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POOR
NEWS NETWORK PNN is a multi-media access project of POOR Magazine, dedicated to reframing the news, issues and solutions from low and no income communities, as well as providing society with a perspective usually not heard or seen within the mainstream media. |
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HARD-WORKING POOR EVICTED BY RICH INDUSTRIALIST
*David Kennedy, 70, retired warehouseman, resident of the Temple Hotel for 25 years........EVICTED! *Jack Ross, 71, security guard, resident of the Temple Hotel for 25 years................................. EVICTED! The long time residents of the Temple Hotel at 469 Pine Street, in San Francisco, have received formal eviction notices from their landlord, Walter Shorenstein. The 88-unit residential hotel has been slated for demolition, leaving all the low income and elderly tenants with no housing. Walter Shorenstein, San Francisco's largest landlord, has given his
tenants no affordable housing options. The tenants have been given
two choices; accept $3000 checks to move elsewhere within 30 days or be
forcibly evicted from the building. The tenants, represented by Stephen
Collier of The Tenderloin Housing Clinic, are asking that the landlord
comply with the S.F. Residential Hotel Conversion and Demolition Ordinance,
which requires that property owners ensure housing for tenants before closing
down a residence.
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The Tenderloin
Housing Clinic., who held a press hearing in front of Temple Hotel,
November 4th, 1999, and conducted a brief tour of the Hotel interior,
insisted Walter Shorenstein has taken advantage of the law by suddenly
applying the Ellis Act, which allows the billionaire free play over city
laws and regulations,without undergoing the due processes of time and reasonable
agreements between all parties affected by residential displacements.
The Act stipulates minimizing any adverse impact on the housing supply and on displaced low income, elderly, and disabled persons resulting from the loss of residential hotel units through conversion and demolition. And in which the implementation be accomplished by establishing the stature of residential hotel units, by regulating the demolition and conversion of residential hotel units to other uses--and by even more appropriate administrative and judicial remedies. "It is daring to undermine city and county laws by pre-empting the Ellis Act..." noted Steve Collier, the defense lawyer for three displaced low-income elderly tenants at the Temple Hotel residence; all of whom are now putting up their last efforts in order to see a temporary injunction against the eviction notices. " We are also calling upon the electoral candidates to see how their policies do adversely affect the working poor..." |
"Shorenstein
owns the politicians," responded Jane Gorman, who stood helplessly
among a small press corp on the sidewalk in front of the Hotel lobby, "he's
got connections; he's got power," she said, referring to questions
about how her eviction might fair in the courts, "this has been my home
for the last 18 years, I have no where else to go."
David Kennedy, a 70 year old retired warehouseman and a Temple Hotel resident for the last 25 years, appearing worn out from the ordeal, "We are up against a bad system." David was determined he'll not relocate, unless forcibly removed from his home. Retired as a security guard, Jack Ross has been living at the Temple
Hotel for the past 18 years, and wonders where else he will find permanent
lodgings as safe as the one he's being ordered out of. "They just
want us to go so they can put in a high-rise." Jack warned that he'd rather
be forcibly evicted than voluntarily move out of the Temple Hotel with
$3000.00 because, "there is no housing left for hard working folks
in San Francisco."
e-mail comments to: poormag@sirius.com
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POOR MAGAZINE IN THE NEWS:
Program teaches poor to publish, Monday Feb 07, 2000 Emily Gurnon, San Francisco Examiner What It Means To Be Poor , July 16, 1997 Nina Siegal, SF Bay Guardian, |
