San Francisco evictions surge, report finds S.F. report shows impact of landlords forcing out tenants to sell their units

Video: Blind elderly woman faces eviction

The popular assumption that rising rents are squeezing longtime residents out of San Francisco appears to be true: A new city report finds that evictions, particularly those related to taking units off the rental market, have skyrocketed in recent years.

The report by the city's budget and legislative analyst was requested by Supervisor David Campos and shows that Ellis Act evictions, often used when a landlord wants to eject tenants in order to sell the units, jumped by 170 percent from the year ending February 2010 to the year ending February 2013. During the same period, there was a 38 percent increase in all evictions, while home prices in San Francisco rose by 22 percent over the three-year period.

In all, there were 1,716 evictions between March 2012 and February 2013; 116 of them were Ellis Act evictions.

The jump is in part the result of a sharp decline in Ellis Act evictions after the economic collapse of 2009. In 2010, the number of Ellis Act evictions fell to below 100 for the first time in 10 years; it has been steadily climbing since, yet is still far below the high of 384 in 2000.

A handful of neighborhoods account for most of the Ellis Act evictions. The Mission District, where housing prices rose by nearly 30 percent over the three-year period, topped the list, with 71 between 2009 and 2013. The other areas with high numbers of Ellis evictions were Russian Hill, the Castro, the Inner and Outer Richmond, North Beach and the Haight-Ashbury/Western Addition.

The evictions don't appear to be letting up: The report, which relied largely on data from the city's Rent Board, found that Ellis Act evictions were up 145 percent between September 2012 and September 2013, compared with the prior 12-month period.

Staggering numbers

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Campos, who represents the Mission District, called the numbers staggering but not surprising. He said he hopes the report will help spur city leaders to take the situation seriously and figure out ways to slow the tides of evictions.

The issue has attracted increasing attention at City Hall, but no concrete solutions have been put in place. Campos said he is looking at the possibility of increasing the amount that landlords must pay evicted tenants for relocation expenses - currently, it's about $5,200 per person. The increase could help tenants stay in the city and act as a disincentive for evictions, he argues.

"I think (the data) confirms what I was seeing anecdotally," he said of the spike in Ellis Act evictions. "Probably the most striking aspect is that I think that you can see it's something that is happening everywhere. Some neighborhoods are impacted more than others, but it is impacting every neighborhood, not just one specific area of the city."

'Not in crisis'

Janan New, executive director of the San Francisco Apartment Association, which represents landlords, said the numbers don't seem so remarkable if you compare them to the early 2000s, when hundreds of renters were facing Ellis Act evictions each year. Comparatively, she said, there were only about 120 in all of 2011 and 2012.

"That's nothing," she said. "I don't understand why people keep thinking this is a crisis. The crisis happened in 2000. We are not in crisis right now."

The Ellis Act, a state law, allows owners to evict tenants when they want to take their property off the rental market, usually in order to sell it. Under local law, landlords may also evict tenants when they want to move into their units or for cause - for example, if a renter fails to pay rent.

The city's economy has bounced back in recent years, driven largely by a tech boom. City leaders have encouraged the growth by offering tax breaks and other incentives to draw companies into San Francisco. But with it has come a squeeze on the city's already inadequate housing stock: The report states that the citywide rental vacancy rate decreased from 6.4 percent in 2009 to 2.8 percent in 2012, "contributing to the pressure on rental rates." And it warns that even with new units being planned and built, any impact could be offset if the city's population continues to rise.

"The increase in the market value of residential properties in San Francisco could be one of the causes fueling the increase in Ellis Act evictions as the incentive for rental property owners to discontinue renting their properties and sell them rises," the report states. "A similar relationship between increased Ellis Act evictions increased along with home prices, particularly in 2004 and 2005, and declined as home prices increased in 2008 and 2009 during the economic recession."

Surging home prices

The median sale prices of all homes in San Francisco fell from a high in 2007 of $856,000 to $702,000 in 2011, then rose to $897,000 this year.

It's likely that even more tenants were displaced in recent years, the report states, because the city's eviction control laws apply only to housing units under rent control - about 170,000, built before 1979 - and because some landlords may offer buyouts before they move toward eviction.

Ted Gullickson, director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, estimates that for every Ellis Act eviction, an additional three to four households are displaced by "buyouts," where an owner offers two choices: leave for a certain amount of money or face an eviction.

"When you incorporate them, the numbers are even more staggering," he said.

The San Francisco Apartment Association's New agreed, saying property owners view Ellis Act evictions as a last resort and prefer to offer buyouts. Instead of placing more restrictions on owners, she said - as Guillickson's group recently proposed - city leaders should be focusing on building more homes.

"Our elected body believes the answer to the housing shortage is further restrictions, and they don't seem to understand that if that was the answer, we wouldn't be in this situation again," she said. "The only thing elected officials can do is create middle-income housing for people."

'All income levels'

Campos agreed that the city needs to focus on "more affordable housing at all income levels." He noted that it's not just low-income people being squeezed by the rising prices in San Francisco.

Nearly 43 percent of the city's 238,000 rental households paid more than 30 percent of their income for rent in 2011, the report states. In the Bayview, Excelsior and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods, that number jumps to 57 percent. But it's also nearly 40 percent in more affluent neighborhoods such as Pacific Heights, the Marina District and North Beach, Campos said.

"That definitely proves what we have heard, that it's becoming increasingly difficult to be able to afford to live in San Francisco, and certainly for families with children. ... Even people making a good salary are paying a disproportionate percentage of income into housing," he said. "That has implications. It makes you wonder how long people can actually stay in the city."