As many as 200 people a month call Oakland’s rent board complaining that their landlords are intimidating or harassing them in the hopes, tenant advocates say, that the renters will flee and make room for higher-paying tenants forced out of San Francisco.
The statistic is at the heart of a push in Oakland to pass a law that protects tenants from bully landlords, who, tenant advocates say, are harassing rent-protected tenants until they move out and make way for new renters with deeper pockets.
The ordinance, which will be voted on by Oakland’s City Council on Tuesday night, bans Oakland landlords from interfering with a tenant’s right to privacy, failing to do repairs, threatening tenants or taking away an amenity, like a parking space, to force a tenant out.
Many of those things are already illegal under state law, acknowledged Councilman Dan Kalb, who wrote the ordinance, but the proposed law would give Oakland authority to fine or sue landlords who violate the ordinance.
“We’re creating local teeth for local bad behavior,” Kalb said. “We need to put all the landlords on notice that this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated and if they engage in this kind of behavior they will be held accountable. I am not pointing the finger at most landlords — most landlords don’t this stuff, but some do.”
The push comes as the average rent in Oakland — now about $2,100 — has risen almost 10 percent between the middle of 2010 and 2014. Rents in more desirable neighborhoods such as Lake Merritt have increased more dramatically — 53 percent since 2011, according to real estate data.
“You know the people coming over from San Francisco — it is causing more pressure, and that creates a financial incentive to find ways to get the apartment vacated at least for those that are under rent control,” Kalb said.
State protections in place
A landlord group says Kalb’s ordinance is redundant because of the existing laws prohibiting property owners from pushing tenants out.
“It is already illegal to harass people with the endeavor to evict,” said Luke Blacklidge, a landlord and board member with the East Bay Rental Housing Association, a landlord group. “It just creates a new venue for eviction defense attorneys to come after landlords.”
Blacklidge said there’s no evidence to support the assertion that landlord intimidation is a persistent problem in Oakland.
“We don’t have any documentation,” Blacklidge said. “This is all anecdotal. There has been a bunch of calls (to the rent board). I don’t know if that is the truth. I think if they really want to push forward an ordinance like this, they should do some research.”
'Trying to make me move’
Between 100 and 200 tenants a month are calling Oakland’s rent board to complain about their landlord, according to Kalb’s ordinance.
Some calls are dismissed without merit after a few questions, while others are fully investigated as petitions for appeal, said Michele Byrd, the city’s director of housing and community development, which oversees the Rent Board.
“We averaged about 40 petitions a month, and we’ve seen that that number has doubled this year, and in the summer we saw about 100 a month,” Byrd said. “We have seen an increase in the number of petitions that have been filed — it’s just because of the nature of the beast that housing is becoming a hot topic.”
Jamil-Ka’hil Akins 36, a package deliveryman who rents a room in a two-bedroom apartment in the San Antonio neighborhood for $350 a month, said his landlord has been trying to force him out for months by ordering evictions, raising rents or letting unauthorized people into the apartment.
“He’s just trying to make me move by hook or by crook,” Atkins said.
Landlord seen as pushy
Jillian Barber, 29, who is studying classics at Stanford, said she moved into her $2,200-per-month, three-bedroom Adams Point apartment in May 2013. Within a few months, her landlord was already pushing to move her out.
“The landlord was calling up my roommate and threatening his credit and was showing up in the morning and blocking the driveway with his car and telling me he was trespassing,” Barber said. “I felt like the landlord understood that we were protected as tenants, but that didn’t matter.”
Barber said she suspected her landlord was trying to move Barber and her roommates out so she could raise the rent.
She said: “$2,200 sounds like a lot, but in this neighborhood this is nothing now. The rents have skyrocketed over the summer. He could easily get $3,200.”
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