San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has intervened to temporarily postpone the eviction of an elderly Chinese American family and their disabled daughter, reports the SF Examiner.
According to tenant advocacy groups who talked to the Examiner, this is the first time they can recall a mayor intervening to ask a landlord to hold off an eviction under the Ellis Act, which allows a landlord to evict a tenant if the landlord is exiting the rental market.
Landlord Mathew Miller agreed to hold off the court ordered eviction for ten days to allow the family time to find housing.
Miller’s attorney says he believes the mayor’s intervention is a first, but thinks Miller would have done the same thing on his own.
The mayor’s office explained why it intervened for the family.
“It’s a San Francisco family who are in need of city services,” said mayoral spokeswoman Christine Falvey. “And the mayor wanted to make sure that there’s time to help them stabilize their housing situation, at least find some transitional housing with the longer-term goal of more permanent housing.”
You can read more about the family’s search for housing and the crisis facing San Francisco in the SF Examiner.
