Pittsburg resident Casandra Jackson-Gordon is moving - again.
For the second time in less than two years, Jackson-Gordon says she has lost her subsidized rental home to foreclosure. The first time, she also lost her $1,500 security deposit - but the bank offered her $3,500 to move out fast so it could sell the property.
That money helped her get into another house. She's hoping the lender that holds the mortgage on her current residence will be equally generous.
"I'm a single parent, I'm on a fixed income," said Jackson-Gordon, who is recovering from a stroke and unable to work. "It's hard for me to come up with the deposit."
With foreclosures on the rise across Contra Costa County, housing rights advocates say they are receiving an increasing number of calls from people who were paying their rent and had no idea their landlords were in trouble - until the tenants found a notice of sale posted on their front doors.
Some of these renters also have been duped into handing over large sums to landlords already in the process of losing the houses they are renting out. And tenants have little hope of getting their money back, observers say.
Arlene Bradley, housing advocacy director for Housing Rights Inc., which has offices in Berkeley, Antioch and Concord, said the number of renters forced from their homes by foreclosure who come to the agency for help has tripled recently, with most Contra Costa County cases from Antioch and Concord.
"Basically I tell them what their rights are - that the bank has to evict them through the courts," Bradley said. "Their fear is that they are going to be put out on the streets and we tell them that's not how it works."
While banks can evict foreclosed homeowners with just three days' notice, tenants are entitled to 60 days to move, Bradley said. Eager to quickly auction off the houses, banks often offer renters payments known as "cash for keys" if they agree to move sooner.
Do your homework
People seeking a rental home can check a Web site affiliated with the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder's office to see if a notice of default or notice of trustee sale has been filed on the property. Computers are also available for public use in the clerk's office in downtown Martinez.
"If you are in the default mode that would be the time you want to know because there's something wrong. By the time it's a trustee sale you are a month away from having that house sold on the courthouse steps," said Contra Costa County Clerk Steve Weir.
Prospective tenants can also go to the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder's office Web site for notices of default or trustees' sales.
And there are other warning signs renters should pay attention to, officials say.
"If you see that the rent is real reasonable, a nice four- or five-bedroom house and they may want to rent it for $1,400 or $1,500, that's a red flag," said Elaine Brooks-Cox, housing counselor supervisor with Pacific Community Services, Inc., a Pittsburg nonprofit that helps tenants and landlords.
"They're just trying to get someone in there to get as much income as they possibly can."
Martinez City Councilman Mark Ross, who is a Realtor, recently scrapped a deal to manage a rental property for an owner who admitted - after Ross had held showings and had a tenant lined up - that the house was already in foreclosure.
Still, Ross said the majority of situations he's seen involve landlords who stop paying the mortgage but keep collecting the rent.
"It's happening and it's very tempting for owners to collect thousands of dollars and let it run until time's up," said Ross, who has had four clients with rentals in Pittsburg or Antioch lose their houses in the past year. "It's really feckless and there really isn't a recourse for the tenant."
Some help is available. In addition to the housing rights groups, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the federally-backed mortgage corporations, have agreed not to evict tenants from foreclosed homes.
The city of Fairfield, which also has been hard hit by foreclosures, set up a program late last year to help low-income residents whose landlords went into foreclosure by giving them grants of up to $3,000 to cover the security deposit on a new place in the city. Recipients must be documented U.S. citizens without criminal records.
"One of the things we noticed is when a property goes into foreclosure, the tenant will generally be the last to know.
They will lose their security deposit and not have enough time to save enough money to move," said Lee Evans, a management analyst with the city of Fairfield.
Like Jackson-Gordon, other residents who receive Section 8 housing assistance also have been forced to move when their landlords lost their houses.
Joseph Villareal, executive director of the Contra Costa County Housing Authority, said his office uses a commercial service to determine if homeowners seeking to become Section 8 housing providers are in foreclosure. But Villareal said he doesn't have the staff to check up on landlords already in the program. Last year, 105 Section 8 tenants - nearly two-thirds of whom lived in East Contra Costa County - were displaced by foreclosures, according to Villareal.
"We've had situations where the owner has never paid the bank and they collected our money and ran out of Dodge."
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