SFAA Relocates Tenant Screening Services

SFAA members no longer need to go through SFAA for tenant screening services. You can now go directly to SFAA’s credit check vendor, Credit Bureau Associates. This is the same vendor that the SFAA has always used, so prices will remain the same, as well as the excellent level of service. Please direct all screening questions to CBA at 800-564-6440. For faxed or verbal tenant screening requests, please call ext. 120. For online tenant screening questions and/or set up, please call ext. 150. CBA’s fax number is 707-427-6733. The SFAA appreciates your cooperation in this simplification process. Look for an expanded article about this change in a future issue.

SFAA Staff Changes
Recently, the composition of the SFAA’s staff changed, with the departure of several longtime staff members and the return of a friendly face.

Operations Manager Jennifer Finlay recently left the SFAA to pursue a career in library science. She is attending graduate school at San Jose State University. We greatly appreciate all the energy and dedication she gave to the organization. From managing our annual MiniFEST trade shows to working on the tech side of the business, Jennifer played a critical role in the SFAA. Her advice, humor and good cheer will be missed.

Greg Miller, the SFAA’s education director, has left the association to join the San Francisco Rent Board as a compliance counselor. Now SFAA members can drop into the Rent Board and see his smiling face. We will miss Greg’s patience and quiet, peaceful demeanor.

Ted Talasse, tenant screening manager, has also left us and will be working as a customer service representative in the entertainment industry. We will miss his reliability, even temperament and creative understanding.

Even as some familiar faces leave the SFAA, others are returning. Former SFAA intern Sean Pritchard joined the staff last month. Many members will remember Sean from when he interned for the organization a few summers back while attending the University of San Francisco. Most recently, Sean worked as a property manager for West Coast Property Management. Now he is back at the SFAA, serving as community relations and government affairs manager.

Care Not Cash Moves Hundreds into Housing
San Francisco’s Director of Housing and Homeless Services said the city was “basically done implementing Care Not Cash” after moving all but a few hundred of the homeless adults who were formerly receiving a cash payment into supportive housing. Of the 2,400 single, homeless people who got a monthly check from the city before the May 2004 implementation of Care Not Cash, only 405 are still receiving financial assistance, according to Director Dariush Kayhan of the Department of Human Services. The rest either moved into supportive housing or left the city. He predicts that enough units will come online between now and June to house those who remain in need and says the city’s next goal for this hard-to-reach population is job training. “It’s a challenging group of folks to work with,” Kayhan reports, “but we’re going to continue to work with them and hopefully change their lives.”

Appeal Court Rules in Favor of Property Owners on SF Ordinance
The California Court of Appeal recently overturned a San Francisco ordinance that required owners who Ellis Acted their buildings to tell tenants how much they would be paid for relocation assistance. At the time the ordinance was passed, San Francisco landlords had to pay $4,500 to evict a low-income tenant and $3,000 to evict a disabled or elderly tenant if owners decided to sell their buildings and get out of the rental business. The ordinance required landlords to disclose how much they believed they would owe each soon-to-be-evicted tenant, but the Court of Appeal found that that requirement could become problematic if tenants later challenged the eviction, and it would be a “prohibitive price” on a landlord’s right to leave the rental business.

Unfortunately, the Court of Appeal upheld a separate ordinance that extends relocation assistance to all San Francisco tenants evicted due to the Ellis Act. Landlords must now pay $4,500 to every tenant in a household affected by such an eviction, regardless of income, with a maximum payout of $13,500 per unit. The ruling does allow the possibility for individual owners to sue the city rather than pay the relocation fees. The decision to uphold this ordinance is sure to be appealed to a higher court.

McGoldrick Sponsors Ordinance to Stop School-Year Evictions
San Francisco Supervisor Jake McGoldrick has introduced an ordinance that would make it much more difficult to evict tenants with children during the school year. McGoldrick got the idea for the provision from his time living in France and says the European country has a similar protective ordinance designed to keep families from being evicted at a time that would be too disruptive for children. He has yet to find any such ordinance in this country but says the city must do something to stop the flight of middle-class families from the city. The ordinance is “one way to not economically banish families with children,” he tells us. The SFAA hopes to work with McGoldrick to be sure the concerns of property owners are taken into consideration while he works on this legislation.

In other family housing news, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Policy Council on Children, Youth and Families has recommended that at least 20% of the units in new developments include “family-friendly units”: units with items that most appeal to families with young children, like large kitchens, laundry facilities and, most important, reasonable rents or mortgage payments. The mayor agreed that something must be done to keep children in the city (minors make up only 15% of city residents, down from 25% in 1960) but would not go so far as to say that he believes housing mandates are the answer.

New Garbage Classification in Effect
Batteries, fluorescent bulbs, VCRs and microwaves are among the many items no longer allowed in the regular garbage pickup. These items are now considered “hazardous” for landfills, according to a new state law, and should no longer be thrown out with the rest of the trash. Instead, these items should be brought to a special pickup center or held for a special bulk-pickup day. You can get a full list of the newly classified garbage items and ways to dispose of them safely at www.dtsc.ca.gov.

Billions in Rebates for Solar Power
California’s energy regulators recently cleared the way for $2.9 billion in rebates that they hope property owners will use to install solar panels on their roofs. The rebates will start in 2007 and last until 2016. The state’s Public Utilities Commission anticipates that by then the solar panel industry will have reached a critical mass of orders, making California the world leader in solar power and causing the environmentally friendly energy source to become much more affordable. The commission also approved $300 million in rebates for 2006, which should knock a third of the price off a standard 4,000-watt household system. The goal is to get 3,000 megawatts of solar power capacity on the roofs of one million California buildings by the end of the rebate program. Currently, the state has an average of only 100 megawatts of capacity on 15,000 homes and businesses. Check out www.cpuc.ca.gov for more information on the rebate program.

Annual Real-Estate Conference on April 20
The Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC-Berkeley is hosting its 11th annual real-estate conference on April 20 at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The full-day conference is designed to keep real-estate and financial professionals up to date on the ever-evolving world of modern real-estate transactions. Some topics include residential real estate, financing, an economic forecast and investment trends. Check out www.haas.berkeley.edu/realestate for more information and to register for the event.