An East Palo Alto tenants group has compiled data from San Mateo County records that suggest the city's largest landlord evicted far more tenants in 2007 and 2008 than the county average.
Palo Alto-based Page Mill Properties
and its associates filed 140 unlawful detainers and evicted 99
residents in 2008, according to data the Fair Rent Coalition gathered.
In 2007, the company evicted 71 people, the group said.
An unlawful detainer is a lawsuit a landlord files against a tenant as part of the eviction process.
Page
Mill's eviction rate for 2008 is more than 7.5 times greater than that
for the rest of San Mateo County, according to the data. The Fair Rent
Coalition said it made that calculation in part based on vacancy rates
it estimated by surveying about 500 units in the company's portfolio of
more than 1,700 units.
A Page Mill spokesman said the company
does not disclose its vacancy rates because that information is
proprietary and the firm is privately held.
"The fact that Page
Mill served unlawful detainers last year on roughly one in 10 tenants —
that's huge," said Matthew Fremont, a Fair Rent Coalition member who
worked on the project. "That's four times higher than what every other
tenant in the county experienced."
Page Mill General Counsel Jim
Shore didn't dispute the number of 2008 evictions, saying the company
"legally evicted more than 100 tenants because of non-payment of rent."
"This situation is unfortunate but not
uncommon for the amount of units managed by Page Mill — or in
comparison to other owners of multifamily housing in the Bay Area — or
in light of the recent economy," Shore said in a statement.
"Page
Mill Properties inherited the existing tenants when we purchased the
property, which at the time had the highest crime rate in East Palo
Alto," Shore said. "These tenants included drug lords, gang leaders,
gang members, drug users and other non-upstanding individuals who just
flat-out refused to pay their rent."
Of 25 eviction filings from 2008 the Daily News reviewed, 24 were due to nonpayment of rent and one to a hygiene issue.
None of the tenants in those cases had attorneys and most didn't respond to the landlord's court filings.
Some
of the tenants who did respond said they tried to submit the rent, but
property managers rejected their checks. Others said they were involved
in class action lawsuits about rent hikes at the properties and only
paid the amount they felt was due under East Palo Alto's rent control laws.
"I
received notice that rent would be increasing by July 1st, 2008, from
$1,150 to $1,450," one tenant wrote in his response. "I agreed to
participate in an unlimited jurisdiction class action lawsuit. ... I
chose to continue paying my rent at $1,150."
The man added that company officials refused his rent checks "on multiple occasions."
One
woman didn't dispute the company's claims in writing but later
requested a delay for the eviction, saying she was disabled and
couldn't pack her belongings in time.
"I was hoping to get enough
money to pay the back rent ... before the eviction so that I could
stay," she wrote. "Because I am unemployed still and disabled, I could
not move to another apartment. I do not have any money.
"I will
have to put my belongings in the garage of a friend, and stay at a
homeless shelter until my disability benefits begin," she said.
Jessica Steinberg, a teaching fellow at the Stanford Community Law Clinic, described the Fair Rent Coalition data as "striking."
"Over
90 percent received default judgments against them," said Steinberg,
who has worked with law students to represent some of the tenants. "The
landlord won automatically because the tenant didn't respond."
Steinberg
added that tenants have just five calendar days to respond to an
unlawful detainer — a short period of time for anyone, especially those
who don't speak English or have very low incomes.
Page Mill and East Palo Alto are currently involved in roughly 10 lawsuits over rent hikes and other issues.
Much
of the dispute centers on whether Page Mill correctly raised rents to
match the legal maximum that appeared on certificates kept by the city.
In many instances, those amounts were hundreds of dollars more than
what tenants were actually paying when the company bought the units.
Shirleen
McDougal, president of Whitley Property Management in Redwood City,
said her company manages about 1,100 units in the area and files about
one unlawful detainer a year. Eviction rates of about 1 or 2 percent
are fairly common in the area, said Len Moore, of San Carlos-based
Vilmont Investment Properties.
"Usually when you give people a
three-day notice, they pay you within the three days," Moore said.
"It's just an ugly part of the business."
In his statement, Shore urged tenants having trouble paying their rent to communicate with the company.
"It
is not in the best interest of our tenants or Page Mill to have someone
evicted," Shore said. "This legal method is only used as a last resort
for tenants who simply refuse to pay their rent."
Other resources
for residents who receive unlawful detainers include the Stanford
Community Law Clinic, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County and
Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto.
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