The law offers protection to innocent renters from most evictions after foreclosure.  As many have experienced directly and/or indirectly, renters who have continued to pay rent without fail are often surprised to learn that the home where they reside has been foreclosed, leaving renters in much distress and anxiety about their future and rights.  Far too often, homeowner/landlords go into foreclosure without telling their renters.  What typically follows for those renters is a Notice from the banks, seeking to recover possession of the foreclosed homes free and clear of any tenants.

While certain statewide laws have sought to protect tenants by extending the Notice period for these banks to recover possession of the homes before filing an eviction, no state law exists to stop the actual eviction of these tenants from foreclosure.  The only protections for tenants in these cases are found through their City’s just cause eviction ordinance which expressly states the reason(s) (“just cause”) that the tenant can be evicted (assuming that a local eviction ordinance has been adopted by such city).

Once enacted, Merced law will stop most evictions due to foreclosure of tenants who have paid their rent on time and continue to do so throughout their tenancy.  However, homeowners who purchase the foreclosed property still have the right to evict the renters should such owners choose to move into the home as their residence.  Nonetheless, these homeowners must still adhere to proper Notice requirements and process to evict their renters before they are able to move in.

Some opponents – including realtors — believe that the new legislation is simply a waste of Merced’s city resources and that the law has no real effect.  There will be a second reading before the proposed law will take into effect and those opponents are expected to voice their arguments then.

Such broad contentions by opponents of the legislation appear baseless given the statistics related to Merced residents.  According to ABC news, Merced ranks the 9^th highest in the country for foreclosure.  Accordingly, 1 in every 200 homes in Merced has been foreclosed; while the national average shows that 1 in every 563 homes has been foreclosed.  Surely given the high rate of foreclosure for Merced residents, the effect of stopping foreclosure evictions will be significant for renters living in these foreclosed homes based on the sheer numbers.  Moreover, these renters who are not to blame for the homeowner/landlord’s foreclosure of the property will have the opportunity to have some sense of stability about their tenancy and home, amidst the unstable processes related to the Notices received, trustee sales, auctions, and other legal formalities involved in the property’s foreclosure.

Merced’s new law could take into effect by the end of the year.

According to coverage on the new legislation, Tenants Together members led the push for this new law.  I applaud tenants and organizations working to help families from losing their homes during these tough financial times.  Hopefully, this historic vote moves Merced’s city council to enact future legislation establishing additional eviction protections for renters, as well as encourages other Central Valley cities to enact their own eviction protections for renters.

Sources for this story include ABC News.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that she is withdrawing from multistate negotiations with big banks over their handling of foreclosures and instead will continue her own probe in an attempt to reform bank practices and prevent foreclosures. California now joins New York in refusing to sign off on what amounts to another massive corporate bailout.

As Matt Taibbi writes: ” The current proposed deal is a huge giveaway to the banks, a major shafting to most of the investors, and would probably give homeowners either next to nothing…”

“To recap the crime: the banks lent money to firms like Countrywide, who in turn created billions in dicey loans, who then sold them back to the banks, who chopped them up and sold them to, among other things, your state’s worker retirement funds. So this is bankers…essentially stealing the retirement nest eggs of firemen, teachers, cops, and other actors, as well as the investment monies of foreigners and hedge fund managers. To repeat: this was Wall Street hotshots stealing money from old ladies.

Along the road to this systematic thievery, a great many other, sometimes smaller offenses were committed. One involved the use of the MERS electronic registration system. By law, banks were supposed to register with county-level offices in each state every time they sold or resold a mortgage, and pay fees each time.

But they didn’t, instead registering with the private deed-transfer agency MERS, allowing them to systematically, and illegally, bypass local taxes.

So any “AG settlement” might allow the banks to avoid legal damages being sought from three different set of enraged creditors: the public institutions who invested in these sham securities, the private investors who did the same, and the localities who were cheated out of their taxes.”

See Taibbi’s full piece at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/attorneys-general-settlement-the-next-big-bank-bailout-20111005

While it is likely the banks will receive a sweet government deal / bailout, we can only hope that the screwing of regular human beings will be not be catastrophic.

In the mean time, Plaintiff’s lawyers – as usual – are left to fight for the victims of these devastating white collar crimes. Greenstein & McDonald is representing tenants who live in foreclosed properties where the banks flatly refuse to properly manage and maintain the rental housing that they now own. We intend to hold them fully accountable for their wrongdoings and will keep you posted.

This long overdue legislation was previously vetoed by former Governor Schwarzenegger in 2006 – citing “the rights of property owners to control the appearance of their property” – but it codifies a right to free speech already present in the California Constitution.

While the US Constitution prohibits the Government from abridging free-speech rights, the California Constitution has been held to go further. In California, the right to free speech may not be abridged by a private business owner, either. For example, per a State Supreme Court ruling in 2007, a shopping mall may not restrict protest speech at the mall based on the content of the speech. In that case, the mall illegally barred persons from handing out leaflets at the mall encouraging a boycott of one of the businesses therein. Such obstruction violates the free speech protections in the California Constitution, just as does a landlord barring political signs posted by his or her tenants.

In 2001, Former California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George suggested, in a concurring opinion in Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Association, that a residential landlord imposing rules regarding display of political signs by tenants at the leased premises would impermissibly censor and undermine “core” free speech rights. As George stated:

When, in a future case, this court does address and decide whether, and in what circumstances, section 2(a) [of the California Constitution] should be construed as requiring a showing of state action, it will be helpful to consider the diverse circumstances in which the free speech clause might be implicated. I have in mind circumstances in which a private person or entity may attempt to utilize its power or authority in one sphere to censor or undermine what might be viewed as another individual’s “core” free speech rights. Consider a private landlord who, under penalty of eviction, precludes his or her tenants from displaying in the windows of their apartments the campaign poster of a particular political candidate supported by the tenant.—or requires the tenants to display in the windows of their homes a poster of the candidate supported by the landlord. Or consider a union or employer that attempts to utilize its power over an individual by precluding certain bumper stickers on vehicles parked in the employer’s or union’s parking lot, or by requiring that the employee place a certain bumper sticker on his or her vehicle or attend a rally and make a political contribution, unconnected to employment-related issues, in support of a candidate favored by the union or employer but not supported by the employee.

If we were to hold, as the lead opinion [of three Justices in this case] broadly would, that all types of section 2(a) free speech claims require state action (or its equivalent, shown by establishing that the location where the speech is exercised is the “functional equivalent of a traditional public forum”) [...], we effectively would remove any state constitutional obstacle to any such action by a landlord, union, or employer. I see no reason to prejudge the resolution of such questions.

Now, with regard to tenants and political campaign posters, the legislature and Governor Brown have resolved the question, giving qualified protection to tenants’ free speech rights.

The legislation passed does not go into effect until January 2012, so tread carefully regarding political postings before then – you may not be protected against lease clauses or house rules banning the postings before that time.

Also, note that the protection only applies to political postings during campaign seasons on candidates or matters which are coming up for vote – and the landlord may request that such signs be removed after the election to which they relate has taken place. These qualifications were included in the legislation in response to objections by the powerful landlord-lobby – the California Apartment Association – who also led efforts to defeat other important tenant legislation in Sacramento this year.*

I would prefer to see tenant speech even more broadly protected in legislation, to uphold the full scope of this “core” freedom. But, although protection of tenant speech via political posting on his or her doors or windows is not absolute under this new law, it is a good, Statewide improvement. During a difficult legislative year for tenants.
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* (For example, the poor showing and failure this year of AB 934 before the California Assembly, amidst intense and misleading landlord-interest lobbying, means that a judicial opinion from 2007 which immunized landlords from liability for illegal evictions and tenant harassment still remains the law of the State. See our prior coverage of AB 934 here [1], [2], [3], [4]. Greenstein and McDonald continues to support efforts to correct this outrageous anti-tenant state of affairs, and will track any progress at this blog site.)

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Research Center at the University of Utah recommends the clever proposition of turning super-sized mansion into affordable housing or  multi-housing households.

For some years, lavish mansions consisting of multiple bedrooms, rooms, bathrooms, and vast space, situated over gigantic lots were built to meet the growing demands by many families who coveted these over-sized homes also known as “McManions”.

At the pinnacle of the housing boom McMansions were popular but that’s not the case today.  The article’s author seems to attribute much of the present housing trend which has veered away from these jumbo mansions to “changes in taste” and the foreclosure crisis.  Such changes among families include consumer’s desire for smaller homes, ones that are more affordable to maintain, and homes that are closer to their jobs and public transportation to avoid high gas prices associated with commuting.

Essentially, the McMansions can be partitioned into housing units for different households to reside in given the size of the mansions which boasts many bedrooms, bathrooms and plenty of space throughout.  “When you add up the spaces and how they’re distributed, the typical McMansion can be occupied by three-to-five households with their own splendid privacy, their own large space,” Mr. Nelson is quoted as saying.

Surprisingly, the article assesses that there are approximately 30 million more homes on large lots than the market needs based on data from The Atlantic Cities.  Based on these numbers alone, I think using these McMansions to house millions of families (particularly given the current economic climate) is an innovative idea.

San Francisco residents took to City Hall yesterday to echo similar proposals of converting unused space into housing.  A group fighting to help homeless rallied in front of San Francisco City Hall to garner support for vacant buildings to be converted into homes for the homeless.  The rally was well attended by supporters, many of which hoped to draw attention to the ongoing plight of the homeless population.  One protester indicated that in San Francisco alone there are approximately 30,000 vacant properties and about 10,000 people who are homeless.

Earlier today an advocate group, Homes not Jails, with a similar vision occupied a couple of vacant buildings in San Francisco to call attention to the homeless issues.  Local news covered the story involving two vacant buildings — the former Cathedral Hill Hotel and a building located on Geary Street between Polk and Van Ness Avenue — which were taken over by protesters who were vigilant in their mission to “find a place to stay for those who have none”.  So long as the facilities are rendered in proper condition for housing use, I don’t see any problems with putting unused space to good use especially to house the thousands of homeless families, seniors, disabled adults, individuals and various other residents in San Francisco.

The protest and today’s action in San Francisco coincides with “World Homeless Action Day”.

The approximately $11-billion, 11,000-megawatt dam project has been strongly supported by the Brazilian Government because they believe that it is the answer to their energy needs. The government will be appealing the ruling. The dam project was already blocked once in February 2011, but that ruling was overturned by a higher court.

“The Brazilian government had pledged to minimize the environmental and social impact of the dam and asserted that no traditional indigenous land was to be affected. However, in June of this year, the government granted an installation license for the dam, clearing the way for construction to start.”

Many major environmental groups, including Rainforest Action Network, International Rivers Network and Amazon Watch have devoted a tremendous amount of resources and energy to fighting the dam. Environmentalists and indigenous groups say the dam would devastate wildlife and the livelihoods of 40,000 people who live in the area to be flooded. Philip Fearnside of the National Amazon Research Institute (INPA) has calculated that the forests flooded by Belo Monte’s reservoirs will generate enormous quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than CO2. “The dam would divert 80 percent of the Xingu River’s flow to an artificial reservoir, causing a permanent drought on the river’s “Big Bend,” and directly affecting the Paquiçamba and Arara territories of the Juruna and Arara indigenous peoples,” according to Amazon Watch.

I heard, Atossa Soltani, the Executive Director of Amazon Watch, speak recently. She found a way to meet James Cameron (won an Oscar for Avatar) and she eventually convinced him to get involved in the fight. She has since flown down to Brazil with him, so that they could make public appearances together to fight the Belo Monte project. He has become an outspoken critic of the dam along with Avatar star Sigourney Weaver and Sting. Cameron has compared this battle to the plot of Avatar. Ms. Soltani also directly confronted Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, in person, in New York City regarding the impending, horribly detrimental impacts of the dam. Hopefully Rousseff will ultimately have a change of heart should the project continue.

If the dam is ultimately built, then it will become the third largest dam in the world out of the more than 50,000 dams which are existence. Most people don’t know, but 2 large canals would need to be built for the dam and more earth will be excavated than was needed to build the Panama Canal.

(Sources for this story include AFP, AP, Amazon Watch, International Rivers Network, Google News and ABC News).

Ms. Minnehan likely accomplished more for tenants legislatively than any other individual in California history. One of her biggest accomplishments was establishing the 20% revenue set-aside for housing by redevelopment agencies, which has helped create much more affordable housing in SF and the greater Bay Area. She worked closely with former Senator John Burton to promulgate Proposition 46, a $2.1 billion bond issue for affordable housing. She was instrumental in the change for most no-cause eviction notices to go from 30 to 60 days. She helped pass a law prohibiting housing discrimination based on the source of a tenant’s income. There are a plethora of other fair housing and landlord-tenant reforms she played a major role in getting passed.

This year Ms. Minnehan received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Housing Consortium at their 2011 Spring Policy Forum. The award was presented by Former Department of Housing Director Lynn Jacobs who said that nothing would have been accomplished in affordable housing in the last 30 years without Ms. Minnehan’s participation.

“The civil justice system in San Francisco is collapsing,” Judge Feinstein said. “We will prioritize criminal, juvenile, and other matters that must, by law, be adjudicated within time limits. Beyond that, justice will neither be swift nor accessible.”
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“The Governor and the legislature, in enacting their budget some weeks ago, have left this Court with no alternative other than to slash judicial services, layoff our skilled, hard-working employees, and compromise the timely delivery of civil justice to the citizens of this county,” Judge Feinstein said. “It is with deep regret that we today make known the specific consequences of these sweeping budget cuts.”

It certainly appeared that a new era was at the door for San Franciscans, an era where civil justice would be exceedingly slow, difficult, frustrating, wholly out of reach even, for many.
But, yesterday came a new press release from the Court, which appears as a harbinger of some unexpectedly good news. As there stated, the SF Court reached an agreement with the overseeing body, Administrative Office of the Courts, for additional emergency funding. While the funding will not be able to restore all the contemplated cuts, the situation appears to look much less dire for the immediate future:

“This agreement represents a true compromise with the AOC to help the San Francisco Superior Court lessen the blow on access to justice,” Judge Feinstein said. “If the Judicial Council approves the terms of the agreement, our Court would reduce civil courtroom closures from 25 to 14 and lay off 15 percent instead of 40 percent of our staff [approximately 75 employees still to be laid off].”
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“We could save some jobs, although not enough,” Judge Feinstein said. “We would be able to offer more access to our civil justice system, but not as much as San Franciscans deserve. I compromised on this temporary approach because there is momentum building among attorneys and lawmakers to achieve a long-term solution to inadequate trial court funding.”

With this announcement, it appears that for the time being, Civil Justice will still be available in SF, although there will surely still be difficulties and slow-downs as the more moderate reductions go into effect.

Obviously, a reduction in the Court resources frustrates attorneys who practice in San Francisco. But all persons who live in SF or do business here should be aware and concerned about this issue, as access to Justice is fundamental and nobody can predict when they may require the Court facilities — which are now on ‘life-support’ — to obtain remedies when others have harmed and damaged them.

We hope Judge Feinstein is correct that a long-term solution is on the horizon, given the attention given this problem since the Court first announced the looming layoffs and reductions. We will keep readers updated on this situation as it progresses.

It started in December 2010, when a little known group entitled Youth for Climate Truth posed as Koch Industries (just like the Yes Men), and sent out a fake press release. The press release in essence said that the Koch brothers had realized that global warming was actually accurate and that they were done opposing the regulation of emissions which contribute to global warming.

When the Koch brotherhood found out about this spoof they went after the youngsters as hard as they could, by filing a lawsuit in federal district court claiming financial damages, “cyberspoofing” (that’s a new one on me) and trademark infringement. Fortunately for the activists, Public Citizen — an organization based in D.C. and originally founded by Ralph Nader — decided to defend them. The attorneys from Public Citizen (I have had many friends who have worked for this phenomenal group) filed motions to quash the Kochs’ subpoenas, to protect the activists’ identities and to dismiss the case. And in May of this year, Judge Dale Kimball ruled in the Defendants’ favor on all aspects of their motion and the case was dismissed.

In case you missed it the first time around, the hoax was pretty great. Although the fake website, Koch-Inc.com, is no longer live, you can read the fake “Koch Industries” press release here. Here is a snippet:

Based on recent internal evaluations of Koch Industries priorities, the company will be restructuring its support of climate change research and advocacy initiatives and will discontinue contributions to groups whose positions on climate change no longer match those of the company’s leadership, beginning in January 2011.

For more, see this May 10, 2011 article from AlterNet.

No, really, he was a one in a million kind of guy and as close to a super hero as any human comes.

I attended his memorial last Saturday and was quite moved by the many eulogies. Not only was he a homeless and tenant activist, including being the founder and longtime Executive Director of the Eviction Defense Collaborative here in SF (“EDC”), but he was an avid bicyclist, a black belt in Akido and so much more. One of his friends talked about how he saved 3 guys’ lives (including the speaker) when they were getting sucked into the ocean by a riptide. He was in incredible shape from all that biking and Akido. Sadly he died when he was snorkeling in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, when a drunk lifeguard smashed into his head on a jet ski.

In 2001, Miguel moved into the Purple Rose Collective, a collective house since 1978 and he was able to get the house converted to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit which meant that they no longer had to pay property taxes. But he took it one step further and got the County of San Francisco to retroactively refund some of the property taxes that they had paid! Can you believe that?! Only Miguel would have had the gumption and the brains to pull that off.

Speaking of being brainy, Miguel graduated from some school down in the South Bay called Stanford. He got a B.S. in Physics. But rather than go out and make a lot of money working for a weapons manufacturer or some other such industry or work toward becoming a professor, he applied his talents to helping the homeless, with Swords to Ploughshares, and then Homes Not Jails.

Eventually Miguel realized that he could help stem the tide of homelessness by keeping people in their homes. As stated in his memorial program, he was assisting at the SF Tenants’ Union, “counseling tenants and overseeing the Tenant’s Rights Book into a real book, and coordinating trainings for
counselors.”

He went on to build the EDC into a massive non-profit with 14 staff members and a legion of volunteers. He no doubt helped keep hundreds, if not thousands of tenants, in their homes.
Tenant attorneys throughout San Francisco called on Miguel for legal advice; however, he was not even a lawyer! The law didn’t intimidate Miguel for a moment. Moreover, he was smarter than any of us tenant lawyers. He also helped author some legislation for tenants and was a big part of all legislation that came out of the tenant community in the last 20 years.

And through it all he remained a humble servant of the people. A true servant of the people unlike most politicians who have a facade of helping the people, but who are really interested in fame and power. Miguel truly cared about people and he had no judgment toward them.

Attorney Tom Drohan, of Legal Assistance to the Elderly, put it best (as reported by Paul Hogarth in BeyondChron):

“Farewell to a giant…. [Miguel's] intelligence was only matched by his generosity. His work on behalf of tenants, both at the legislative level and at the direct services level was incredible. He would have been an enormous success at anything he chose, and he chose to give his talents to the tenant community. He will be very missed.”

San Francisco lost one of its’ finest citizens this Summer, a true super man, and Miguel’s humble legacy will live on. Hopefully the tenant community will find a way to pick up the slack, but at least in the short term, there’s a huge void where Miguel should be. Thank you Miguel!

The demonstration was organized by Homes not Jails, drawing attention to the waste of housing which persists in San Francisco.

KTVU covered the story here:

Crain (a self identified squatter) said that Homes Not Jails was reclaiming the vacant property for homeless families and individuals. Organizers are outraged that on any given night approximately 10,000 San Franciscans are sleeping on the street.

The activists cited 2010 Census data indicating that some 32,000 housing units remained vacant.

“Personally, I’d like to see the community occupy the space, take it over and use it,” Crain said. “It’s the community that’s sleeping on the street in front of these 43 units.”