Hot rental market sparks suspicions of landlord arson in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — A city official held a public hearing in March about the unusually high number of apartment fires in recent years that have hit the Mission District, the neighborhood at the center of San Francisco’s gentrification crisis. Many locals and housing rights activists believe some of the fires may be landlord arson — efforts by building owners to push out lower-income tenants in favor of higher-paying ones.
“There are a lot of suspicions on the part of some folks. Is there arson? Is there malfeasance?” Supervisor David Campos asked during the hearing. Satirical posters pasted around the neighborhood by the direct action group Gay Shame warn of the “PYROflipper,” a “time-saving app” that offers landlords in the tech-saturated city an innovative way to continue the San Francisco tradition of “burning people out of their homes for profit.”
San Francisco has some of the nation’s strongest tenant protections, including rent control. In buildings built before 1979, landlords may increase rent only 1 or 2 percent each year until tenants vacate their apartments.
According to the SF Human Services Agency, at least 223 residents have been displaced in and around the Mission District because of fires in the past three years. No one keeps track of what happens to these people after they’re burned out of their homes. But with the median rent for one-bedroom apartments at $3,500 per month, many can’t afford to stay in the city.
The problem recalls the frequent fires of an earlier housing crisis in San Francisco, during the 1970s and 1980s. The low-income International Hotel in what is now North Beach became an icon of this earlier housing battle as developers sought to redevelop the area, then known as Manilatown. Arson attempts at the I-Hotel were so frequent, community members established night watches, with volunteers stationed in the basement and cars parked nearby, keeping in contact using CB radios.
A 1975 fire at the five-story Gartland Apartments in the Mission District left 12 dead. The Gartland’s owner was Beatrice Presant, whose buildings experienced as many as 20 fires in the two years preceding the Gartland fire.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/2/hot-rental-market-sparks-suspicions-of-landlord-arson-in-san-francisco.html
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