SF Startup Exploits Evictions to Create Party Pad for Tech Workers
Source: Valleywag
Single-room-occupancy hotels are some of the last scraps of low-income housing left in San Francisco. But for the city's high-tech strata, they're just another piece of property to flip for profit. And one tech-centric housing company stands accused of using unlawful evictions to turn a SoMa SRO into a gaudy co-op for dozens of tech workers.
The Negev, a startup that creates living spaces with "mostly hackers & founders" as tenants, has put together a small empire of San Francisco communes. They promise "instant friends & community" to people moving into town, assuring their tenants that prospective housemates have been "interviewed both on a personal and technical level." However, its latest property was acquired through what lawyers describe as "wrongful evictions."
1040 Folsom Street was damaged in a 2011 fire, forcing tenants—most of whom paying less than $1,000 a month in rent—to temporarily relocate. San Francisco's rent-control ordinance stipulates that those tenants were legally entitled to their old rentals at their previous rent.
However, the SF Examiner reports the property was quietly scooped up The Negev. After the company took over the property and began subleasing rooms and bunk beds to tech workers, The Negev's co-founder tried to buy-off the old tenants with a paltry cash offer.
Read more: http://valleywag.gawker.com/startup-exploits-evictions-to-create-party-pad-for-codd-1658583764/all
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