feature

by Emily Landes & Matthew C. Sheridan

Delene Wolf has been a fixture at the San Francisco Rent Board for over two decades. She served as deputy director under former Executive Director Joe Grubb; and when Grubb retired in 2004, Wolf took over as acting director. She became the new executive director in 2005. In an exclusive interview with SF Apartment Magazine Editor Matthew C. Sheridan and Managing Editor Emily Landes, Wolf explains why she “caved” when she took her current position, plus why she loves the San Francisco Rent Ordinance and what she thinks about an elected Rent Board.

Q: What do you think of proposals to create an elected Rent Board?
Delene Wolf: I think that the makeup of our current board is really fair and balanced. Since there are more tenants in the city than landlords, I’m afraid we’d get an unbalanced board–and it’s not just because I’m a fair-minded person, which I hope I am, but it’s because I’m pro-ordinance. I really believe that our ordinance is necessary. So, therefore, the law has got to survive a court challenge.

Q: Can you speak to the perception that the board is already pro-tenant?
DW: I know the landlords will be blown away by this, but the tenants think we are in the laps of the landlords. I know this is a cliché, but if the landlords think we’re pro-tenant, and the tenants think we’re pro-landlord, I figure we’re doing something right.

If you look at the statistics on appeals, you’ll see that it ends up pretty even. Landlords file rent increase petitions; they usually get granted or people wouldn’t be coming here. Tenants think of that as us being very pro-landlord. There are people who work here who used to work for the SFAA, and I also have staff who used to work for the tenants’ groups. We’ve also got a whole bunch of folks that just wanted a civil service job and don’t have any particular ideological ax to grind.

Q: Will the Rent Board fee be going up?
DW: Our fee is based on our budget and whatever we don’t use gets carried over to the next year; we’ve been fortunate to have a surplus in the past that helped to reduce the fee. But, every year, I have mandated salary and other increases. The fee for fiscal year 2007-2008 will be $26 and the next year the fee will likely go to $29 or $30.

Q: What has changed the most since you first started working at the Rent Board in 1981?
DW: The professionalism of the office. We were really funky. When we were over at 170 Fell St., we would take discarded furniture from City Hall. Everyone thought rent control was going to be this temporary solution to the housing crisis that was going to abate at some point. So, literally, when other agencies had furniture they didn’t need any more, they would put it out in the halls and we’d show up in overalls with a dolly.

The other huge change is that the whole context has gotten a lot more litigious than it used to be, and the law has become increasingly complex. I look up the answers to things in my ordinance and rules six times a day.

Q: Describe the transition to executive director.
DW: It’s been going about as expected. Because I was the deputy director for so long, I did have to stand in Joe’s stead often. If you think that the Rent Board is a fairly well-run agency, and I hope that people do, I was a part of that for a long time, so nothing is a huge surprise to me. Being the acting director for a year before I caved was extremely helpful.

Q: What do you mean, “caved”?
DW: I was extremely resistant to taking the executive director position. Administration is not my favorite thing in the world, so I was reluctant. What helped to change my mind was doing it for a year, which really helped to demystify it, plus having an incredible staff, particularly senior staff, willing to share the administrative burdens with me.

The thing that makes it palatable is that I kept the things that I loved from my deputy job. I love my relationship with the commissioners. I think I have a lot of credibility with them, and I think it would’ve been a shame to throw that away. I like policy. I like the issues that come up on appeal; it’s not the same-old, same-old.

One thing that really surprises me is how much of a landlord I feel like, in terms of general upkeep and maintenance of the office. I don’t think that there’s a day that goes by that I don’t talk to the building manager about a broken lock or a tripping hazard. That was a surprise to me, and not a great source of joy. But I am also pleasantly surprised that I like making decisions. I have such a good staff that feeds me such good information; and then its kind of fun to not have to put up with somebody else’s decisions that I don’t agree with.

Q. What is the role of the Rent Board in the community?
DW: I believe in the mission statement of the Rent Board and I’m unapologetic about thinking that the rent ordinance is a good thing for the city, even though it may seem like an overregulated environment. But we don’t make the law; we’re just the governmental agency charged with enforcing it. And, I do think the rent ordinance plays an important part in keeping San Francisco, San Francisco.

Q: What are some of your “pet peeves” about the rent ordinance?
DW: One pet peeve of mine, and I know the tenants disagree with me on this, is that I think you should be able to charge additional money for the additional housing service of having a pet in the unit, if it’s prohibited. Not a lot, just something like $25 a month. Right now, I hate to tell tenants, they have nothing to bargain with if they want a pet in their unit. I’m also well aware that this is a dead issue for now.

Also, it doesn’t seem fair that if you want to evict to move into a building, your elderly relative can trump a protected tenant, but you can’t, even if you’re elderly. But the fact is that it came off the ballot, and the only way it can be changed is to go back to the ballot. It doesn’t affect a lot of people, but it hits those affected by it pretty hard.

Q: If a group is going to put something on the ballot to change the ordinance or a supervisor wants to change the ordinance, do they come and talk to you first?
DW: It depends what our relationship is. Some people will come to us and ask what we think. They might even run the language by us. We certainly try not to take a position on it when one side or the other is going to be upset about it, which is always. We might try to clean up the language so that we can implement it because many people have no idea what it would be like administratively.

If it comes from the Board of Supervisors, it also depends on what the relationship is. There are some supervisors’ aides who we work with on a regular basis, and they’ll run things by us and ask us what we think of the language. More often, it goes to the city attorney and the city attorney’s office might ask us. But sometimes they can’t because it’s confidential, and the politics are such that it gets sprung on us when it gets sprung on everyone else. Often times, we really regret it when that happens because we could have made it better. Whether we agree with it or not, we would always provide input to make it workable because we’re the ones who are going to have the headaches if we have a mandate that is a mess.

Q: What is your opinion on means testing?
DW: I understand why the absence of means testing pushes landlords’ buttons because there are situations that seem unfair. However, there are many people who think that rent control wouldn’t survive if there were means testing and so I don’t think it’s feasible.

Q: What problems most often come before the Rent Board?
DW: We get tons of calls about evictions from both sides and lots of habitability issues. I never need to look and see the weather report because I always know it’s raining when I get my leaky roof calls.

Q: What is the typical process when someone calls with an eviction problem?
DW: It obviously depends who’s calling. Some people think that we want to know who is calling because we’re going to give really good advice to tenants and really lousy advice to landlords. But, we find out if the caller is a landlord or a tenant because we need to know how to frame the response in the most beneficial way.

If a landlord calls and says, “How can I evict my tenant?” staff will say, “Why do you want to evict your tenant?” We’re not going to feed the landlord a just cause. We’re going to find out if a landlord has a just-cause reason and then give them information. We try to translate the law into English as much as possible, but we will stop short of telling the landlords how to do an unlawful detainer because we’re not allowed to give legal advice.

If a tenant calls up and says they received an eviction notice, we’ll ask, “What does the notice say? When did you get it?” Then we’ll tell them what’s likely to happen. We’ll see if it sounds like a just-cause reason. If it doesn’t sound like a just-cause reason, we’ll say, “You can come into our office and file a report of alleged wrongful eviction. It’s not going to stop your landlord from taking you to court, but we will let the landlord know that they should educate themselves about the law.”

Q: What advice would you give landlords who need to come to a Rent Board hearing?
DW: I think the best thing that landlords can do is educate themselves. We’ve got tons of informational materials. I also think it’s not a bad idea to come in and watch a hearing because people are really scared of the process and think the administrative law judges are going to be horrible to them. But the ALJs are here to find out the information they need from people. They will help people through the hearing.

Be organized. Make sure you keep good records. Don’t come in with a shoebox and expect the counselors to put your case together for you. But if you have put your case together, staff can direct you on how to file a petition. If you’ve educated yourself a little bit, the counselors really take well to someone who has taken a bit of initiative.

Q: How can the Rent Board be improved?
DW: I’m a nonlawyer, so I want to make this law more accessible to people because I’m aware that it’s convoluted and arcane. To that end, we’re involved in a total redesign of our website; we have one of the most visited websites in the City of San Francisco and it is just a horror when it’s not up to date. It’s been updated piecemeal over the years, but this is the first time in 10 years that every piece of information is being updated. We’re involved in the upgrade of our phone system; even though most people have web access, our least sophisticated customers are the ones calling up to listen to those phone scripts.

We got feedback from small landlords that our capital improvement forms were just obnoxious. So we redid them and got rid of about five pages. They’re leaner and simpler. So, we do listen.

We are really working on getting more translations. We are going to be in the vanguard of city agencies to have all of our materials translated on our website. It’s been a difficult process, and we’ve spoken to community groups as to the best way to do it.

Q: Is the Rent Board a fun place to work?
DW: I certainly hope so. Really nice, fun people work here who enjoy each other’s company and are dedicated to a common goal; it’s very rewarding to be able to help people. So, on the whole, we’re not really a somber group. But a lot of the work can be really sad. People who come to us are concerned about losing their housing and being out on the street with a parcel of kids. I’ve worked here for 25 years, and I’ll never get used to that. Landlords with low rents are concerned about not being able to keep up with expenses. There’s a lot of angst.

A lot of people are really upset when they come in here. I think staff does an incredible job of dealing with that. They are saints. I think the hardest job in this agency by far are the front line counselors. It’s amazing what they do to diffuse people’s anger. We do some training, but they have to be innately patient and care about helping people. One thing they’ve taught me is that, as someone is getting angry and their decibel level is rising, just lower your voice. It’s hard for somebody to keep going off when you do that. We have security issues as well. People don’t always feel safe. We’ve had threats and we’ve had to call the police on occasion. We try hard to create and maintain a healthy and humane working environment, but it’s not always within management’s control.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Matthew C. Sheridan is the editor of SF Apartment Magazine and Rental Housing. Emily Landes is the managing editor of SF Apartment Magazine and Rental Housing. Copyright © 2007 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.