Housing conditions/habitability

Today the ACLU of Northern California, Leadership Council for Justice & Accountability, and Tenants Together issued a letter to the Fresno city council alerting the council and the public to potential civil rights violations in the proposed routine inspection ordinance. This ordinance was drafted after the community demanded that the city enforce habitability laws in Fresno and address the slum conditions tenants have been suffering under. Instead, the council has proposed a "nuisance" ordinance that places blame for bad conditions on tenants instead of landlords.

Maria Boeker leaned forward on the full-size bed she shares with her 8-year-old son Santiago as she described the measures her landlord had taken against the three families living in the single-family home north of downtown that she calls home.

All the utilities are in her landlord’s name, and she has full control of the breaker box. Although Boeker and others pay their shares on time, the electricity, water and gas are often turned off. An episode last year left her without power for a week. Anyone who complains is shown the door.

Today, tenants from 1127 Virginia Lane in Concord, Contra Costa County, are standing up to their slumlord Steven Pinza and calling a rent strike by refusing to pay 30% rent increases. Pinza has raised the rents in the last 10 months by $50.00 and refused to make necessary repairs. This rent increase already exceeds the rate of inflation, but Pinza now wants to increase rents by 27-30%. Gentrification in San Francisco and Oakland is now being felt in Concord, and the Pinza group is contributing to the housing crisis.

The widow of a tenant at Summerset Village Apartments in central Fresno alleges her husband’s death was caused by pneumonia he caught during the month the family and hundreds of other tenants spent without heat this winter. She is suing the out-of-town landlord for wrongful death.

Tong Cha, 75, alleges her husband, Her Xa Lor, 78, became ill after the Nov. 12 shutoff of natural gas at the 220-unit complex. Lor died Jan. 2 at Saint Agnes Medical Center of respiratory failure caused by pneumonia, according to his death certificate.

Mission Local reported last week that the estimated 60 tenants displaced by the 22nd and Mission Street fire will likely lose their homes permanently due to the structure’s impending demolition. Supervisor David Campos pledged to “see what we can do locally, legally, to address” the tenants’ plight, but we have known what has needed to be done for some time: San Francisco must require sprinklers in apartments to prevent fires from displacing tenants in the first place.

On a Tuesday night in July, after returning from his job driving a truck for Jackson Family Wines, Armando Perez and his wife gathered in their living room with about a dozen of their neighbors from their west Santa Rosa apartment building.

For three hours, the group traded stories about problems in their rented units at Walnut Creek Apartments. They shared photographs documenting the issues: mold on walls, cockroach and rat infestations, broken heaters and stoves, faulty electrical wiring and holes in the walls.