Eviction

Tenants of the San Pablo Avenue apartment building destroyed by a fire early this morning were resisting a controversial eviction, according to court records and interviews.

The residents even obtained a restraining order against the building's landlord. And, now, their lawyer is calling for an arson investigation.

Records also show that the West Oakland building's dangerous conditions were known to the landlord, master tenant, the City of Oakland, and other authorities.

Evictions from live/work spaces in Oakland continue with alarming frequency in the wake of December’s Ghost Ship fire, despite efforts by city leaders to work with landlords to prevent displacement in a city where affordable housing is a rare commodity.

“We are facing evictions weekly. The number of spaces out there that are untouched are decreasing,” said Tom Dolan, an architect and author of Oakland’s regulations governing warehouse conversions into legal live/work spaces.

In his 92 years, Paul Mayer has survived World War II. He’s battled skin cancer and congestive heart failure. But it’s the fight to keep his apartment of 44 years that he fears he’ll lose. He has until April 4 to clear out.

“I’d be willing to pay more rent if we could work something out with them,” Mayer said on a recent afternoon, surrounded by 1970s furniture and family photos inside his studio apartment on Magliocco Avenue. “But they didn’t even bother. They just said, ‘Get out.’ And I don’t know where to go.”

As rental rates climb and the vacancy rate bottoms out, the City of Santa Barbara will consider a number of measures for a potential rent-regulation ordinance. On the table at Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting will be rent control, just-cause evictions, mandatory leases, safety inspections for multifamily residential buildings and enhanced tenant-landlord mediation resources.

The Oakland mayor’s office officially knows of 18 large industrial spaces doubling as unpermitted homes, but other estimates say there are dozens more, maybe as many as 60.

It’s hard to know since so many of these spaces are trying to hide from the city to avoid evictions.

In the three months since the Ghost Ship fire, many spaces around the Bay have gotten inspections or eviction notices. A Richmond space known as Burnt Ramen, and another one just a few blocks from the Ghost Ship in East Oakland have both been closed by their respective cities.

An artist collective living in a Bernal Heights warehouse had to get creative recently to pass muster with the San Francisco Fire Department.

The artists, who are in danger of losing their home in the wake of the deadly Ghost Ship fire in Oakland late last year, cut windows and a second door into the mostly metal warehouse on Peralta Avenue ahead of a meeting with fire officials Tuesday.

“We did it ourselves,” said Nathan Cottam, a dancer and choreographer who is one of eight tenants living in the vibrant warehouse called the Sunspot.

Iris Canada, the 100-year-old woman who was just evicted from her Page Street home, was back in the hospital Tuesday night when a team of movers hired by the landlord showed up and started taking away her possessions.

A U-Haul truck park in front of the Page St. building was filled with furniture, including the chair she liked to sit in, when I arrived around 9pm. A crowd of tenant activists was outside and several police officers had put everything on hold.