Landlords in Oakland, California, will now be
required to evict sex workers from their properties if the
city asks them to. Under
an ordinance passed by the Oakland City Council Tuesday, city
officials have authority to force suspected sex workers—along with
anyone engaged in certain “nuisance” activities—from their homes,
even if these individuals haven’t been convicted of any crimes. The
ordinance also allows landlords to request that the city carry out
evictions of these individuals. It passed the Council by unanimous
vote.
The bill was overshadowed locally by another ordinance passed
that night, the Tenant Protection Ordinance. Designed to prevent
landlords from harassing rent-controlled tenants, this statute bans
landlords from failing to do repairs, taking away amenities, or
intruding on a tenant’s privacy in an attempt to force them
out—things that even
the ordinance’s sponsor acknowledges are already illegal
under state law.
“Yet the amended Nuisance Eviction Ordinance is a big deal,”
writes Kriston Capps at CityLab. It expands the boundaries of
an already-controversial law passed in 2004, which granted city
officials authority to evict tenants arrested on drugs or weapons
possession charges. Under the updated ordinance, they can also
pursue the eviction of “nuisance” tenants engaged in prostitution,
solicitation, pimping, pandering, illegal ammunitions possession,
or illegal gambling. From Capps:
“It’s horrible. It’s unconscionable,” said Anne Omura,
then a managing attorney at Oakland’s Eviction Defense Center, in a
2004 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “We feel that
it just really tramples on the rights of tenants and doesn’t give
them a lot of due process.”
(…) While the original NEO invests the City
Administrator with the power to pursue evictions, the new
amendment—which was penned by City Attorney Barbara Parker—also
grants extra-judicial eviction powers to the office of the City
Attorney.
The amended bill further stipulates that a landlord who
fears for his or her safety may ask the newly invested City
Attorney to carry out the eviction (on the landlord’s dime).
Finally, the city can go after the landlord for not taking action
against a tenant “after being apprised by the City that the tenant
has engaged in illegal activity.”
“Landlords already have the power by state law and by local
ordinance to remedy conduct that the ordinance describes as public
nuisance,” says Marc Janowitz, supervising attorney at the East Bay
Community Law Center. “The addition of the city’s muscle
exaggerates an already extreme imbalance in power between landlords
and tenants generally.”
As if all of this wasn’t crazy coercive enough, the new Oakland
ordinance leaves determining who is a sex worker, drug dealer, or
illegal bookie up to city officials’ and landlords’ discretion. An
individual need not be convicted or even charged with prostitution
to trigger eviction; the text of the ordinance merely mentions
“engaging in” the activity. (The activity also needn’t take place
on the property, only be
“connected” to or “associated with” it.)
“The bill does not describe what burden of proof the city needs
to meet in order to ‘apprise’ a landlord that a tenant has
‘engaged’ in said illegal activity, Capps notes. “Nor does the bill
stipulate how or whether this evidence
(presuming some is required) is to be shared
with the tenant.”
Essentially, the city can now force anyone it deems undesirable
out of town on the flimsiest of pretences. Cops can’t make a
prostitution charge stick? Have the city evict her! Can’t meet the
burden of proof that someone’s selling drugs? Have the city evict
them! City officials say it’s no big deal because residents can
contest the eviction in court. But if we look at the people most
suspected of drug and sex-work related activity, it’s usually not
wealthy, legally-savvy individuals who have the resources or
werewithal to fight it.
According to Oakland journalist Susie Cagle, the city is
unlikely to show major qualms about using the new ordinance against
sex workers. “This is a continuation of a theme,” Cagle
tweeted Tuesday. “City attorney Parker has made cracking
down on sex work and ‘trafficking’ central since taking
office,”
In explaining the need for the law, City
Attorney Parker wrote:
Not only does illegal nuisance activity detract from the beauty
and livability of our city, but it breeds disrespect for our
neighborhoods and communities, encourages additional
nuisance activity, and disregard the law in general.
Furthermore, individuals engaging in off-premises illegal
activities within a close proximity to their residences are highly
likely to use their residences to further and conceal their
illegal activity. Additionally, gambling, prostitution, pimping,
pandering, and solicitation negatively impacts Oakland’s business
environment.
In September, California
renewed a state pilot-program that allows Los Angeles,
Long Beach, Sacramento, and Oakland to evict residents arrested
(not necessarily convicted) for illegal firearms or ammunition
possession, and there’s evidence that these cities were told,
indirectly, to “use it or lose it” when it comes to the power.
Read Capps’
whole piece for more detailed info on that craziness.
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