Dozens of tenants from the Casa Linda Apartments rallied against their no-fault evictions in front of the complex Thursday morning.
“I pay my rent on time every month. I’ve lived here for over two years," said Belinda Ward, one of the tenants at the rally. "I love living here, I want to stay here."
Her complex has a new landlord, UIP Linda Vista LLC, which bought Casa Linda in July. The company wants to remodel.
Ward and the other tenants received notices to leave their homes by the end of the year. She was homeless before and is scared of being homeless again.
“I have a one-bedroom apartment full of things, full of my memories," Waid said through tears. "And I've been going slowly through them trying to figure out which memories to throw away in case I can't find a place — what can I fit in my car?”
Angel Gonzalez has been at Casa Linda for 10 years. He said it’s much more affordable than similar offerings on the housing market, but the new owner created health and safety issues at their homes — including asbestos exposure.
“Without telling anybody, they just came over and started doing the demolition on the outside and on the inside of the empty apartments,” Gonzalez said. "It's evil, this is totally evil. Doing something like that just to kick people out."
In a statement, UIP Linda Vista LLC denied issuing eviction notices to tenants. Tenants showed KPBS their Termination of Tenancy notices, which is the first step to an eviction. The notice said residents must vacate the premises by Jan. 13, 2023. The company said it was a miscommunication.
“The property was acquired less than one month ago and we plan to make improvements. No tenant is being evicted to make renovations, nor will there be an attempt to do so in the future," the statement reads. "To minimize inconvenience to those tenants who voluntarily wish to move, we have offered relocation assistance. We apologize for any miscommunication suggesting otherwise."
Casa Linda residents and the tenants’ rights group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action San Diego are demanding that the San Diego City Attorney finalize new permanent no-fault eviction protections.
They’re also asking the City Council and Mayor Todd Gloria to pass those protections immediately to prevent tenants from falling into homelessness.
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The San Diego City Council and County Board of Supervisors want to set a goal of building 10,000 affordable homes on publicly owned land by 2030. Then, emergency COVID-19 tenant protections are set to end Friday in the city of San Diego and some renters are worried their housing situations could be in jeopardy. Next, a new report from the San Diego Hunger Coalition finds nearly 40 percent of Black and Latino San Diegans are experiencing food insecurity. Then, questions are being raised about why the California Department of Education has not yet released its statewide school test results from the spring. Finally, what can California’s Reparations Task Force learn from the Japanese American movement for redress? -
San Diego Congressman Scott Peters is co-sponsoring a bill that would set a national research agenda for studying marijuana. In other news, residents of an apartment complex in Linda Vista are fighting an order from their new landlord to vacate their homes by the end of the year. Plus, we have some weekend arts events worth checking out.
