Are in tough positions. There's a spike in the number of elderly people in danger of eviction. Senior investigative reporter Bigad Shaban explains why. For 80 year old Zeta Flowers, this isn't just a house. It's her home of 26 years. It's where she raised her four adopted children and more than 20 foster children, all on her own. But now she's being forced to leave. It's not fair. It's not fair. Bloom flowers runs a daycare out of her home, but the pandemic decimated her small business. Her rent of nearly $2,000 a month, she says, became unaffordable before Covid. Had you ever not paid your rent? Oh no. Never. Not ever. No. I'm a believer in paying for where you stay. Like many cities across California, Oakland enacted an eviction moratorium during the pandemic, prohibiting landlords from kicking out tenants unable to pay their rent. But after that three year long moratorium ended last July, landlords were allowed to begin demanding up to a year's worth of back rent and evict tenants who didn't pay up. We're seeing an alarming rise in the eviction of low income seniors, attorney and Tamika Zamora is the executive director of the Eviction Defense Center, a nonprofit providing legal aid to more than 3000 low income tenants each year. They have fixed incomes, right? Like Social Security that barely, barely covers the rent. So they had like little side jobs to supplement and the moment the pandemic hit, all those jobs dried up. Today, nearly a quarter of the Oakland clients at the Eviction Center are seniors. That's up 17% compared to pre-pandemic. Tenants advocacy groups in San Francisco and Berkeley are also seeing spikes in the number of elderly facing eviction. Nationally seniors are now the fastest growing age group experiencing homelessness. Roughly 140,000 and counting. How do you tell somebody who's 75 get back in the job market? Because you need to make $600 more a month, right ? It's a lot of these situations are really impossible. Her nonprofit took on Zeta's case after Zeta got an eviction notice from her landlord, demanding she pay nearly $18,000 in owed rent or move out in three days. What went through your mind? What went through my mind? First of all is they didn't care to expect me on a short notice to move that fast. Like in three days. Impossible Tenants can legally fight off their eviction for rent missed during the pandemic, if they can show they endured a substantial financial hardship as a result of Covid 19. You can't just say it. You have to be able to support it, real estate attorney Mark Chernov says renters need to have documentation proving their struggles. They may also have to get an attorney if their landlord disagrees and takes them to court. What would you say to those who argue that this puts an unfair burden on the shoulders of tenants? Because the only way to make the defense is to have to go through this legal process. If it's truly the result of substantial financial hardship, you would have bank records, you would have credit card bills, you would have loss of income that you could show, you could have decreased of hours. That would be pretty easy to prove up. Chernov has represented hundreds of landlords, including the homeowner who sent Zeta her eviction notice. As unfortunate as it is, small property owners can't subsidize these types of situations. It's not fair to ask them to. While Zeta received her notice after the moratorium ended, we've learned hundreds of seniors were also getting eviction notices during the moratorium when it was illegal to force someone out of their home because of missed rent payments. Records we obtained from Oakland's housing department show the number of eviction notices filed against renters did drop by about 80% once the moratorium went into effect, but during the three years it was in place, we've learned landlords still sent out more than 2500 eviction notices, including to low income seniors. The letters threatened to kick out renters within just a few days, even though landlords didn't actually have the legal power to evict them during the moratorium. Courts weren't granting evictions for lack of payment. There is no teeth behind those notices because the law says you can't collect that rent for that time period. But for many tenants, just getting those eviction notices was reason enough to pack up. That can cause very vulnerable populations like low income seniors, to be scared and not know their rights. And you know, to basically move out. In fact, during the moratorium, we discovered Oakland landlord sent at least 350 eviction notices to renters at ten apartment buildings that cater to low income seniors and those with disabilities. The apartments are all owned or operated by three companies Newport Partners LLC, Christian Church Homes, and Human Good, which calls itself California s largest nonprofit provider of senior housing. That group was the only one that responded to our request for comment, telling us the eviction notices. It's centering the moratorium do not reflect the actual number of evictions, which are extremely rare and must be approved by the court. They weren't allowed to serve serve that notice in the first place. And if a tenant moved as a result, they could sue the landlord for wrongfully evicting them. So it seems like really the only way to be able to fight that is the tenant first has to move out and then argue that it was a wrongful eviction. Yeah, for a tenant to have an action for wrongful eviction, they can't be living in a rental unit anymore. So you can't be living somewhere and say that you were wrongfully evicted. Hi, this is Amanda calling back from the eviction defense Center. We spoke yesterday briefly, which puts the burden on the renter to find a new place and then take the landlord to court. Advocates say the government is doing next to nothing to protect them. The Alameda County District Attorney's Office wouldn't tell us how many wrongful eviction cases it's prosecuted, if any, and the city attorney's office in Oakland has only tried for wrongful eviction cases over the past five years, but even lawful evictions can still feel wrong. To those forced to leave, I'm seeing seniors out pushing carts now because they're homeless instead of going to court. Zeta flowers reached a settlement with her landlord that forgives her, owed rent and provides her with moving expenses if she leaves by next month. I had help many others didn't have the knowledge of knowing what to do, and I think that when they were served, they just moved out. They just left. Zeta now has time to pack and say goodbye. She plans on leaving Oakland in hopes of finding a new place. She can afford. This may not be her house, but she'll always remember it as her home. With the investigative unit on Bigad. Siobhan, if you have a story for Bigad or anyone else in our investigative unit, give us a call 888996 Tips or you can visit ou
