EVICTIONS I HAVE SEEN, by James Windsor What is happening. Today is July 14, 2014. It is overcast and chance of rain and I can smell rain and we do need rain as we are currently in a drought but so far today no rain. Food prices have gone up quiet a bit because of this prolonged drought which has continued for more than three years now. Everyone says there is no rain because of global warming. Gaza and Israel are at war again. Today and for the last several days they are dropping bombs on each other. Many palestinians have been killed and according to the newspaper today one israeli. World government leaders talk to Israel and Gaza and say let us have peace, but really how can there be peace when there is no freedom for millions of people who have very few resources and almost no potential for a future and who are locked up in a tiny area and cannot go anywhere and have very little money so really how can world government leaders expect there to be peace. The world leaders believe that peace is possible, but then it is not the world leaders who are living in Gaza or Israel. The world leaders all have large incomes and attend banquets and live in mansions and have pensions and are provided all sorts of benefits and honorariums and so of course world government leaders can talk about peace and punishment and say anything and think they are succeeding when obviously anybody on the street believes something quiet different. That is why there is no peace in Israel or Gaza because government people really believe that as long as they are talking then they must be succeeding and yet any ordinary person can see the hopelessness of the situation in Israel and Gaza with almost no solution. It is the same in San Francisco. The city workers get the buses to run on time, the streets cleaned regularly, garbage picked-up and so the government workers believe that everything is running smoothly and therefore succeeding. Unlike government workers we do not have honorariums, banquets, pensions, cars provided, large homes and everything else, so to government workers it is of little consequence to allow speculators to tear the city apart when anybody ordinary people know that the city has sold out and that anybody can be thrown out anytime by greedy speculators. An example is Mayor Ed Lee who believes he is succeeding really believes he is succeeding because the buses continue to run and yet anybody in San Francisco knows the streets are filled with thousands of homeless people and many people even the elderly are being evicted for the sake of greed. About three weeks ago there was a demonstration in Civic Center for the Lick Old Ladies Home which is being evicted. The city Supervisor David Campos came to that demonstration and said the city would save the Lick Old Ladies Home so they would not have to move, if the means could be found. Now the Campos solution for the home is stuck in a city government planning sub-committee and nothing being done except the speeches of lawyers and then after some bad publicity the landlord of the home gave the old ladies ten extra days to move. They now have to be out July 31. Mary Phillips the 98-year-old San Francisco woman being evicted has been for the last few days in the national newspapers and local television news. The news stories and videos also appeared on the internet and accompanying the stories is a public comment section so that anyone from anywhere may comment. There are many different opinions. Most commentators are sympathetic to Mary but then there are a few who are definitely not sympathetic, the unsympathetic apparently being landlords or perhaps as someone said, the evil nephews of old childless widowed landlords. None of the unsympathetic ones are phased at all by Marys advanced age or her situation and basically think any landlord should be allowed to do with his property as he pleases, and they repeat again and again, it is his property. Just yesterday because of bad publicity the owner of Marys building has announced that Mary may continue to reside in her unit for the rest of her life but her long time caregiver who lives next door in the same building must move as soon as possible otherwise the offer will be rescinded. These are the same owners who own our building as well, Urban Green. This company specializes in organic dairy products among other new age innovations in business and the family the owners are worth about $400,000,000. It is also interesting to read in the comment section how many people thought Mary should just take a buy-out and move immediately, they would they said, and it is also funny how so many commentators implied the landlord was probably dirt poor and in order to survive had to resort to such drastic means as evicting a very old woman, and of course the landlord is not poor at all, not at all, not at all, not poor at all. And then of course there were the unfortunately sadistic comments from people who like to see others suffer and hate everything. But all the ordinary people commentating who were not landlords or sadists were sympathetic. It is very interesting and really just shows what is happening in America. About two weeks ago Arnold and I went to an eviction demonstration for Diego Deleo who lives in North Beach. We met him for the first time that day. In 1969 when I first came to San Francisco North Beach was an old italian neighborhood and Diego is one of those few remaining old-time italians who have lived in North Beach a very very long time. Diego is retired now but said he used to be a bricklayer. Diego and his wife were both in their eighties and his wife they had been married a great many years died about a month ago and then three days after her death Diego received an eviction notice from the landlord because as the landlord said my daughter wants to move into your unit. No one believed the daughter wanted to live there because at present the daughter lives in a much larger unit in the same building. Of course everyone knows Diegos eviction had only to do with what was profitable for the landlord. Diego pays $400 a month rent and the landlord told Diego I am not making any profit so you have to leave, and then the daughter became the excuse to evict Diego. Diego is also under rent control and has a stabilized rent which he can actually afford. It is said the landlord with a co-partner owns seventeen buildings in San Francisco each containing many rental units and they also said it is the landlord who is not poor it is Diego who is both poor and old. The landlord and his business partner also own a bar on Columbus Avenue in North Beach where it was said the two of them or at least one of them could often be found drinking. That day was a warm beautiful sunny day and we began our demonstration on the street in front of Diegos house. The landlords bar on Columbus Avenue was not far away and since the landlord or his partner might be there we with Diego marched there to continue the protest. The bar had large windows open to the street so both patrons and protesters could easily see each other and the patrons inside were all quiet intoxicated. One of the owners was there as well. One of us was protesting with a bullhorn screaming Stop The Eviction and soon the co-owner with a beer in his hand came out to confront us screaming, Diego is a liar, at which point all the patrons in the bar behind him began to chant loudly as well, hoisting up their beers and cocktails, Diego is a liar. Screaming on both sides stopped for a moment and the co-owner said loudly to us, the only reason you are here on Thursday afternoon is because none of you have a job. And then he and the patrons began to chant loudly again, Diego is a liar, hoisting up their beers and cocktails. And then again the chanting on both sides stopped for a moment and the owner said loudly, is a landlord supposed to take care of a tenant for the rest of that tenants life, and the patrons in the bar all responded loudly, NO! Finally it came down to the smallest woman in our group who defiantly moved into the owners face screaming, Stop The Eviction, and then the co-owner retreated back into the bar to the pleasure and applause of his patrons. After the demonstration Diego invited us back to his house, he was very nice and told us he hopes to get a live-in attendant soon to take care of him as he has heart trouble and he showed us photographs of his wife and he dearly hopes not to be evicted as he like many cannot afford to live elsewhere at an increased rent. Senior housing is not really much of a possibility either, there are long waiting lists and no housing available and who wants to disappear anyway. There was another tenant protest downtown at the huge Google Convention about two weeks ago. A very rich google attorney is throwing out six units with tenants on Guerrero Street in order to remodel the entire building as a mansion for himself. There were about one-hundred protesters along with news media from the television. There was also a small brass band and I heard something I had not heard before, Erin McEl had a bullhorn and the band was playing music slowly and Erin with the band and using the bullhorn rapped like rap music the eviction slogans which are usually chanted and that made the chants even more exciting and interesting. I had never heard a protest chant done that way before. One of the convention attendees sympathetic to our cause gave two of the tenants being evicted by the google lawyer entry tickets so that they could go inside the convention and protest there. They did go inside and shouted during the speeches and of course were soon thrown out, but their action was recorded by the television cameras and that night the interruption of the Google Convention by tenant protesters made all the national news programs. There were several speakers at the demonstration and included speeches made by the tenants of the Guerrero Street building. A medium-sized package had been left at the side of the demonstration and as no one nearby claimed it I asked the news media if the package might be worrisome and they said they did not think so and nothing happened no bomb went off so I guess it was alright. One cannot be too sure of anything these days. So far the google lawyer is still evicting the tenants. One interesting thing was that there was an outcry in the press later that day from some of the media that it was one thing to demonstrate at the landlords home but it was not right to demonstrate at the landlords job as that was making things too personal they said. That is what they said. We all laughed, but they did say that it was too personal and they also wrote the demonstration at the landlords job was not only in bad taste but really should not have been allowed. Realism. Two summers ago I sat in the garden reading books being quiet happy and now all this and will I find a place to live.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 06:04:29 +0000
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