Ellis Act evictions are a nightmare in San Francisco, as speculators seek profits by ousting low-income, elderly and disabled tenants from their homes. Lola McKay, Grace Wells, and Susan Suval are among the many high-profile victims of Ellis evictions, and all received free legal representation from attorneys at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. But if the Newsom Administration gets its way, low-income tenants facing Ellis evictions will no longer have attorneys to fight for their rights. Newsom’s Human Services Administration (HSA) is ending the Clinic’s funding for Ellis Act defense, offering a stimulus package for the real estate speculators negatively impacted by the industry downturn. The termination of the Clinic’s $125,000 in annual funding -- which helps fund three attorneys for far less than the salary of a single first year associate in a downtown firm -- comes as the Newsom Administration is promoting a sharp increase in condo conversions. More condo conversions would boost incentives for Ellis evictions, increasing tenants need for legal services the city would no longer fund.

Last November, voters sent a strong pro-tenant message when it elected Supervisors John Avalos, David Chiu and Eric Mar over landlord-backed candidates. All three strongly backed Ellis Act eviction protections. Despite these results, and the easy approval of Prop M, which strengthened tenant protections against landlord harassment, the Newsom Administration now wants to help San Francisco speculators evict tenants under the Ellis Act.

This is an outrage.

For only $125,000 per year, San Francisco has ensured that those most vulnerable to Ellis Act evictions will have access to free legal representation. This representation guarantees that tenants receive the procedural and substantive protections to which they are entitled, and that they get sufficient time to find new housing when they are ultimately forced to move.

Clinic attorneys (disclosure: the Clinic publishes Beyond Chron) have also been able to defeat Ellis evictions, keeping longterm tenants in their homes.

Legal representation also has a profound deterrent impact. Speculators seeking to profit from the Ellis Act know that, in San Francisco, they are looking at a potentially multi-year legal fight that could cost them between $50-100,000 in attorneys’ fees along with years of lost rental income.

That’s enough to make many think twice about the economic benefit of speculator evictions.

But if speculators know that the vulnerable tenants they are targeting cannot obtain legal counsel, the economic calculus changes radically. They no longer need to worry about spending tens of thousands of dollars in upfront costs, and can avoid complying with the procedural requirements of Ellis, such as paying the statutory tenant relocation fee.

How do we know this will happen? Because many Ellis speculators already ignore such legal requirements -- but then find themselves in trouble when the case gets to court.

The Newsom Administration would make sure these cases do not get to court. Rather, the elderly tenants targeted by Ellis speculators will be evicted without any argument, regardless of whether the law has been followed.

And considering that funding is slated to end on June 30, Clinic attorneys must stop taking new cases immediately, since notices or lawsuits filed today would still be going on when the funding runs out.

This means that San Francisco’s speculator stimulus package has had an impact even before President’s Obama’s plan!

Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors cannot allow this to happen. And it is hard to believe that either wants to help speculators throw longterm tenants out of their homes.

The Mayor has been out of the city much of the past month, and is likely unaware of what is being done in his Administration’s name. He had a staffer call Susan Suval -- the most high profile current victim of Ellis -- who asked what the mayor could do to help; it's unlikely he would have offered such assistance if he knew his Administration was eliminating the funding for her attorneys, leaving her with no legal representation if the Clinic wins a reversal of her eviction and a new Ellis notice is then issued.

The City’s Budget Deficit is No Excuse

The city’s massive budget deficit requires cuts to many valued programs, and city officials have justified eliminating funding for the Clinic’s Ellis Act legal representation on that basis. But there remain a large number of city staff whose combined salary and benefits greatly exceed the $125,000 allocated to the Clinic’s highly praised and veteran legal team.

Consider Nik Kaestner, who began his job as San Francisco school district's director of sustainability a few months ago, after the Newsom Administration was cutting programs and raising alarm bells about city spending. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kaestner 's salary and expenses, totalling $150,000, will be picked up by the city's Department of the Environment and the Public Utilities Commission.

Given the budget crisis, Kaestner should never have been hired. And there is something very wrong with San Francisco’s salary structure when such a position has a starting salary that greatly exceeds what is necessary to attract top quality talent.

Does anyone believe that in this job market the city could not have gotten a great sustainability coordinator for $75,000?

Kaestner’s starting salary exceeds that of the Clinic attorneys working on Ellis Act eviction defense. Two have over twenty years experience, offering an incredible bargain to the city that Newsom’s budget crunchers clearly do not appreciate.

Wade Crowfoot draws a $125,000 salary as Newsom’s Director of Climate Protection Initiatives. I asked in January 2008 whether a city with a projected $270 million budget deficit really needed Crowfoot’s position. We now know that Newsom’s budget office believes Crowfoot offers a more important service to the city than attorneys helping low-income, elderly and/or disabled tenants stay in their homes.

There are many staff who cost the city more than the $125,000 for the Clinic’s Ellis Act contract, and we won’t be able to get through all of them today. From the high-paid staffer whose chief job is escorting Newsom to schools, to Republican Kevin Ryan’s $150,000 plus salary for a nonessential position heading the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, to the many hard-working people who are simply paid far, far more than they could ever get in the private sector, there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong about how city funds are allocated.

It is a sad day when longterm San Francisco tenants must live in fear of receiving an Ellis Act eviction notice, knowing they cannot afford the thousands of dollars necessary to secure private legal representation. We do not like to think of this progressive city as a place where the legal needs of low-income tenants are scorned, and subordinated to the profit demands of those who prey on the most vulnerable.

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Executive Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic.