The proposed ordinance to expand eviction protections for tenants with a resident child under 18 years of age and to extend said protections to tenants who are “educators,” defined as a person who works at a school in San Francisco as an employee or independent contractor of the school or its governing body, in any role, has been adopted by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.

While San Francisco’s Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance already prevents a landlord from exercising an owner move-in (OMI) eviction during the school year if the eviction would displace a child under 18 years of age, the new ordinance will extended the protection to include condo conversion, capital improvement and rehabilitation based evictions and eliminates the exception that currently allows an eviction during the school year if the landlord only owns a single unit in the building or has school-age children of his or her own.

49 thoughts on “Expanded Eviction Protection for Parents and Educators Adopted”
  1. So the next step is the San Francisco’s Emergency Responder Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance. Then the San Francisco’s Municipal Employee Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance followed by the San Francisco’s Elected Official Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance, and finally the San Francisco’s Healthcare Professional Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance. Stability Now!

    1. I demand a San Francisco Barista Slash Coffee Roasting Professional Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance!

      I keep hearing that the reason a regular cup of Blue Bottle is $4 is that people working in food service and hospitality jobs can’t afford to live here. Surely we must enact some totalitarian plan-economy market-suspending measure, stat!

    1. That is why the San Francisco’s Parents and Educators Rental Agreement Protection Ordinance is also in the works.

    2. No teacher can afford to rent at SF’s current prices, so it’s a moot point. The ordinance is intended to stem the eviction-induced exodus. When the funny money that’s fueled this local bubble finished drying up, and prices begin their sloo-ooo-oooow reversion to mean*, maybe that will be an issue, and the ordinance can be revisited.

      *prices are very sticky on the way down because price discovery and S&D for “some reason” work differently when demand dries up…

      1. Its not really moot, because it just created a “protected class” for education providers and any other person employed by a school. Going forward, housing providers will choose another candidate to fill a vacancy given the choice btwn two or more applicants. Rents have been coming down this past quarter too btw. I think we are off 10% from the high in some hoods and property types. Why isnt anyone talking about that?

      2. Unfortunately it will also have consequences to those whose significant others are “educators”. I personally know school teachers who are married to tech employees – that’s how they can afford to live here.

        Oh well….another fail….

      3. I’m not saying it’s easy, but most teachers who really want to live here CAN afford to rent a place (possibly with a roommate sharing the bills) if they really want to. I have plenty of friends who make less than the average SF teacher and manage to find rental housing here for <$1,000 per month. They're not getting a whole apartment for that price, or in the very most expensive areas. But it's total hyperbole to say "no teacher can afford to rent at SF’s current prices". Also, some teachers here make more than you might expect.

    3. Exactly, don’t rent to teachers or attorneys. Its not just teachers! Its the landscaper, janitor, secretary etc,. Anyone who is connected to the school payroll in any way. Its such BS. The legislators in this town still haven’t realized that their draconian amendments to the ordinance only hurt the people they intended to help. No wait, they are just helping themselves to the next higher office..

  2. Or we could build more public housing for teachers/first responders and city bureaucrats and not toss the burden on the private sector.

    1. I get the impression the school’s are trying to raise the kids more than educate them. Perhaps that’s why teachers don’t line-up to work here. I can’t figure out why the department of Health and Human services isn’t picking-up some of the education tab. As a kid I wasn’t privy to daycare after school, 3 meals a day plus often a snack, nor psychotherapy.

  3. Good luck for any of these people covered by the ordnance, finding an apartment in the future. I have over 40 applicants for my vacancies. It’s easy just to pick the applicant who will be likely to cause you the least problems in the future.

    1. Shhhhh, you might want to keep that to yourself. Technically, you could be in violation by not renting your available unit to the first qualified applicant. I know, BS. But look it up.

      1. The City could enact legislation that all rental applicants are processed through the rent board. Once an applicant is qualified, then the rent board would find the next available unit for them. Take the landlord completely out of the rental application process. We are headed that way, right?

        1. The Bernsheviks would love it. After all, that’s how that free college admissions process is going to work so why not extend it to housing, jobs, vehicle registration, gym memberships, restaurant reservations, and every other economic activity? I swear, it’s never been tried anywhere and it’s guaranteed to work.

      2. Sara – How many teachers could even afford the rent you’re asking? How many teachers were among your applicants?

  4. What a stupid idea. The right thing to do would be to pay educators salaries that enable them to compete in the housing market reasonably, or build a public transit infrastructure that would enable people to commute easily from less expensive places.

    1. It would be very helpful to legislate a rent subsidy payment for citizens of the City that fall in the lower and middle income brackets regardless of occupation.

      1. me too, but only for singels making less than 30K and families less than 60K. Teachers are not “needy”

    2. Exactly. Teachers should be paid more, how much I don’t really know. That’s a bit complicated. As much as doctors? probably not. But lets not create another “protected class” of people which further screws up the market driven process of real estate.

      What next? The next protected class should be all blond (only) LGBT citizens who ONLY work as a barista and who drive a pink scooter.

  5. This, again, is just political theater with little practical impact. No need for anyone to get in a huff about it.

    It only applies to no-cause evictions, and there aren’t that many of those. You just have to make the effective date of such an eviction notice from June-August where there are covered tenants. Not really a huge deal as one can usually plan ahead for such issues (unlike, say, an eviction for non-payment or other “cause”). Yeah, yeah – I know. It would be a bit of a pain for the very rare landlord who happens to come within this.

    There were only a total of about 600 such evictions in SF last year. The majority, 417, were OMIs, and tenants with kids were already covered in that situation. So this adds about 200-250 evictions – maybe a couple dozen at most of the newly covered evictions would involve an “educator” as a tenant or kids that were not already covered.

    I question whether this is lawful as applied to Ellis evictions – solid argument that state law preempts this. But much easier to just evict during the summer in that situation than spend a lot on lawyers to fight that fight.

    1. You’re right – but we should all be in a serious huff that our BOS does nothing but Political Theater.

    2. Where does this say Ellis? This ordinance doesn’t apply to (a)(13) evictions. Yes, this would absolutely be preempted by the Ellis Act.

      1. Oh, yeah – you’re right. I was just going by the editor’s summary in the post. Supes probably realized this wouldn’t fly for an Ellis eviction.

        Then that makes this almost entirely an empty gesture. It will probably affect planned evictions in the single digits each year, maybe very low double digits at most.

        1. “…whereas existing Section 37.9(j) only restricts the timing of OMI evictions, the proposed ordinance would apply to OMIs as well as four other types of no-fault evictions: condominium conversions, removal of individual rental units from housing use, capital improvements, and substantial rehabilitations, unless the eviction is in connection with a mandatory seismic retrofit.”

          1. By my read, that is different from an Ellis eviction, right? (a)(10) (“The landlord seeks to recover possession in good faith in order to demolish or to otherwise permanently remove the rental unit from housing use and has obtained all the necessary permits”) is used to demolish a unit or otherwise change the use to something other than housing. (a)(13) (“The landlord wishes to withdraw from rent or lease all rental units within any detached physical structure”) is an Ellis eviction. The new ordinance does not extend the “educator” defense to (a)(13).

          2. Removal of a housing unit (like, literally making it not a unit anymore) is different than removing it from the rental market. (I.e., “rental market” is not equivalent to “housing use”).

  6. “defined as a person who works at a school in San Francisco as an employee or independent contractor of the school or its governing body, in any role”.

    This could conceivably cover the carpentry crew hired to do some repairs at the school. Ridiculously broad definition.

      1. Most private schools require parents to volunteer X hours per school year. This is gonna be great.

      2. May work, but probably not. Definition of “educator” is an employee or independent contractor. Volunteers would not appear to be included. Doesn’t mean the rent board will agree with that. I agree that this definition is overbroad in a silly way. But it still isn’t going to have any real impact on anything.

  7. What if the landlord is an “educator” himself/herself?

    [Editor’s Note: See the end of our second paragraph above.]

  8. This just supports the position that no smallholder should buy residential property in San Francisco. There will be more of these restrictions every year for ever and ever Amen.

    Only companies with management staffs and lawyers should buy. Mom and Pop should look to outlying counties, especially cities where there is no threat of rent control.

    1. I agree.

      ROIs are better in outlying counties and in growing metro areas outside the state. Add to that the good possibility that the appreciation gap between SF and some other markets will narrow and some investors might want to look elsewhere. I did.

      Now might be a good time to 1031 rental property for these reasons and also to diversify one’s RE investment portfolio.

  9. This is why I’ve given up renting to anyone except young professionals. Luckily they are in strong supply in this city.

    1. Yes, no way jose would I consider any educator.

      It’s laws like this that keep the rents getting higher & higher, the Sups are *stupid*, they job is to play politics. Renters think they have a great deal when they’re paying $3,500/mth when the market is $4,500, but they forget they are still having to pay that much, and as rent rise sooner of later they’ll be tossed out.

      Property owners: we just need to Ellis buildings in rotation, buy a new multi-unit building every yr, and take turns ellis’ing them, this way you’ll have a few out of commission and the other paying for them, the rise in rents will cover the loses. Effectively renters will pay for their own eviction. When they get rid of rent control that’s when the profits will fall.

      Personally, I would prefer a fairer system, but SF doesn’t like fair, it wants something for nothing always at the owners expense.

      1. count me out now too from renting to parents or educators. I love them, but the city is now doing this stupid stuff, and as a business owner, its better not to deal with a protected class

  10. Although this will certainly be good for teachers and parents who already have a place here to live, it doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to realize this will just give landlords just one more reason to discriminate against those sorts of prospective tenants (not that such discrimination could ever be proven in a legally relevant way).
    If you talk to just about any small-time landlords here in the city, they will tell you they strongly prefer tenants who are young, single, and upwardly mobile professionals. Basically they only want people who will most likely have the means and motive to move out after 1-2 years, so the rent can be increased again.

  11. Anyone looking at the declining number of SFUSD students (now just 56k) will realize this legislation is wrong on every level. Political theater indeed. I’d like to find out how many SFUSD employees there are.

  12. That’s so nice of them to pretend that teachers can survive in San Francisco LOL. My husband is a well paid private school teacher, and we are outta here as soon as his contract is up. San Francisco has cannibalized itself.

  13. I have a teacher friend who makes 60 – 70K. That’s not exactly poor. Far from it, in fact.

    Living in the city — or anywhere you damn well “want” — is not a right. It’s earned through hard work and many sacrifices over YEARS. That’s what I did. Everyone else who WANTS to live here should do the same.

    1. Actually, US citizens do have a right to live in SF. The US Supreme Court has ruled on this going back nearly 200 years. 300+ million US citizens have equal right as you or me to live in SF if they wish and no one and no govt can legally stop them. No trumpian wall on the county line.

      However, they don’t have a privilege to do so without the financial means to arrange for legal accomodations.

      Funny how folks on SS like to rant about who has what right when they don’t even know the difference between rights and privileges. Oh, well, y’all got as much right as anyone to be wrong. And are privileged enough to have abundant time and bandwidth to show it off.

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