The San Francisco Anti-Eviction Mapping Project – the same tenant advocates who produced this time-lapse of Ellis Act evictions – have published a new interactive data visualization, displaying locations of properties where seniors and disabled tenants were ousted by no fault of their own.
Showing data over the last three years, the map plots locations of where tenants were evicted under the Ellis Act, and displays the identities of the responsible landlords for each affected unit.
“Waiting lists for public senior housing take years. Often senior and/or disabled tenants are forced to leave San Francisco altogether, or end up on the street homeless,” Anti-Eviction Mapping Project organizers wrote in a statement accompanying the interactive map. “If dispossessed from the city, they often lose access to vital city-subsidized healthcare and community support that they had been reliant upon.”
At today’s (Tue/26) Board of Supervisor’s Meeting, legislation seeking to assist seniors affected by Ellis Act evictions won preliminary approval by the full board. Called the Ellis Act Displaced Emergency Assistance Ordinance, it prioritizes evicted seniors when they seek to access affordable housing programs administered by the city.
“We need this measure to keep residents who have no other means of permanent housing from becoming homeless,” said Board President David Chiu, who cosponsored the legislation along with Sups. David Campos, Jane Kim, Eric Mar and London Breed.
The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project also released a time-lapse plotting the total number of no-fault evictions from 1997 to 2013. A counter that starts when you hit the play button breaks down the number of units where evictions were carried out under the Ellis Act, via owner move-in evictions, and through demolition.
The grand total for that timeframe is 11,766 no-fault evictions. That’s counting units, not individual tenants. Owner move-in evictions made up the lion’s share, with 6,952 units affected. Watch the visualization here.
Meanwhile, tenant advocates who are developing these data-driven presentations are also conducting a survey to gather information for another mapping project in the works.