Contact the Campaign for Renter's rights at (510)595-5545

Contacts for legal advice:

Bay Area Legal Aid at (510)663-4744
Sentinel Fair Housing at (510)836-2687
Eviction Defense Centre (510)452-4541
East Bay Community Law Center at (510)548-4040

In early June, the City of Alameda Housing Authority notified 254 holders of Housing Appropriate Program contracts, so-called Section 8 housing vouchers, that their contracts will be terminated at the end of June. This will abort their rent subsidy and their rental contracts. The threatening evictions affect several hundred people. The number includes about 200 hundred children according to teachers at Chipman Middle School and Woodstock Elementary who've attempted to count them. (Those schools are near Alameda Point and in the neighborhood where many poor families assisted by Section 8 vouchers live.)

A Bay Area Legal Aid volunteer explained that, theorectically, on July 1, the affected landlords could file an unlawful detainer action, the legal term for eviction. The landlord is not required to notify the tenant of the eviction since the Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) contract is terminated, ending the tenant's lease contract. "When your lease is terminated, you're not even really a tenant anymore ," explained a Legal Aid volunteer. "You're a tenant of sufferance, basically living at the good will and pleasure of the landlord."

The same volunter explained that Section 8 support will be reduced for 3 reasons: 1) The Housing Authority has issued more HAP contracts than authorized, 2) The Housing Authority made a mistake when calculating costs it submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and 3) HUD changed the way it calculates the amount of money available for rent subsidy.

Another reason some tenants aided by Section 8 vouchers will be evicted is because the Harbor Island Apartments were kicked out of the Section 8 rental assistance program due to gross health and safety violations, reported by Susan Fuller of The Alameda Journal on January 10, 2004 in an article headlined, "Violation-plagued complex loses Section 8 status." The article chronicled hazards like exposed electrical wiring and raw sewage running through the apartments. Although the City cited owners for violations, the problems were never fixed.

Since most such tenants have few financial resources, and fewer job and housing alternatives, they have no idea what will happen to them without a place to live. Some have been offered rental support in town far away but they don't have the funds to move and will lose what frail support network for health care, education, or job opportunities they may have in Alameda.

The Campaign for Renter's Rights stepped up to help. For a week and a half, they've been conducting protests and pressing City officials to stop the impending disaster. ( Click here to read coverage in The Alameda Report.) On Saturday, June 25, the Campaign organized a march along Park Street to City Hall, demanding the City do something to help the hundreds of poor people who lives are about to shatter.

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