CitiApartments comes under fire
SF Tenants Testified against CitiApartments at Board of Supervisors’ Land Use Committee
On Monday, May 12, 2008 at 1 PM, tenants from across San Francisco testified at the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee against CitiApartments, one of the biggest landlords in the San Francisco. CitiApartments owns more than 300 residential buildings in San Francisco with more than 10,000 tenants. CitiApartments is notorious for buying large amounts of rent controlled buildings, and pushing tenants out in order to increase rents to market rate. CitiApartments has a history of strong arming tenants to vacate, fabricating evictions, unlawfully entering tenants’ apartments, making tenants uncomfortable with unnecessary repairs, carrying out illegal conversions, and forcibly buying tenants out.
For the last three years CitiSTOP, a group of CitiApartment tenants and housing organizations, have demanded that CitiApartments be a responsible landlord. Currently, the City Attorney’s Office has a pending lawsuit against CitiApartments because of their bad business tactics and treatment of tenants that is scheduled to go to court in 2009.
Supervisor Daly sponsored the hearing for CitiApartment tenants and their allies to voice their concerns, and tell their personal stories of how CitiApartments has affected them. Over 100 tenants came to testify at the hearing. According to one organizer, CitiApartments bused in employees and compensated them to appear at the hearing in t-shirts that said “I support CitiApartments.” Only 3 tenants testified in support of CitiApartments though while over 100 tenants came out to voice their complaints…
Later today, video coverage should be available by clicking here.
This hearing was requested by: Supervisor Chris Daly, CitiSTOP, The Queer Youth Organizing Project of Pride at Work, St. Peter’s Housing Committee, Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the SF Tenant’s Union
“I’m a volunteer with the queer youth organizing project.” Sarah Lazare
“Tenants rights and human rights must be respected.” Guadalupe Arreola
Supervisor Chris Daly champions the cause of tenants from CitiApartments
Joseles De La Cruz
Commissioner Debra Walker, Department of Building Inspection
Hearing Room, Kate Raven and Jane Martin
Pride at Work at Work, Emma Gerould and Jane Martin in front row
Wendy Lee
Garm
Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Chris Daly
Josue Arguelles
Alsyzabeth Alexander
Robert Haaland
Tim Durning, Harvey Milk Club
May 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Good going Robert and QYOP! Talk about raising some queer hell. Right on!!!
May 14th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I do a lot a walking all over S.F. and it blows my mind how they (citiapartments) are gobbling up all the rental property. It’s really frightening!
May 28th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Before moving into their new office at 2099 Market Street three years ago, Skyline/CitiApartments illegally removed the ADA-compliant wheelchair ramp that had been installed as part of the renovations done by California Federal Savings in the mid-1990s.
On May 14, the Department of Building Inspection issued a first notice of violation, giving them ninety days to correct the problem.
Skyline/CitiApartments will only provide rent receipts to someone who pays rent in person at the front desk. In other words, anyone who uses a wheelchair could not request a receipt, and thus could not counter a “mistaken” three-day notice to pay rent or quit. Several years ago, a friend of mine (who used a wheelchair) received SEVEN such notices from them, all of which were “mistakes” according to various people at Skyline, including Taylor Lembi. On each of the many occasions I contacted them about this, no one there ever accepted my suggestion that these were fraudulent, as it is more or less impossible to make the same mistake seven times, especially after someone has repeatedly brought that mistake to their attention through phone calls, letters, and communication from an attorney.