By Wendy Patterson-January 2, 2008
Tina Marie Williams For Tina Marie Williams, it all started one day in late August: "A black SUV pulled up and a guy got out," she recalled. "He looked around for about thirty minutes then taped a piece of paper on my mailbox. That's how I found out the property was going to be auctioned on September 2 at 12 p.m."
Williams is now fighting eviction, the last hold-out renter in a dreary fourplex on 90th Avenue in East Oakland. As the sub-prime mortgage debacle and foreclosures dominate the headlines, less visible is the plight of such renters. When buildings are put up for auction or banks repossess, tenants like Williams are often caught in limbo — abandoned by their landlords, threatened or bribed by Realtors to leave, and faced with the challenge of finding new housing.
East Bay housing organizations are reporting marked increases in calls from desperate renters living in properties facing foreclosure. The East Bay Community Law Center's Housing Specialist Gracie Jones said they got 24 calls in one day recently. On average, they receive about thirty a week.
Often the first tenants hear of a problem is when they get a notice saying the property has been repossessed or is now owned by someone who bought it in auction. Other times, their utilities are turned off because the owner has stopped paying the bills.
Banks, which are often outside of the area, hire local property managers or Realtors to negotiate. But tenant advocates say they often threaten tenants and pressure them to move out.
Berkeley, Hayward, and Oakland have ordinances to protect tenants from being evicted without "just cause." But tenants who don't know their rights can feel frightened by the notices they receive. Some take "cash for keys" offers, even though it may be impossible for them to find a comparable rental.
In Contra Costa County, however, a tenant can be evicted with only thirty days notice following the sale of a property, said Claudia Johnson, managing attorney for Bay Area Legal Aid in Oakland. Johnson said Legal Aid is getting hundreds of calls from all over the Bay Area by tenants in distress. "Tenants are telling us of owners at risk of foreclosure who are really stressed out and they are taking it out on their tenants by being really mean. They are desperate and are not going through a legal process. And these tenants are often the most vulnerable: the disabled, the elderly, single moms."
In Williams' case, she said her landlord, Sunday John, told her nothing was wrong after the notice was posted. So she continued to pay the $950 monthly rent for her two-bedroom apartment. "He just lied all the way," Williams says. John could not be reached for comment.
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Pets becoming casualty of foreclosure
"People are losing their homes, and animals are the fallout of that," said Cecily Tippery, a Coldwell Banker agent who specializes in foreclosed properties, and now also in rescuing pets left behind.
Although local animal control officers say there's no evidence of a big spike in abandoned pets, stories of often starving animals left behind in foreclosed houses have begun to crop up across the country.
No one has documented the number of pets turning up after foreclosures, but there is anecdotal evidence of a statewide problem, said Paul Bruce, regional program coordinator for the Sacramento regional office of the Humane Society of the United States.
Foreclosures are "leaving the cities with all of the problems, including animals that have been left behind," said Bruce.
Realtors speculate that many of the animals were abandoned by former homeowners who turn to rental housing where the landlords bar pets.
One Contra Costa County animal control official said the law requires the banks, or whoever owns the home, to tend to the abandoned animals. Lt. Joe Decosta said he expects more forsaken pets as the wave of foreclosures and the economic fallout washes away more homeowners.
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