Legally blind Oakland senior faces potential homelessness after judge sides with landlord

A legally blind senior in Oakland who suffers from a host of other medical issues faces the possibility of being homeless as soon as next week after a judge sided with his landlord in court.

In February, the same judge had reversed a default eviction judgement against Gary Gilbert, 67, and ordered his landlords to let Gilbert back into his home.

However, the Oakland Station Senior apartments, the affordable housing apartment complex where Gilbert lived, refused to let him back into his home, arguing the judge did not have the authority to restore possession of the unit back to Gilbert.

On Friday, the judge ultimately sided with Gilbert’s landlords.

While Gilbert’s attorney plans to appeal the decision, her client has nowhere to go after county funding for the Oakland motel where he's been staying since the eviction is expected to dry up next week.

“I’m concerned that I’ll be living on the street,” Gilbert said. “For me, especially in my condition and my age, I know I wouldn’t last too long, you know? I’m really concerned about that. Matter of fact, I’m scared.”

Gilbert’s landlord, a company called Oakland Pacific Associates, declined to comment on the eviction.

Most of Gilbert’s possessions remain in his old apartment. The Oakland Station had previously allowed Gilbert and his attorney back inside to collect some belongings, but since he doesn't have any storage space, they could only gather a handful of essentials.

“Given that it’s Mr. Gilbert’s lifetime possessions, we hope that they will allow us a date and time to go back in to get those,” said Gilbert’s attorney Maria Guerra, who works for the East Bay Community Law Center.

Guerra said they’ve offered to pay all the back rent owed by Gilbert if they let him back into his unit and said she’s perplexed the landlords haven’t accepted the offer.

“It’s ridiculous,” Guerra said. “They would get the rent that they were owed, and Mr. Gilbert would still have his housing. And yet, we’ve gone through this complicated process just to end in homelessness for a Bay Area native.”

Gilbert is a former bus and truck driver who said he had to stop working when his vision got so bad he couldn’t read the signs on the road.

Because of Gilbert’s vision and other medical issues, he had been relying on a family member to make his rent payments using Gilbert’s own funds. However, the Oakland Station said they haven’t received rent payments from their tenant in more than a year, and Gilbert said he suspects his family member had not been paying.

He also said he had no idea that the Oakland Station had begun eviction proceedings against him because the notices were in writing, and he had asked his landlords for verbal notice of anything important.

A judge issued a default eviction judgement against Gilbert because he never responded to the case in court, and sheriff’s deputies ultimately removed him from his home in January. Guerra, who Gilbert was able to contact on the same day he was kicked out, agreed to intervene, and convinced a judge to set the eviction aside due to the unusual circumstances.

While the judge did toss out the eviction and order possession of the apartment be returned to Gilbert, he later ruled he couldn’t force the landlords to let Gilbert back inside and give him a new set of keys.

“[It was] a total surprise because he had sided with us when we first went to court,” Gilbert said. “I thought that was his decision.”

Guerra is now working with Alameda County Adult Protective services in hopes of finding affordable housing options for her client, but she said so far, they’ve come up empty.

“The prospects right now seem grim because there aren’t really any units available for seniors,” Guerra said. “Affordable housing like this is not readily available.”

Gilbert said he can’t survive on the street or in a shelter. He’s still in shock and struggles to process where he goes from here.

“Before I left this earth, I thought that would be my last resting place,” Gilbert said. “Now everything’s up in the air. I really don’t know what to do.”