Laws put in place to protect some of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents during the pandemic now seem to be putting renters and landlords in almost impossible positions.
Like many major cities across California, Oakland enacted an eviction moratorium following the COVID-19 outbreak, prohibiting landlords from kicking out tenants unable to pay their rent.
Records from Oakland’s housing department show the number of eviction notices filed against renters dropped by about 80% once the moratorium went into effect.
However, an NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit analysis of Oakland eviction records found landlords still sent out more than 2,500 eviction notices during the three-year eviction moratorium — including more than 350 notices to renters living at low-income senior housing buildings.
The letters threatened to kick out renters within just a few days, even though legal experts say landlords did not actually have the authority to evict them. During the moratorium, which lasted from early March 2020 through July 14, 2023, courts were not granting evictions for lack of payment.
Eviction notices sent during the moratorium, by address
An NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit analysis of Oakland eviction records found landlords sent out more than 2,500 eviction notices during the three-year eviction moratorium — including more than 350 notices to renters living at low-income senior housing buildings.
Source: Oakland Department of Housing and Community Development
Credit: Sean Myers / NBC Bay Area
“There’s no teeth behind those notices because the law says you can't collect that rent for that time period,” said real estate attorney Mark Chernev. “It's essentially worthless.”
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But for many tenants, just getting those eviction notices proved reason enough to pack up.
“That can cause very vulnerable populations, like low-income seniors, to be scared and not know their rights and, you know, to basically move out,” said attorney Anne Tamiko Omura, executive director of the Eviction Defense Center, a nonprofit that provides legal aid to more than 3,000 low-income tenants each year facing eviction.
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“So then the eviction is successful, even though it was supposed to be barred during that time period,” she said.
An Investigative Unit analysis of building ownership records and state business filings found more than 350 notices were sent to tenants at just 10 buildings housing low-income seniors and people with disabilities. The buildings are owned and operated by one of three entities: Newport Partners, LLC, Christian Church Homes, and Human Good, which calls itself “California’s largest nonprofit provider of senior housing.”
Human Good was the only one that responded to requests for comment, telling the Investigative Unit the eviction notices it sent during the moratorium, “…do not reflect the actual number of evictions, which are extremely rare and must be approved by the court.”
Courts, however, do not enter the eviction process until days or weeks after those notices are sent to tenants.
“They weren't allowed to serve that notice in the first place,” Chernev said. “And if a tenant moved as a result, they could sue the landlord for wrongfully evicting them.”
For a tenant to win a case for wrongful eviction, they need to leave the rental unit, Chernev said. That puts the burden on the renter to find a new place and then take the landlord to court.
Advocates say the government is doing next to nothing to protect them.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office did not disclose how many wrongful eviction cases it has prosecuted, if any. The city attorney’s office in Oakland said it tried four wrongful eviction cases in the past five years.
Uptick in seniors facing eviction and homelessness
Today, nearly a quarter of the Oakland clients at the Eviction Defense Center are seniors — up 17% compared to pre-pandemic.
“We're seeing an alarming rise in the eviction of low-income seniors,” Omura said.
Tenant advocacy groups in San Francisco and Berkeley are seeing similar spikes, at 20% and 15% respectively.
“Seniors were hit very, very hard by COVID. A lot of them, they have fixed incomes … Social Security that barely, barely covers the rent,” she said. “So they had like little side jobs to supplement and the moment the pandemic hit, all those jobs dried up.”
Nationally, seniors are the fastest-growing age group experiencing homelessness — roughly 140,000 and counting, according to the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
“We see people who are in their 90s. We've had a couple clients who are 100 years old,” Omura said. “How do you tell somebody who's 75, get back in the job market because you need to make $600 more a month? A lot of these situations are really impossible.”
Moratorium ends, evictions resume
After Oakland’s three-year-long eviction moratorium ended last July, landlords were allowed to begin demanding a year’s worth of back rent – and evict tenants who didn’t pay up.
For 80-year-old Zada Flowers, that meant leaving her Oakland home of 26 years, a place where she raised her four adopted children and more than 20 foster children.
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair,” she said.
Flowers runs a day care out of her home, but the pandemic decimated her small business. She said her rent of nearly $2,000 a month became unaffordable.
Flowers eventually received an eviction notice from her landlord demanding she pay nearly $18,000 in owed rent or move out in three days.
“What went through my mind, first of all, is they didn't care,” Flowers said. “To expect me to move that fast – impossible.”
Tenants can legally fight off their eviction if they can show they endured a “substantial” financial hardship as a result of COVID-19.
Chernev said renters need to have documentation proving their struggles. They may also have to get an attorney if their landlord disagrees and takes them to court.
“If it's truly the result of substantial financial hardship … you would have bank records, you would have credit card bills, you'd have loss of income that you could show, you could have decrease of hours. That would be pretty easy to prove up,” Chernev said. “You can't just say it. You have to be able to support it.”
Chernev has represented hundreds of landlords, including the homeowner who sent Flowers her eviction notice.
“My client has responsibilities. She as well as other property owners need that rental income to meet their own financial responsibilities,” Chernev said. “As unfortunate as it is, small property owners can't subsidize these types of situations. It's not fair to ask them to.”
Instead of going to court, Flowers reached a settlement with her landlord that forgives her owed rent and provides her with moving expenses if she leaves by next month.
“I'm seeing seniors out pushing carts now because they're homeless,” Flowers said. “Many others didn't have the knowledge of knowing what to do … they just moved out. They just left.”
