Anti-Eviction Activist (and City Council Candidate) Josh Farris Is Being Evicted

Josh Farris is a city council candidate and housing activist who was part of a group that blocked the eviction of a disabled veteran last year. Courtesy of Josh Farris

This is terrible personal news that may also be the best thing that’s happened to Josh Farris’ campaign so far—and he seems to know it.

Farris, who is challenging city council member Bruce Harrell in southeast Seattle's District 2, is getting evicted from his North Beacon Hill one-bedroom apartment at the end of the month. This afternoon, he'll turn that bad news into a press conference and protest to draw attention to his campaign platform.

"Arguably Seattle's most active anti-eviction organizer runs for City Council in poorest district against rich landlord during housing crisis," Farris writes in a text message action alert and a post on his Facebook event page (he's talking about Harrell, by the way, with the "rich landlord" reference.) "And now faces greed and political based eviction in 10 days. Calls for tenant rights, rent control, and affordable housing now."

Based on Farris’s account and e-mails sent between Farris, his wife, and their landlord, the eviction comes after months of apparent drama and bickering between the landlord and Farris about things like whether Farris and his wife allowed long-term overnight guests and whether the landlord overheard Farris calling him a “cocksucker” and an “extortionist" in a loud voice on a Sunday morning.

But according to the landlord, Neil Wilson, Farris is being evicted because Wilson and his wife want to move into Farris’s apartment when the lease ends at the end of this month. And under the city’s Just Cause Eviction ordinance, that’s one of the totally legit reasons a landlord can evict a tenant on a month-to-month lease agreement with just 20 days notice.

Farris requested 30 extra days to find a new place, but Wilson says that request came after Farris had already begun advertising the protest.

"He wants me to give him something," Wilson tells The Stranger, "and in return he's going to protest me."

Wilson denied Farris's request.

Now, Farris says he and his wife are scrambling to find a new apartment or house to rent or to buy. Until they do, they'll have to couch surf, he says.

These sorts of “no-fault” evictions are the target of potential reform coming before the city council next week from council president Tim Burgess (but actually long-advocated-for by his reelection opponent, tenant advocate Jon Grant). That proposal would change the requirement for notice when landlords want to move themselves or their immediate family into a dwelling from 20 days to 90 days. The change would also increase notice for another no-fault eviction—when the landlord wants to sell the building—from the current 60 days to 90.

Translation: If that new law was in place now, Farris and his wife would have three months to find a new apartment instead of less than one. (And in this alternate universe, if Farris and his wife had been given the eviction notice on the same day, May 5, they'd have to be out by the day before the primary election—giving them more breathing room, and also making for an even higher-profile campaign moment!)

Wilson, the landlord, e-mailed and called the offices of council members Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata to find out if they were planning to attend the protest. (Licata isn't planning to; it's still unclear whether Sawant will.)

"I just want to know what to expect," Wilson says. "It’s a different thing if we have council people showing up to this."

Wilson also notified tenants of the building about the protest, telling them that if they participate it "will not affect our ongoing tenant/landlord relationship" and asking that they "allow the event participants some extra leeway, within reason. For example, if the protest is blocking the parking spaces or entrance to the alley, park on the street until the event is over."

"Joshuas’ [sic] organization practices direct action advocacy," the notice reads. "Their typical protests include signage, call and response chanting utilizing an amplified bullhorn, and draw about 10 to 50 participants. Joshua let me know they will be loud. They may schedule additional protests in the future. If necessary, after May 31st there may be legal means available to prohibit un‐invited protestors from entering the property."