
Evicted in San Francisco - shmeedogg
http://priceonomics.com/evicted-in-san-francisco/
======
steven777400
We don't have a strong enough social welfare net (or enough resources there-
in) to care for folks that need care; but, we're not comfortable letting them
starve on the streets either.

The result? Essentially innocent people, like the property owner, get "stuck"
with "it's your problem now" where various agencies give contradictory
mandates, backed with fines. How was property owner supposed to respond when
told he must get rid of the illegal dwelling, but also told he can't evict the
tenant?

I mostly sympathize with the property owner here. As a tenant, especially a
tenant in an illegal or undocumented dwelling, you have to expect that a day
of reckoning will come. Even property owners can be "evicted" (eminent
domain), much less a property renter.

~~~
roc
I don't even think a stronger safety net would have helped in this case. It
sounds like she simply wasn't interested in changing _anything_ and that just
doesn't work when you _have_ to move and _have_ to change your lifestyle (e.g.
stop hoarding).

This is all-too-familiar to me, after having helped a couple older relatives
through serious late-life changes like this.

Further, the general lack of safety net doesn't really apply when you're
talking about a person with $1300/mo in disability/SSI, 'free' medical and
some savings (/settlement payments). She could live, certainly not lavishly,
but at least as well as she did before, just not _where_ she did before or
_how_ she did before.

Which is the crux of this entire story.

~~~
trhway
>she simply wasn't interested in changing anything and that just doesn't work
when you have to move and have to change your lifestyle

not interested? or not being able to? it starts to look like a diagnosis (as
an extreme illustration Rain Man comes to mind). It is not a big stretch of
imagination to allow that after 20 years of being in the same situation an
elderly person may lose ability for "changes", just like many lose ability to
bend and reach the floor or make a split. Brain is just a biological organ and
there is a lot of information around about it losing its "flexibility" with
time.

Basically the society is very cruel to its members who lose the ability to
function above specific level, be it physical or mental abilities.

~~~
hack_edu
But is that reason to be mean and obstruct anyone who challenges your comfort
zone?

~~~
trhway
that is the point - it is basically a definition of diagnostable situation
when reasoning machinery doesn't function well (i'm not a doctor of course).

I mean, was she mean and obstructing by explicit willful choice or was it a
panic reaction and collapse of reasoning machinery in response to what she
perceived as destruction of her world? Former is ill will, while later would
seem to be a diagnostable episode.

~~~
jeffdavis
What difference does it make? Pretty much everything has reasons behind it. A
diagnosis is just giving one of those reasons a name.

~~~
trhway
>What difference does it make?

to me it does. I think as a society we're at the level when we can allow and
thus must allow to cut some slack to disabled people, and temporarily or
permanent lack of ability to reason is a disability just like not having a leg
for example. When some limping guy with a stick say stumble and hit you while
falling, would you deploy your anger like it would be in the case of
intentional hit? The same way with people who may not be able to function in
the society and manage their societal responsibilities at the level we think
of as minimally acceptable. Whatever reason for their current condition, to me
these are just ill people who need help instead of full legal violence
deployed against them. Though, from pure logical point of view, we can just
say to this woman that last 20 years she should have learned her some Python,
and thus her situation is her own doing. In my personal view, our ability to
rein in such logic and deploy compassion instead of it is what determines
whether our civilization goes forward or backward.

~~~
vectorpush
What more could be done? The courts bent over backwards to accommodate her,
going so far as to award her $14,000 after patiently exhausting every other
option. 14k and a moving crew seems pretty generous as far as evictions for
hostile, unsanitary, non-paying tenants go. Her story is depressing because
she is clearly a troubled woman, but you can't just ignore reality and expect
everything to work out, it's unsustainable to allow every person with poor
reasoning skills live rent free.

~~~
thaumasiotes
The courts didn't award her $14k. She agreed to it in arbitration and signed a
contract specifying that she'd get it in return for moving out. She then
declined to move out, and I assume didn't get any of that $14k (because... why
would she?).

~~~
makmanalp
The story mentions later on: "Her settlement money comes in small increments,
so it is difficult for her to save up." So she got the 14k even after she
refused to honor the contract she signed.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Wow. Truly, these heartless landlords have things all their own way.

------
jseliger
_Nonetheless, it’s a good time to be a Bornstein in San Francisco: in the past
year alone, Ellis Act evictions have risen 170%; since 1997, there have been
3,811, and that number is constantly rising._

The obvious solution to rapidly rising prices is to increase supply, as
described here
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO))
or here ([http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-
francis...](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-
exodus/7205/)). I've posted both links before but we keep seeing stories like
these and the solutions remain the same.

The technology necessary to increase housing supply (steel frames, elevators)
is a century old
([http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/03/silicon_valle...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/03/silicon_valley_housing_boom_there_s_no_such_thing.html))
and well-understood. The problem is almost entirely political.

~~~
w1ntermute
It's amazing how so many people refuse to accept that out-of-control housing
prices are due to artificial scarcity, and that the solution is deregulation,
rather than even more idiotic rent control and eviction regulations. David
Campos is now trying to enact legislation to penalize Ellis Act evictions.

More than two decades after the USSR collapsed, and people are still clinging
to socialist ideologies.

~~~
bicknergseng
I'm pretty sure the ordinances against housing construction in SF have very
little to do with socialism or the USSR...

~~~
w1ntermute
The zoning laws are good old NIMBYism. But the rent control? That's good ol'
socialism.

~~~
wutbrodo
Oh for god's sake, just because you don't understand what the word means
doesn't mean you can use socialism for any government action in the economy.
Rent control isn't stupid because it's redistributive or whatever you think
"socialist" means, it's stupid because it arbitrarily redistributes from long-
standing tenants (rich, middle-class or poor) to those who move more often
(rich, middle-class, or poor), while introducing a massive amount of
uncertainty and overhead for landlords and reducing the quality and quantity
of housing stock. A little understanding of economics goes a long way; the
fact that rent control is distorting the price mechanism per se is not the
reason that it's retarded (by that logic, Pigovian taxes would be just as
disastrous as rent control).

------
pdeuchler
> _First came the arbitration hearing, where Inge’s lawyer and the landlord’s
> lawyers tried to strike a deal to avoid any type of elongated legal dispute.
> This ended somewhat peacefully: Withrington agreed to pay Inge a settlement
> of $14,000 in resettlement fees, and she signed a contract agreeing to
> vacate the property within 60 days. The first eviction notice was issued._

Yet she refused to do so and is now homeless, with a fraction of $14k to her
name. It sounds like the landlords went above and beyond, I would kill to have
landlords like that, and yet because this woman was her own worst enemy[0] she
ends up on the street. Barring mental illness (which is quite possible) I
can't see this being anything else but a conscious choice on her part to end
up on the street. Furthermore, it seems like this woman was actively taking
away resources from those who are in more dire situations[1]. Maybe we should
be more concerned that the multiple social workers (and the post author)
didn't consider that the woman might have needed mental help?

[0] _“I personally went out and found stuff -- my own mother personally went
out and found stuff. We put Inge in touch with multiple social workers and
housing agencies. The problem is that a lot of these places come and check
where you’re living and only take you in if you meet their standards. Inge is
a hoarder, a smoker, and has a cat. The smell in her unit was
absolutely…just...unbelievable. That didn’t work out well for her.”_

[1] _“It took three truck loads to get her stuff out,” recalls Withrington.
“And the help of a whole team of social workers.”_

------
cperciva
_Inge has an amalgam of health issues, the most serious of which is her high
glucose levels. She has to take daily insulin shots, which must be chilled on
ice._

That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now.
Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use
for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated
due to the potential for thermal cycling to result in inaccurate dosing -- and
keeping insulin "on ice" is _never_ recommended due to the risk of the insulin
being damaged by freezing.

~~~
eqdw
> That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now.
> Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use
> for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated
> due to the potential for thermal cycling to result in inaccurate dosing --
> and keeping insulin "on ice" is never recommended due to the risk of the
> insulin being damaged by freezing.

Do you have a citation for this? I'd be interested in researching more on this
subject. My girlfriend tells me she needs to keep her insulin pens in the
fridge. We've also noticed that her blood glucose will fluctuate for strange
and mysterious reasons. Your comment wrt thermal cycling rings true, and I'm
wondering if the temperature change from constantly going from fridge (~5C) to
her purse (~20C) and back, several times a day, might be causing this

~~~
yukichan
Please consult a doctor. Do not take advice about important medical needs from
strangers on Hacker News.

~~~
cperciva
Quite right in general, of course, but diabetics form something of a special
case. Most of us know more about our condition than most doctors.

------
ryguytilidie
I just don't get how you can defend this tenant at all. She was constantly
unpleasant, didn't pay rent, didn't even bother trying until the last possible
second at which point it was "well what options do I have?" It's as if she
believed she deserved to live in a house she didn't own for the same price in
perpetuity. How does this belief make any sense and why should people
sympathize with it? The idea that the owner had to pay his tenant 14k to get
her out while she was refusing to pay rent and didn't leave anyway is
absolutely maddening. These laws need to change.

~~~
jonknee
It wasn't until she was aware the owner was trying to evict her that she
stopped paying rent. Why would anyone continue to pay rent in that case?

> Over the years, Inge’s rent had gradually increased from $480 to $560 per
> month; in late 2012, in the midst of the permit debacle, she decided to stop
> paying rent altogether. Withrington says he “couldn’t do a damn thing about
> it,” since he was renting an illegal unit.

Sounds pretty smart to me.

~~~
tsotha
>Sounds pretty smart to me.

Sure. Sometimes it's pretty smart to screw other people over. I guess it just
depends on what kind of person you are.

~~~
jonknee
Are you referring to the person who bought a property knowing about an illegal
rental unit and ultimately took their money for years until it was opportune
to kick out the nearly destitute leasee?

~~~
robryan
So by the same logic the woman should have never taken up the lease in the
first place given the illegal nature of it.

~~~
jonknee
... Or the person profiting from it. If there was a fine of something like 3x
all rent you have collected on an illegal unit to the _current_ owner it would
take care of itself--no one would buy a place with an illegal apartment in it
(like this guy did, fully willing to keep taking the money for 10 years) and
no one would be tempted to make any more illegal apartments. Just make it easy
to check with the city about the legalities.

Currently it appears while the unit is illegal, there is no penalty for having
rented out an illegal unit for a dozen years. The "penalty" is that you get to
evict whoever you had been renting to (which means they lose on their renters
rights) while you get to keep all the money.

She sounds like an absolute pain in the ass, but neither party was nobel.

------
TrainedMonkey
"According to Inge, she pursued some of these options, but was turned off by
the no-guarantee nature of the wait-lists, and felt she was entitled to stay
where she was."

So she voluntarily did not use resources designed to help her out. That lands
credibility to landlords story.

If I lived on fixed income, I would definitely move out of Bay Area somewhere
cheaper.

~~~
normloman
It's not easy for people to just pack up and move. What if you've lived there
your whole life? What if your friends and family lived there? What if your job
was there?

I guess you say "Sorry poor trash, but you gotta be this rich to live here. If
you can't cut it, kindly leave the city you've known your whole life, abandon
your friends, and get a new job." But that seems cold, doesn't it?

~~~
maxlybbert
> It's not easy for people to just pack up and move. What if you've lived
> there your whole life? What if your friends and family lived there? What if
> your job was there?

I've done many things I didn't want to. It's part of being an adult. Then
again, nobody makes me eat my vegetables.

~~~
normloman
You echo a lot of other comments. Boils down to "I've had to relocate, so
nobody else gets to complain." That's not a valid argument. Being forced to
move sucks, no matter who you are.

More importantly, why should the poor in San Francisco move? They were there
first. They could afford rent, until us tech people came. Why should we crowd
them out?

And if we did, is that the kind of city we want? A city where everyone is
rich, and the poor and middle class huddle into slums outside the border?
Here's how that will turn out: When the rich city makes too much garbage, they
will dump it in the middle of poor city. When the state creates funds for new
infrastructure project, you can bet they will all go to rich city. When big
companies relocate, they will build their luxurious campus in rich city.
Sorry, no jobs for poor city. But don't worry, rich city still needs street
sweepers and baristas.

Huddling the poor in a small area just makes them an easier target for
oppression.

~~~
maxlybbert
> Boils down to "I've had to relocate, so nobody else gets to complain."

I'm sorry. That's not my argument in any way.

For one, I support free speech enough that I won't say people have no right to
complain. Personally, I think anybody who constantly streams complaints is
probably immature and not somebody I want to associate with, but they can
complain all they want; I'll simply tune them out.

Looking at the particular case of this lady:

* she is currently homeless, and apparently does not like that;

* she used to antagonize her former landlord;

* her former landlord tried to help her find a new place, but she declined the help;

* she refuses to work with organizations that exist to help people like her, she apparently chafes at their rules and regulations;

* she has the option of moving to Germany free of charge, but refuses to do so.

But my statement that "doing things you don't like is part of being an adult"
is true. Many college students are appalled when they discover that the life
isn't as easy as they were led to believe. I'm sure I was one of them; it's
been a while and my memory is foggy. But complaining that things aren't always
hunky dory is silly. At some point you have to make the best with what you
have. And saying "but I don't want to move away from my friends" or "but why
do I have to pay market rates for a place to live?" simply comes off as
immature.

------
kohanz
Call me cold, but after reading this I come away with almost no sympathy for
the evicted senior citizen. She comes across as very entitled.

~~~
jjoonathan
I can't help but suspect that this is exactly how this story was designed to
read.

They could have chosen between any of the Ellis Act evictions in the
dabrownstein figure (~4000 of them), and yet the person they chose to
interview

* has health care retirement benefits

* has the ability to go back to Germany and use their social programs

* has personal attention from social workers and relatives finding her options

* has a car

* has a shelter offering a place to stay for the night

* is a member of a social group (female, white, older) that is not the bottom of the charity priority list

* hoards, smokes, intentionally antagonizes her landlord

All of this raises questions about how representative Inge is of the evictee
population. I suspect the answer is "not very."

~~~
nickff
There are many working-age, highly-paid individuals who rent housing, and are
evicted for various reasons, so this may not be the least sympathetic case of
eviction.

~~~
jjoonathan
A sample can be unrepresentative of the mean/median/mode of a distribution
without being maximal or minimal.

~~~
nickff
I intentionally avoided use of the word "unrepresentative", as I was not sure
what would qualify as representative of those who have been evicted. I
understand that my use of "sympathetic" may be viewed as similarly vague, but
I believe that its meaning may be more well-understood.

~~~
jjoonathan
What point were you trying to make? I assumed you weren't talking about rich
assholes getting evicted for unconscionable behavior, since that would be
completely irrelevant to the discussion about gentrification (at least, as far
as I could tell). Instead, I fuzzily matched your argument to the nearest one
that I thought made sense in context ("they could have found an even less
sympathetic postergirl for evictees if that was their agenda") and I answered
the fuzzily matched argument.

It seems you were talking about rich assholes getting evicted for
unconscionable behavior after all. Sorry, but I still don't see what they have
to do with gentrification. Explain?

~~~
nickff
I was addressing your original point that said:

> _" this raises questions about how representative Inge is of the evictee
> population. I suspect the answer is "not very."_

You are correct in your fuzzy logic, I was first making the point that the
author could have picked a less sympathetic individual, if the author's intent
had been to malign evicted tenants. My second point was intended to state that
I am not sure what type of person would be "representative" of the individuals
evicted; criticizing an author for not finding a person who does not fit an
undefined descriptor seems unfair to the columnist.

~~~
jjoonathan
> I was first making the point that the author could have picked a less
> sympathetic individual, if the author's intent had been to malign evicted
> tenants.

Your specific example was outside the scope of gentrification, which is what
we were all discussing. I accused the article of baiting us into falsely
generalizing from Inge's case to conclude (fuzzily) that "evicted poor people
only mind being kicked out because they're a bunch of ungrateful slobs that
turn down the abundant opportunities everybody heaps upon them because they
believe they are entitled to something better". Inge's hypothetical wealthy
twin evictee would not have been a better candidate to advance this agenda
because smearing her would not have smeared the protesting masses who, by and
large, are not as wealthy.

> My second point was intended to state that I am not sure what type of person
> would be "representative" of the individuals evicted

I gave you three examples. A fourth example would be to choose an evictee at
random and investigate them. It's entirely possible that this is how the story
came about and that it's coincidental that she is such an unsympathetic
figure. My original post observed that the likelihood of interpretation #4 is
lowered by the extreme nature of Inge's case.

> criticizing an author for not finding a person who does not fit an undefined
> descriptor seems unfair to the columnist.

In a world of incomplete knowledge, finite opportunity cost, and human-
resource-intensive processes for rigorous inference it's entirely fair to have
a complaint that is not mathematically precise.

------
desuma
The article is a Rorschach test for housing policy. Do you see yourself as the
vulnerable elderly tenant, forced to move and abandon your longtime existence?
Or the kindly landlord, trapped between two contradictory legal regimes?

I live in San Francisco, and own a 2-unit building in the heart of the tech
shuttle stops near Dolores Park. I had rented in the city for years before
that. I couldn't have bought my place (almost unlivably dilapidated in the
2009 downturn) without a job at Google and help from my college friend who
agreed to rent one of the apartments, despite the hot tub installed in the
living room by the previous owner. Sadly, she's moving out this summer.

Almost all of my friends rent, and very few of them work in tech. My partner
is an artist, and his contribution to SF culture is an irreplaceable part of
what makes SF great, but it's not remotely competitive financially with tech.
I've personally benefitted from the city and its business and social cultures.
I have a duty to pay it back.

But I won't rent the vacant apartment, because renting to someone is a
commitment more permanent than marriage. My house - not accounting for the
insane appreciation - is more than 50% of my net assets. It'd be
irresponsible.

There has to be some protection for the cultural core of San Francisco, given
its status as a boom-bust town. Rent stabilization, a la NYC. A maximum-
allowable rent increase, tied to inflation. But there also needs to be a lot
more housing. Rent control is a populist disaster that sounds great - remember
"The rent is too damn high!"? - but actually accomplishes the reverse of its
stated intent.

The current political paralysis is a nightmare, and a fascinating window onto
the class politics that our modern scaled economy is creating.

~~~
100k
Granted it is very hard to evict a rent-controlled tenant in San Francisco, so
I can understand your trepidation, but San Francisco rent control already
works pretty much like your prescription: there is an annual allowed rent
increase, and rents reset when the tenant moves out.

In other words, this is "soft" rent control as opposed to "hard" rent control
where prices are fixed, essentially forever.

[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.9.1.99](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.9.1.99)

~~~
desuma
The linked article is great reading, thanks!

It's true that landlords can set the price of a vacant unit arbitrarily,
unlike say NYC's rent stabilization, which limits increases even between
tenants.

However, I'd argue SF rent control isn't very "soft" by the article's
definition - there's no hardship or rate of return provisions for the
landlord, and during a tenant's stay, the allowable increases are negligible
(less than CPI/inflation and certainly much less than market rate you'd expect
on an investment with similar risk). Because a landlord has to evaluate a
potential tenant for a lifetime lease, a lot of the same negative dynamics
apply during the rental transaction. The landlord is trying to reduce their
uncertainty - finding a tenant who will not only pay the greatest possible
rent, but also stay for the shortest possible time.

As market prices rise, tenants of rent-controlled units are highly
incentivized to stay in their current home, because a new lease would be so
much more expensive. This further reduces the available supply.

It gets even worse when you consider the variety of protected classes SF
rental law has created. Elderly and disabled tenants cannot be evicted without
special cause, even if they've stopped paying rent years ago. The intent of
the law is good: to protect vulnerable populations who would suffer greatly if
they were evicted. But in effect, it only protects vulnerable tenants who
already have a lease. Every other member of that class will find it much
harder to find housing, because their tenancy comes with strings attached.
There are anti-discrimination provisions in housing law, but in a competitive
market, those are incredibly difficult to enforce.

------
Mz
I really hate articles like this.

Excerpt:

 _A look inside her Volvo is enough to curdle a stomach of steel: trash bags
are piled high in the back seat, open packages of food topple into a litter
box full of cat feces, door-sides are crammed full of half-smoked Pall Malls
and prescription painkillers._

I am homeless. I do not live that way. Not everyone who is homeless chooses to
live in filth. Plus, earlier in the article, it talks about how she did "odd
jobs" to support herself in Europe and lists "delivered flowers _to
prostitutes_ " as one of the odd jobs. Seriously? They could have just said
"delivered flowers." Whom she delivered them to seems like gratuitous "color"
for this story, just something salacious to say that has nothing to do with
this issue at all.

I was evicted. I lived in fear of eviction for 18 months. I have a serious
medical issue and I did stuff like remove carpeting without my landlord's
permission. I knew it was coming. I was willing to accept the consequences as
the lesser evil compared to what my medical condition is supposed to do to me.

The real issue common to both my situation and Inge's is that America has some
real issues with housing stock, not just illegal in-law units in San
Francisco, but all kinds of issues. This article is highly unlikely to get
people to talk about that issue and highly unlikely to get anything done about
that issue. That is not something either landlords or tenants control. I was
not impressed the lame management of my apartment whose incompetence promoted
mold growth in my apartment but, honestly, I would have evicted me too for the
things I did. But I also had compelling reasons for what I did. Blaming
landlords and tenants and pitting them against each other does absolutely
nothing to improve a situation like this. If anything, it makes the problem
more intractable.

We need to figure out what does work to foster an environment where
affordable, decent housing can exist without it being artificially rent
controlled and nonsense like that. The need for rent control tells you there
is something very wrong with the policies, laws, and so forth. There is a
climate we are trying to fight against. And rather than change that climate,
we just vilify people who have no real control over it.

Sigh.

~~~
eshvk
I am sorry to hear you feel like that. To offer a counter perspective: I found
the article to be unusually well-balanced. It was sympathetic to both her and
the landlord.

Also, I don't know if the author's detailed description (probably of artistic
intent) of one homeless person's life impugns on the reputation of all people
who are down on their luck and temporarily homeless.

I feel like you are conflating your personal experience with hers. You may
very well be morally justified in actions you have taken in your life but it
is not clear to me how an article on her is an attack on you or any action you
took (say remove carpets) is roughly equivalent to hers (make threats to burn
down a building).

~~~
Mz
a) These articles and discussions of them routinely talk about homeless people
in very negative terms that are akin to racism, sexism, or similar. I find
that personally frustrating because my status as a homeless person gets used
as an excuse to be dismissive of me personally. I feel that is one of my
biggest issues as a person on the street. I can manage to keep myself safe,
fed, etc. But the stigma when people realize I am homeless causes me problems.
I get looked upon with suspicion, etc. This is true both online and off. (Yes,
I realize I could in theory keep my big mouth shut about my housing situation
online. I have my reasons why I don't.)

b) There is no similarity between me ripping out carpets and her threats to
burn the building down. The similarity in my mind is that the housing itself
was problematic for reasons that are largely out of the hands of both tenant
and landlord. In her case, she was in an illegal rental, without proper
egress, it's own electric bill, etc. According to the article, such places may
account for 10% of the rental stock in SF. To me, that indicates a systemic
problem, not specifically about this woman or her landlord.

I was training at one time to be an urban planner. I think this is an issue of
local laws and policies as well as federal laws and policies.

------
raldi
How come they never write articles like this profiling the 22-year-old who's
just starting out in the world and is desperatly trying to make ends meet
while paying market rate for a tiny apartment?

Or three of them packed in a walkup one-bedroom and paying double the rent of
their downstairs neighbor who's of much greater means but had the good fortune
of being born a few years earlier?

Or the young artist who had to leave SF altogether because they couldn't
afford to pay market rate and didn't have enough San Francisco seniority to
qualify for a hefty rent-control subsidy?

------
tn13
The reality is that none of us deserve anything. The so called social welfare
is nothing but a government's excuse to reduce our liberties.

If there is any reason why poor can not afford housing in SF then it is not
the fault of the landlord who is trying to make maximum money but the
government regulations which prevent him from doing so. It is beyond me why
In-Law unit is illegal in SF. The city is expensive, poor people are clearly
willing to stay in these illegal units which is a better option than staying
in a car. What exactly is government's problem ?

My making the in-law unit illegal government has actually deprived the poor
people of any legitimate consumer rights they could have. Government has
reduced competition between the in-law unit owners and as a result increased
prices and left the poor people susceptible to all sort of oppression.

The problem with poor people is most often they are able to see the first
order causes but not beyond that. Igne was not stupid to blame the Landlord
for her situation, but she was merely ignorant of the fact that it is
government that forced him to take such steps. Her sense of entitlement though
it totally misplaced.

~~~
twoodfin
_The city is expensive, poor people are clearly willing to stay in these
illegal units which is a better option than staying in a car. What exactly is
government 's problem ?_

I am pretty anti-regulation as such things go, but one plausible reason:

Such "close quarters" tenancy is bound in the aggregate of a big city to lead
to a large number of he-said, she-said disputes of the sort that are nearly
impossible for the city to resolve or regulate in a just way. I say you're
using more than the agreed share of electricity, so I'm evicting you
immediately. You say my car is blocking your access to the unit through the
garage and want to sue me for breach of contract. Yes, the tenant and landlord
could, in a regulation-free Utopia, negotiate a specific binding agreement
that could cover all contingencies, but again, those will be very expensive
and time consuming to litigate.

The city agrees to enforce rental agreements that fall within certain
parameters, and one way those parameters are set is by looking at what kinds
of disputes they're likely to produce and which the city is actually capable
of adjudicating.

~~~
SilasX
Wait, the possibility of hard-to-resolve domestic disputes justifies banning
that arrangement? Why not go after, say, roommates? Or marriage!

~~~
twoodfin
Roommates don't sign leases with each other, and marriage contracts are also
highly regulated, e.g no-fault.

------
tn13
Government regulations are the villain here. Is it legal or stay in a car with
cat litter around but living in a room with height less that 7' is illegal ?

In the name of protecting tenant rights government has made regulations that
deeply hurt the land owners and reduce their incentives to create housing
opportunities for poor.

"In San Francisco, a landlord can’t evict a current tenant just because they
are selling or buying the property; by the time the unit was purchased. "

Burning down the house in that case sounds like a lucrative offer.

------
RyanZAG
_> Still a citizen of Germany, she has the option of repatriating to her
homeland, which has a free program for nationals wishing to relocate. She’d be
able to get off the plane, connect with social services, and get subsidized
housing and medical coverage._

What the hell? She has to threaten and insult people around her and was living
in an illegal building, yet has the perfect option open to her.

EDIT: And before anybody says anything about her giving up her life - by the
sound of the article, her life consisted of insulting and fighting with all
her neighbors. Logically if she had friends, she wouldn't be living in her car
- her friends would have helped her out.

------
Crito
> _When the current owners, the Withrington brothers, purchased the property
> in 2002, Inge came with it._

> _In San Francisco, a landlord can’t evict a current tenant just because they
> are selling or buying the property; by the time the unit was purchased, Inge
> had already been living there for ten years, and she had no intention to go
> anywhere. Since Inge 's unit was illegal, her landlord had even fewer
> options in the way of legal recourse._

If the new owners were willing to come clean to the city about the illegal
unit, then I don't see what the issue would have been. Being the new owners,
surely they could not be held responsible for the crime that was committed by
the old owner, right?

It seems to me that the only reason why their hands were bound is because they
decided to _not_ notify the city immediately after the property became theirs.

~~~
mullingitover
> It seems to me that the only reason why their hands were bound is because
> they decided to not notify the city immediately after the property became
> theirs.

Why would they? They'd immediately throw themselves into the situation where
they can't legally evict her, and are fined for failing to evict her. It's not
too crazy (or abnormal, given that _10% of SF 's housing is illegal_) that
they'd decide to kick that can down the road for a while.

------
ww520
What a hellish process to go through eviction. No wonder the rental housing
market is so out of whack in SF. Becoming a landlord is a major headache.

------
anateus
Have a look at this infographic from dangrover posted here a couple months
ago: [http://dangrover.github.io/sf-ellis-
evictions/](http://dangrover.github.io/sf-ellis-evictions/)

Note that both Ellis Act and other kinds of evictions seem to be
disproportionately _lower_ than what the median house prices would lead one to
expect.

I'm not making an argument in favor of the evictions. But articles like these
and recent activism imply that this is a worrying new trend rather than a slow
return to previous levels.

------
yeukhon
While everyone focuses on the main problem, I'd say the moral of the story
here for home buyers is to avoid buying any problematic homes. When my parents
recently purchased a new home they made it damn sure the home has no existing
warrants/tickets/legal issue to handle and they ensure no one lives in the
house. They visited several homes before they could settle one that was nice,
cheap and problem-free. Sometimes it's better to take less risk than having to
scratch your hair for years.

~~~
ghaff
I had a friend who bought a house with an elderly renter and she ended up
going through months of running around to find her a new place to live. I
imagine that some locales make relocating an existing renter easier or harder
but it can clearly be a real nightmare. Obviously it's not pleasant for the
elderly renter wither but I'm not sure I see the reasonable alternative.

------
j10t
The intersection of Mission & 16th Street is price-equivalent to Greenwich Ave
& Jane Street. Assuming price per square foot is a proxy for the ratio of
demand to supply, these are the most coveted locations to live in the world.

Should a retired taxi driver be able to afford such a location? Should we be
upset that she cannot?

~~~
SilasX
Indeed. From the fact that we should care for the poor, it simply doesn't
follow that we should give them luxury goods. We'd scoff at someone who
suggested giving the poor vouchers for caviar. But do the same thing with
housing instead of food, and ...

------
ominous_prime
After seeing some eviction processes myself, I'm not sure what more one can do
for someone like this.

I've seen a few evictions where the occupants seem to completely deny what's
happening, refuse to help themselves, and refuse outside assistance. On top of
the denial, this woman was actively antagonistic, which made things all that
much harder.

Yes, the current housing situation in SF is bad, but this is a failure of the
social services we provide. The article seems to take issue with the landlord,
but what would any of us do in a similar situation, with an illegal and toxic
tenant in our house?

~~~
dragontamer
The article is very carefully written, such that the reader can take issue
with whatever fits their own bias. Its a very well done article in general,
and provides ammo for both sides to sling each other with.

IMO, the intelligent reader will see the story for what it is. A tragedy...
and a realization on what happens when tenants don't like being evicted.

------
Beliavsky
Unproductive people can be unproductive anywhere, and it does not make sense
for them to take up precious space in places like San Francisco or New York
City. They should move to cheaper areas.

------
davidf18
The real issue is a systems issue caused by an artificially induced shortage
of housing caused by "rent seeking" (politics that induce artificial
shortages) through zoning ordinances.

While convenient and emotionally satisfying to fingerpoint and blame SV higher
incomes for the increased cost of housing, the real cause is the zoning
ordinances which help wealthy landowners increase their income not through
creativity and wealth creation but through politics.

Remove the "rent seeking" political constraints on an efficient housing market
and you will go along way towards fixing the problem of people getting
displaced by higher rents.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
You can change the rate, but with an expanding planet and continuing flight to
cities there's no end in sight. So ultimately, old people quit being able to
afford where they live. It's not going to change soon, but as you observe you
may be able to change the rate at which it occurs.

------
joeevans1000
A nice fair seeming but utterly slanted portrayal of the gentrification
process. Real life is eccentric. All the polished startups and gadgets in the
world won't permanently pave over the fact that focusing on the needy as
disheveled and ratty is as insidious as an author can be.

This story tells the tale of a capitalist's hassles.

It doesn't go any deeper, into the real issues.

------
greenrice
Ok, San Francisco, it's time to bite the bullet and build (much) more housing.
This is getting ridiculous.

------
mathattack
_Within a few weeks of the eviction, the landlord put the property on the
market for $1.4 million; it’s a good time to sell, considering he bought the
place for $627,000 in 2002._

Is this so crazy and outrageous? Someone buys a property, and 12 years later
they want to sell it? Yes, it's appreciated. Has it appreciated that much more
than the S&P 500, given the liquidity issues and upkeep?

I feel bad for the tenant, and our safety net is imperfect, but "I'm renting
here now" shouldn't mean "I'm renting here forever at below market rates."

One reason housing rates are so high is that people don't want to invest in
housing infrastructure if they can't get their money back.

------
prawn
“It was cash only, and everything was shady and under-the-table."

You mean, like an illegal in-law unit?

------
zaroth
You would think a property owner would have an implicit right to "go out of
business" when a lease term expires. Every lease I've ever signed had a clause
that at the end of the least it can only be renewed, with notice, if BOTH
parties agree.

As a renter, I would never presume to be able to stay in a unit past the end
of the lease without the landlord's permission. How was this basic right of
property ownership was ever subverted? It sounds a bit like 'involuntary
servitude' (13th amendment) to be forced to rent your property to someone
after the lawful terms of your agreement to rent it have expired.

------
Glyptodon
So why can't she just drive to somewhere where rent is cheaper?

------
ddoolin
Life's already a bitch, why add to it by being one yourself...

------
johnvschmitt
People just don't understand inflation/math:

"...$1.4 million; it’s a good time to sell, considering he bought the place
for $627,000 in 2002."

Wow! Sounds huge right? Well, 12 years to double? That means it's a ~6% yearly
increase. That's LOWER than medial bills, college education, & almost exactly
what you'd get from any stock index (S&P 500) for that time period.

~~~
rohin
You made a mistake in your calculation because you ignored leverage. Most
people buy a house using some combination of equity and debt (usually 20% /
80%).

You need to calculate the return based on the _equity_ invested. Assuming they
paid 20% down that's $125K. The house appreciated $773K over the initial
purchase price. That's a 6x return on equity, not a 2x.

But thanks for the lecture about how other people don't understand inflation /
math.

~~~
johnvschmitt
You are correct, of course.

My point was more about how journalists too often spout "PRICES DOUBLED!" to
get attention like blood in the water, including here. And, in too many cases,
it's over a time period that's 10+ years, so it's not really doubling, but
6%/year.

And, yes, leverage can profit, but it can bite hard too. Plenty of people
bought at $500k with $100k down, then saw the value drop to $300k, meaning
they lost 200+100 = $300k if they had to sell.

All fun math, with, yes, GROSS simplifications here.

~~~
rohin
Well, when debt is involved, prices doubling is a big deal! Prices going down
10% is a big deal too though.

------
pyrrhotech
Another whine story. I do feel sorry for those people that legitimately
deserve it. You know, women in the middle east who are beaten or stoned to
death for not wearing berkas, or orphans in Africa dealing with genocidal
warlords.

But this lady could live perfectly fine on her social security if she would
move to somewhere she could afford. Living in San Francisco is something a
whole lot of people want to do. That's why it's so damn expensive. I want to
do it too, but I don't want to pay that price. That's ok, you shouldn't get
everything you want. It's a privilege to live there, not a right.

~~~
fishtoaster
It sounds like she moved there when it _was_ cheap. Is it reasonable to expect
her to leave her friends, contacts, etc that she's built up over decades
because the city is changing? Housing isn't widgets: it's not easy to move to
a cheaper type if your current type gets expensive. There isn't an easy answer
to this sort of problem, but to imply that she should simply "move somewhere
else" is simplistic in the extreme.

Reminds me of panel 3 in
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-03-01/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-03-01/)

~~~
pilom
>Is it reasonable to expect her to leave her friends, contacts, etc that she's
built up over decades because the city is changing?

YES! Absolutely reasonable. There is no right to live exactly where you want
for the rest of your life (especially when where you want to live is an
illegal residence). Nor should there be.

~~~
radley
Actually there is. It's called Rent Control and it protects the elderly from
stuff like this (because they need the protection). As far as I'm concerned,
the landlord simply found a loophole.

~~~
Crito
_loophole ˈlo͞opˌ(h)ōl /

noun: Part of a set of laws that I do not like._

Rent control does not give you the right to live in an area for a given amount
of rent _in any circumstance_. The circumstances in which it does not provide
assurances are not "loopholes".

~~~
radley
Think of it this way: she was renting a room in the house, except as a
courtesy to each owner she would to come in through the garage.

New owner decides he's tired and wants her out. If he suddenly claims the room
to be an "inlaw apartment", then it would be illegal. Now he can start the
process to evict.

Legal loophole.

[Update] The timing is suspicious too, since these units could be legal soon:

[http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/S-F-in-law-units-
law-c...](http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/S-F-in-law-units-law-clears-
Planning-Commission-5295635.php)

~~~
Crito
There was never any question if the unit was illegal. Everyone involved knew
that it was (hence my absolutely minimal sympathy for everyone involved,
except perhaps^W the cat.) The new owner did not declare the unit to be
illegal, the city did.

(edit: I definitely feel sorry for the cat.)

~~~
Zancarius
> hence my absolutely minimal sympathy for everyone involved, except perhaps
> the cat.

My sympathy rests entirely with the cat. Pets live more or less at the whim of
their owner, no matter how unfortunate, and have little choice in the matter
(well, I suppose they could escape...). The poor thing likely has no idea
what's going on, and it certainly _does not look happy_. Breaks my heart.

But then, I'm a softy with animals. Cats in particular.

The people? Meh. I'm inclined to agree with the posters here (yourself
included) suggesting that she has a choice. I feel bad for her, don't get me
wrong, but considering how many people are often forced by economic reasons to
move from one area to another and do so without any public sympathy lends me
to feel the same in this circumstance. What she's making on SSI a month isn't
very much, but I'd imagine her medications are probably paid for in full or in
part by her plan, and there are cheaper and safer areas to live in the country
than SF. Many retirement communities out here in NM are populated with people
who make about what she does a month, but the cost of living is lower.

As someone pointed out (maybe it was you, I'm not sure), if she were of
working age, she'd probably have _fewer_ safety nets to fall back on.

It certainly isn't a good situation for anyone involved (except maybe the
lawyers), but imagine if this were a story about some programmer/retired
programmer who was having to leave his home of 35 years for greener pastures.
I'd imagine most of the comments would be along the lines of "suck it up and
move."

Either way, the story is still gut wrenching because it's _so uncomfortable_.

------
TechNewb
In an SF rent control unit, if the tenant signs a 1 year lease, are they able
to decide if they stay or not after the 1 year initial lease term is over?

~~~
aetherson
Yes, unless their landlord is able to evict them for whatever reason. (And, to
be clear, all or essentially all rental units in SF are subject to rent
control).

~~~
spiralpolitik
Here are the major exemptions to Rent Control in SF:

1\. You live in a building constructed after June of 1979.

2\. You live in subsidized housing, such as HUD housing projects.

3\. You live in a dormitory, monastery, nunnery, etc.

4\. You live in a residential hotel and have less than 28 days of continuous
tenancy.

So most of the new developments in the last 30 years aren't covered by RC.

~~~
aetherson
I hadn't realized the post-1979 thing! Sorry for the misinformation above. I
guess that every place I ever considered renting in SF was an older building.

------
batbomb
The building cited as an SRO is the Hugo Hotel. It's vacant, and not even in
the tenderloin.

------
AJ72
Great article and reinforces just how much work we need to do to help our
communities

------
epx
She jumped from an 80-floor building and pretended she was flying for 79
floors.

------
guelo
The comments here are a good example of how the predominantly white male upper
class tech population that is moving in is changing SF's culture from a unique
semi-socialist one to the same capitalist-uberalles culture of upper class
white males everywhere. It's the latest colonization.

------
bowlofpetunias
The empathy deprived Randian hordes that flock to these stories on HN to
display their superiority over those less well off than them make me
physically ill.

~~~
ryguytilidie
What empathy is one supposed to have for this person? She lived in their
house, refused to pay rent, filled it with trash and feces, started fights
with neighbors and refused any help. What empathy are you expecting people to
have at that point?

