Just Cause: Author’s Note and Photo Credits
“The land is too valuable to permit poor people to park on it.”
-Justin Herman, head of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 1970
In the 1970s, San Francisco came under heavy fire from the forces of gentrification. The city’s remaining working-class strongholds were about to be confiscated by real estate speculators. Even those of us who recognized the danger were shocked by the eventual extent of the transformation.
Downtown San Francisco 2012, taken from the Larkspur Ferry
The Haight-Ashbury (called simply The Haight by those of us who lived there) was one of the targeted areas. The adjacent neighborhood, the Fillmore, had already been decimated in the late 1950s when the vibrant Black community was torn apart. Wielding eminent domain provisions and claiming an attack on “blight,” officials had forced out thousands of Fillmore residents (4,729 households), closed 883 businesses, and demolished over 2,500 Victorian houses. Intended to serve as the national showcase for “urban renewal,” the Fillmore instead became a prime example of its horrors.
By the early 1970s, owning property in the Haight had become more a liability than an asset. Upkeep on crumbling Victorians built before the 1906 earthquake, rising fees for water and sewer (about to go much higher when the Rockefeller-sponsored sewer project was undertaken at staggering cost to taxpayers), and the hassles of being a landlord led to many owners abandoning buildings or offloading them at low prices. Speculators scooped up Victorians in the Haight and the adjacent Castro.
This story was written in early 1978. I’d been living in the Haight since 1971 and would be there until 1987, when the same cabal of speculators, judges, politicians, and police that had destroyed the Fillmore finally had their way. “Just Cause” was inspired by tenant struggles and eviction battles in San Francisco, and informed by my experiences as tenant, “unlawful detainer” defendant, tenants’ rights worker, and radical activist.
Landlords often complain that the law isn’t on their side, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unlawful detainer (eviction) cases in California have expedited court hearings and drastically shortened procedures so that an evicting landlord won’t miss even one month of rental income. For example, in all other civil cases, the defendant has thirty days to file an answer to a complaint; in an unlawful detainer, the defendant (tenant) has only five days.
In San Francisco in 1979 tenants finally won a battle: a provision in the Rent Ordinance that evictions could only be for “just cause,” such as nonpayment of rent or lease violations. (Another “just cause” was that the owner or a family member wanted to live in the apartment. Amazing how many landlords suddenly reconnected with distant relatives seeking apartments.)
The struggle to restrict evictions to just cause continues to this day, including in New York City.
Since the first two chapters of “Just Cause” were published in a community newspaper in 1980, I haven’t made changes or edits, ignoring the howls from my inner editor.
CREDITS FOR AND EXPLANATIONS OF PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS
Drawings:
1, 3, and 5: The drawings that accompany chapters 1, 3 and 5 were made specifically for this story in 1978 by a talented friend, Michael Hess. (I should mention that there is an actual café named The Outer Lands in San Francisco; it opened in 2009 and has nothing to do with the fictional café in this story.)
Photos:
2. (Photo: author’s collection) The “No More Evictions” banner was on the building known as the “White House,” subject of a protracted struggle from roughly 1974 to 1980 that included owner abandonment, forged deeds, firebombing, attacks on occupants by hammer-wielding anti-union scabs, at least eight civil and criminal court cases, judicial malfeasance, involvement of the sheriff and mayor, and a full-page San Francisco Chronicle article written by the infamous Warren Hinckle, headlined “It’s Approaching High Noon in the Haight.”
4. (Photo credit: Greg Gaar) The Straight Theater, a nearly 70 year old building at the corner of Haight and Cole, was razed in 1979. A battle of several years had taken place over allocation of arts money that had already been earmarked to the Haight. The neighborhood coalition’s plan to renovate the building and turn it into a rock and roll concert hall and site of dozens of community programs failed when the city reneged and withdrew the grant. The Straight Theater would have been a community stronghold in a neighborhood about to be attacked by real estate interests.
6. (From www.ihotel-sf.org/history) and 7 (photo by Terry Schmitt, San Francisco Chronicle)
The International Hotel, known as the I-Hotel, had been a single-room occupancy residence since the 1920s mostly for Filipino men. Until 1952 Filipino and Chinese immigrants were forbidden from owning property in California, and the I-Hotel was a secure place to live. It also served as a contact point for friends and family.
By the late 1960s the Manhattanization of San Francisco was well underway. As the Financial District expanded, the ten-block neighborhood of Manilatown, situated between Chinatown and the Financial District and home to over 30,000 Filipino residents, was destroyed, replaced by the Transamerica Pyramid and the Bank of America building. All that was left was the I-Hotel.
In 1967 the 150-room hotel was bought by real estate magnate Walter Shorenstein, who planned to tear it down and put up a multi-story parking garage. The tenants resisted. A suspicious fire in March 1969 resulted in the death of three tenants and the city declared the building unsafe, paving the way to its destruction. After immense public pressure, Shorenstein signed a five-year lease with the tenants. In 1973 he sold the building to Four Seas Investment Corporation (owned by a Thai liquor baron).
Four Seas issued eviction notices in 1974. What was probably the biggest tenants’ rights battle in San Francisco history ensued.
The tenants were supported by a large, very active movement. The struggle was kept in the public eye by frequent protests and rallies at city hall, courthouses, and in front of the hotel, and by newspapers and alternative radio stations.
Meanwhile, complex legal proceedings were taking place, and in late 1976 Sheriff Hongisto refused to post eviction notices, citing insufficient manpower to conduct this eviction. In January 1977 Hongisto was convicted of contempt and the court ordered that the eviction be carried out. Hongisto sent in deputies but they were turned back by 5,000 people protecting the hotel.
The city government finalized a plan to acquire the building through eminent domain and turn ownership over to the nonprofit tenants’ association, but the relief was short-lived; in May 1977 a court ruled the plan illegal.
The next month, Federal landmark status was granted to the I-Hotel. Nevertheless, on August 3, the California Supreme Court ordered that evictions could proceed.
On August 4 at 3:00AM, over 400 officers from the San Francisco Police Department and the Sheriffs’ Department raided. Their forces included anti-sniper units, mounted police, and the riot squad. The human barricade of thousands was removed by physical force. Sheriff’s deputies made their way inside and forcibly evicted the 55 remaining tenants. Hongisto famously battered his way into the rooms with a sledge hammer.
The I-Hotel was demolished in 1979. As in the Fillmore, not only were structures destroyed but so was a vital community.