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| Security Deposit Rules in Leno Legislation
by Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle
May 23rd, 2013
State Senator Mark Leno has proposed legislation that would provide greater protections for tenants seeking the return of their security deposits. Landlords would be required to pay interest on deposits, and would face mandatory damages if they were found to have withheld security deposits wrongfully. TT Executive Director Dean Preston is quoted in the article. |
| Tioga Apartment Tenants Dispute Eviction Amid Embezzlement Accusations
KSEE 24
April 10th, 2013
Tenants at the Tioga Apartments in Merced are disputing their "pay or quit" notices, stating that they have receipts showing that they paid the rent. Merced police are investigating possible embezzlement by an employee of the building management company. Tenants Together is assisting the tenants. |
| Critics Question Investment Fund's Sacramento Rental Venture
by Hudson Sangree and Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee
April 8th, 2013
Critics are concerned that Blackstone, one of the large investment groups in the US, in Sacramento's single-family rental market will have negative consequences for the housing market there. TT Executive Director is interviewed for the article. |
| Renters Fight Merced for Tenant Rights
by Lemor Abrams, CBS47 TV
May 25th, 2012
Merced renters packed Merced City Chambers Monday, as council members reconsidered the "Just Cause For Eviction" law that protects renters from being evicted from their homes after foreclosure. |
| Tenant Advocates Push For 'Just Cause' Laws
by Steve Milne, National Public Radio
August 2nd, 2010
Sixteen cities in California have just cause for eviction protections, laws passed at the local level to strengthen tenants' rights. Dean Preston of Tenants Together explains how just cause laws are more than a short term fix to the foreclosure crisis. Click the link for audio clip. |
| California Investigates Forgotten Victims of Foreclosure Crisis
by Annie Wu, The Epoch Times
June 30th, 2010
"California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced on Monday that he will be opening an investigation into foreclosed properties and the state’s possible infringement of tenants’ rights. As part of his investigation, he sent letters to 24 banks, law firms, loan servicers, and private investors requesting information on their policies and procedures to see if they are forcefully evicting tenants from buildings that have been foreclosed by banks." |
| Sen. Lou Correa Kills Nation’s First Anti-‘Predatory Equity’ Bill
by Dean Preston, California Progress Report
June 29th, 2010
"Lou Correa, a Democratic State Senator from Orange County, has killed the nation’s first bill to stop predatory investments that displace renters from their homes. The bill, AB 2337, authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), sought to ban the state’s public employee pension funds from investing in “predatory equity” schemes." |
| Contact 17 Investigation: Renters' rights
KGET
June 16th, 2010
"There's no doubt there's a foreclosure crisis going on across the country and 37-percent of those foreclosures are rentals. Several renters contacted 17 News recently, saying the homes they were living in had been foreclosed on and the investors had tried to force them out." |
| Renters In Foreclosure – Innocent Victims
by Jon Maddux, Loan Safe
May 20th, 2010
The California based non-profit organization Tenants Together put out a very interesting report this week talking about some of the least publicized victims of the foreclosure process – tenants. |
| 200,000 California Tenants Suffer From Foreclosure
by Harmon Leon, Rented Spaces
May 19th, 2010
Here's a scary number: Over 200,000 California tenants are directly affected by the rise in foreclosures. A report released yesterday -- "California Tenants in the Foreclosure Crisis" -- says that at least 37% of residential units in foreclosure in California were rentals, while the largest percentage of foreclosures were single-family homes.
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| Foreclosures affect California tenants
by BoNhia Lee, The Fresno Bee
May 19th, 2010
More than 200,000 tenants were displaced last year as a result of residential foreclosures in California, according to a report released by Tenants Together, a statewide organization for renters' rights. |
| Over 200,000 California Tenants Directly Affected By Foreclosure
by Gabe Treves, California Progress Report
May 18th, 2010
Tenants Together, California's statewide organization for renters' rights, released its new 2010 Report: California Tenants in the Foreclosure Crisis yesterday. The report, a follow-up to Tenants Together's 2009 tenant foreclosure report, highlights recent foreclosure-related developments affecting tenants, quantifies the impact of home foreclosures on tenants in 2009 at the state and county level, and makes recommendations to strengthen protections for tenants in foreclosure situations. |
| Assembly bill targets 'predatory equity' schemes
by Gennady Sheyner , Palo Alto Online
April 26th, 2010
Spurred by the recent implosion of Page Mill Properties' East Palo Alto portfolio, California's elected officials are considering barring state pension funds from investing in companies that rely on displacing tenants to turn a profit. |
| CalPERS to revise housing policy
by Dale Kasler , Sacramento Bee
April 13th, 2010
CalPERS and CalSTRS are moving to prohibit controversial real estate investments that rely on raising rents on housing units that had been subject to rent-control laws. |
| More scam artists posing as landlords
by Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle
April 11th, 2010
The glut of vacant foreclosed homes has inspired con artists to concoct a new scam: posing as landlords to swindle prospective tenants out of rent and deposit money. Cases of landlord impersonation have jumped throughout California in the past couple of years, according to sheriffs and legal aid clinics |
| Census About to Hit the Mail: Renters Among Hardest to Count
by Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together, BeyondChron
March 9th, 2010
the national census has huge implications. Hundreds of billions of dollars are allocated each year based on census data. Renters typically have lower return rates on census forms than homeowners and are undercounted in the census. |
| Evictions spark responsible investment legislation
by Emily Holding , San Diego New Room
February 25th, 2010
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has recently introduced the Socially Responsible Investment Act (AB 2337). The bill would prohibit the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) from investing in predatory schemes that evict tenants. |
| The Hidden Eviction Victims
by Sasha Abramsky, Daily Beast
February 9th, 2010
Law-abiding renters often lose their homes when landlords get into mortgage trouble. This report explains how banks, realtors, and courts gang up on families. Tenants Together Program Director, Gabe Treves, was interviewed at length for this piece. |
| Auction of Page Mill's East Palo Alto properties delayed
by Jessica Bernstein-Wax, San Jose Mercury News
January 30th, 2010
The trustee sale of 1,800 rental units in East Palo Alto owned by Page Mill Properties won't take place Feb. 1 as planned, according to city officials. Meanwhile advocates including Tenants Together insist that the portfolio be sold to a responsible owner at a price reflecting its true value based on rents in compliance with the city's rent control laws. |
| Developer fees forced to change
by Mike Aldax, San Francisco Examiner
January 13th, 2010
A court battle has forced San Francisco to alter how it will make developers pay for affordable rental units in new buildings. Under proposed legislation, developers would no longer have the option of providing affordable-housing units in San Francisco’s residential rental projects. Instead, it would require developers to pay a fee to The City |
| Judicial Bias Out of Control in SF Superior Court
by Dean Preston, BeyondChron.org
January 5th, 2010
The recent upholding by the Appellate Panel of the eviction of Susan Suval stands as the latest example of judicial bias against renters in San Francisco’s Superior Courts. Despite its progressive political climate, San Francisco continues to be one of the worst places in California when it comes to judicial bias against tenants. |
| War of values
by Danelle Morton, San Francisco Magazine
December 2nd, 2009
An epic battle has been raging over who can afford to live in San Francisco. The paper trail reveals that the city’s dominant landlords, the Lembi family of CitiApartments fame, bought up every building they could get their hands on, from the Tenderloin’s rattiest dumps to Nob Hill’s ritziest penthouses, with an audacious plan to drive up everyone’s rent. And their money came from the same financial geniuses who brought the world economy to its knees. |
| The Donald Sterling Rule: All Bad Deeds Go Unpunished
by Jon Weinbach, Fanhouse
November 25th, 2009
Despite a long history of bad behavior including what the U.S. Department of Justice called "willful" mistreatment of African American and Latino tenants, the National Basketball Association has refused to discipline or comment on team owner Donald Sterling's misdeeds. |
 | CalPERS realty deals and image take a beating
by Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee
November 16th, 2009
The Sacramento Bee covers the story of CalPERS' investments in predatory real estate schemes NYC and East Palo Alto. Included are remarks from tenants and advocates, including Tenants Together, explaining the devastating impact these investments have had on low and moderate income tenants. |
| Racist Landlords and the NBA
by Trina Chiasson, YouthNoise Play City
November 12th, 2009
Trina Chiasson of the nonprofit organization YouthNoise Play City post a piece in support of the "NBA: Show You Care" campaign and highlights the insidious problem of racial housing discrimination. |
| Eviction Protections Rile Up Tenants and Landlords
by Nancy López, Mission Local
November 3rd, 2009
A reporter covers a San Francisco Land Use Committee meeting where tenants and advocates, including Tenants Together and several Tenants Together member organizations, spoke out on behalf of extending just cause eviction protections to tenants living in post rent-controlled units. |
 | Renter claims rights are being violated
KERO 23 TV
September 18th, 2009
A southwest Bakersfield family renting a foreclosed home claims the new owner is unfairly trying to kick them out just four days after he bought the home. This news piece includes an interview with Gabe Treves of Tenants Together. |
 | How We Survive: Renters, Rights, and Resistance
by Pauline Bartolone, Andrew Stelzer, & Tena Rubio, National Radio Project
September 9th, 2009
Tenants Together is featured in this National Radio Project program which looks at the impact of the "mortgage meltdown" on tenants and how communities are responding to help innocent tenants keep their homes. It includes interviews with callers to the Tenants Together foreclosure hotline and our director Dean Preston. |
| New Court Decision Jeopardizes Affordable Rental Housing
by Dean Preston of Tenants Together, BeyondChron
July 28th, 2009
Last week, a California Appellate court took a giant step toward eliminating affordable rental housing in communities across California. The Court ruled that a Los Angeles inclusionary housing law was preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. |
| Will your rental home be foreclosed?
by Peggy Gardiner, Modesto Bee
July 26th, 2009
While everyone is talking about the foreclosure crisis and how it affects homeowners, no one seems to be addressing the crisis facing renters. This piece recommends that prospective renters go to the county recorder's office to learn about the status of the mortgage.
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 | VIDEO: Hidden Victims of the Foreclosure Crisis
by Christine Park, KFSN TV
July 22nd, 2009
Hundreds of Valley families are paying their rent on time, and still getting evicted. It's all due to a foreclosure crisis they say they did nothing to create. Tenants Together is featured in this news piece. From KFSN TV in Fresno.
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| California Foreclosures Jeopardize Renters as Banks Seize Homes
by Ari Levy and Dan Levy, Bloomberg.com
April 6th, 2009
Citing TT's recent report, this article discusses the impact of foreclosure on California renters. The stories of Laura Hecox (Chula Vista) and Genevieve Hilpert (San Francisco) are highlighted. The article also notes that banks are losing over $1 billion annually by not continuing to rent to California tenants after foreclosure. |
| What To Make of Props 98 and 99
by George Skelton, Los Angeles Times
May 1st, 2008
L.A. Times provides an overview of these competing measures. Dean Preston of Tenants Together explains that Proposition 98 would strip tenants of basic protections, including rent control. |
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