Sitting on the edge of a soft, black leather sofa, Gregory Gill looks around at years of collected memories. On the deep green walls of his apartment hang a stuffed pheasant, a beige tapestry of two women dancing, and a white pelvic bone. For more than 20 years, Gill has lived in this spacious, one-bedroom unit overlooking a small garden, a quiet retreat from busy Castro streets.
Now he is packing up to go, possibly back to Indiana, where he has family who can take him in.
In May 1998, new landlords purchased the four-unit building at 3967 18th St. The new owners tried several different ways to evict Gill and his downstairs neighbor, Lisa Gelobter, a software engineer in her late 20s.
Because he has AIDS, Gill was protected from an owner move-in eviction by Proposition G, which the city's voters passed last November in an effort to curtail the growing numbers of tenants being forced out so new owners can move in. But Prop. G wasn't enough to keep Gill in his home. To oust him, Gill's landlords turned to a process that is becoming increasingly popular as owner move-in evictions are restricted -- Ellis Act evictions.
A little-known 1986 state law, the Ellis Act allows landlords to boot out all their tenants if they intend to permanently remove a building from the rental market. If the landlord decides to start renting out units again, the evicted tenants are supposed to be given first crack at returning to their former homes. A landlord who has invoked the Ellis Act can resume renting units, but can't raise the rent above what was charged before the units were taken off the market.
Taking advantage of the Ellis Act, obviously, makes no sense for major landlords or large apartment buildings. But it is a tool now being used more often by owners of small buildings -- typically two to four units -- who want to get rid of tenants for whatever reason.
While Prop. G's passage bought time for some people facing eviction, the Ellis Act has spawned yet another battle front in the fractious wars between property owners and tenants in the overheated San Francisco real estate market.
Between March of 1997 and March of 1998, there were only seven Ellis Act evictions in the city, according to Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenant's Union. Since then, there have been more than 80.
Tenants' advocates fear landlords will use the Ellis Act to skirt rent control laws by evicting tenants, pulling units off the market, then re-renting those units later at higher prices. By then, the original tenants will have moved on, and perhaps no one will notice if the rents have been raised.
To date, Gullicksen says, there's no evidence of that happening. Instead, Ellis Act evictions are mainly being used by new owners eager to open up units for themselves or family members.
"What the Ellis Act is adequate for is the conversion of rental units into tenancy-in-common units," he says. Even long-time tenants like Gill are finding they have little leverage when it comes to Ellis Act evictions.
Gill's new landlords -- Theodore Armstrong and Raymond Dinnocenzio -- say they aren't using the Ellis Act as a dodge around rent controls, and have no intention of re-entering the rental market later on. Armstrong says they simply want to make best use of the property they bought, and escape the vexing and emotional battleground that is San Francisco's rental market.
"It's too much work to be a landlord in this city," Armstrong confesses. "[This eviction process] has taken all the pleasures and joy of owning property away."
Vociferously unhappy with what he sees as an unfair protection of tenants at the expense of landlords' rights, Armstrong believes that Gill and Gelobter are being used as pawns by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which is "taking landlords to hell in a handbasket."
Armstrong says he and his partner just want to live in the house they bought and have space for their guests. During a recent visit, he complained, his mother had to sleep on the couch.
Nevertheless, both Gill and Gelobter suspect that their evictions may be motivated by a desire to escape rent control. At only $516 per month, Gill's rent is far below the market rate and, according to Armstrong, "dismally low." It is, however, all Gill can afford.
Gill has been living with AIDS for 10 years, he says, and for the past few years his only income has been a monthly disability insurance check of about $600. He doubts that he would be able to find himself another affordable apartment in San Francisco.
With many of his friends dead from AIDS, Gill has few people with whom he can stay, and eviction probably means homelessness, unless he returns to Indiana and his family.
Before he got sick, Gill worked as a physical trainer. The stuffed pheasant on his wall is a gift from a former client. He takes it down and strokes it, smiling as he tells the story. "She was about 4 foot 11, with long blond hair," he says. "She wanted to become a hunter ... so I trained her to be strong enough. ... She shot this and had it stuffed for me to remind me of how I took someone very petite and made her strong."
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