Tom Rapp and Patricia Kerman are fighting an Ellis eviction. Photo by Sara Bloomberg
By Sara Bloomberg
FEB 27, 2014 — A march against one of San Francisco’s so-called “Dirty Dozen” landlords demonstrates that the tenant movement is continuing to fight both at the ballot box and in the streets.
Just as the results of the citywide tenants convention vote was announced via email by the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, around 70 people marched in the rain to take the anti-eviction cause to the real-estate office of a landlord who is using the Ellis Act to evict two tenants.
Patricia Kerman and Tom Rapp have lived at their home near 20th and Folsom streets for 27 and 15 years, respectively, and have to move out by the end of August, they said.
Since Kerman is a senior, they were given a year’s notice, but they want to stay in their longtime home and are fighting to get their landlord, Kaushik Dattani, to withdraw the eviction.
“When I moved in there, it was a dicey neighborhood. There were hookers up and down the street. I’d open my door in the morning to go to work and there’d be somebody passed out,” Kerman told 48 Hills. “So, they gladly took my money all through those times to make their payments but now that they can make more money, now I have to go. And I have no place to go. It terrifies me.” (more after the jump)
