SF Tenant's Union continues protests at open houses

On San Francisco's first sunny weekend in months, some folks decided that the best use of their time was to picket open houses...

BeyondChron has an article on Sunday's protests at a Potrero Hill property.

"The organization has been using such pickets in recent months to inform and deter buyers who approach buildings where tenants have been evicted through the Ellis Act. Picketers have set up in front of these buildings during open houses, holding signs, distributing flyers and talking to potential buyers."

I guess I keep mentioning this short-sighted behavior to highlight the fact that too many people are fighting the wrong fight. They're fighting the wrong people. Why should the owner of the building on Potrero Avenue (in the article) be forced to do the city's job of subsidizing low-income housing? With rent control, there are very few choices for landowners. If this landowner needed to get out of the San Francisco market (for whatever reason) and they put this building on the market with all of the units occupied, the difference in sales price would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, that's plural. Hundreds of thousands. This may be this family's only property. This may be their retirement money. Should they not be able to take advantage of a free market?

Again, I do not condone evictions. I believe that those who are unable to compete in a free market should be subsidized by the city. But landowners are being forced to fill that position in San Francisco, and it's not fair.

"Some of the picketers are particularly sensitive to the issue of eviction. The 40-something Mecca remembers a large-scale displacement in his working-class neighborhood when he was growing up in South Philadelphia. He says his work in housing advocacy is inspired by a larger social problem. "I think this is all part of that sense of entitlement that people with money have," he says."

So, let me get this straight... Landowners are supposed to do the city's job of subsidizing housing, AND they have a sense of entitlement? I think the only fair answer here is that they are entitled to take advantage of the market conditions just like everyone else. This location was likely VERY inexpensive when it was last purchased (due to being on a busy street and in a previously less-desirable location). Someone took the risk to purchase the building, someone provided five units of housing for many years, and now they may just need to move into different investments. Shouldn't that be their prerogative?

In the end, the owners risked their savings to provide much-needed housing. What did the tenants risk? The same thing that all tenants risk: the potential loss of their home at some point in the future. It's just the nature of being a tenant, as much as that concept is lost among certain folks in San Francisco...