacant unit that does not trigger any of the restriction on re-renting at market value that would follow a legal Ellis Act or Owner Move-In eviction or the requirement to give relocation payments after any No-Fault Eviction.

The Hassle Free Housing Legislation would ensure that the harassment protections that currently exist in San Francisco are enforceable.

Currently tenants facing these and other types of evictions only have the option of holding their landlords or master tenants accountable for their actions by suing them at Superior Court.
While it is important that tenants have that avenue to enforce the right they have, there must be another, more accessible option for tenants who do not have the resources to hire a lawyer and sue their landlord or master tenants.