You know, like people from San Francisco were beginning to talk about L.A. You could see that people were starting to move to Los Angeles. Well, it was just noticing migration patterns. and saw a city with not many people living in the downtown area, but that the area was ready to explode. “Anyone who rents is in danger because of the Ellis Act,” she told the small crowd gathered outside of Wurstküche Saturday.While I was at USC, my business partner Joseph (Pitruzzelli) and I, wanted (like most college students) to open up a bar. Renter advocates have long argued that the bill weakens rent control laws aimed at keeping homes affordable for long-time tenants. In the mean time, she says the group is using Sanchez’s case to draw the attention of Westside residents to the Ellis Act, which they are fighting to repeal. Llorens says members of the Tenants Union have contacted Wilson to arrange a meeting but haven’t yet heard back. “I didn’t really want to have a neighbor that was four or six units,” says Wilson. He says he decided to buy the residence after hearing rumors that a developer had plans to replace it with a small apartment complex. Wilson tells Curbed he hasn’t decided yet what to do with the property, but has no plans at this point to redevelop the site. “I bought a house, and I want to use it,” he says. “He shouldn’t buy if it means evicting families.”īut Wilson points out he’s within his rights as a property owner to do with the home as he sees fit. “He knew before buying there’s a family living here for 20 years,” she says. Sanchez says she’d like to ask Wilson why he bought the residence where she lives. She says her son has autism and pancreatic issues, and that being close to UCLA Medical Center is a key part of keeping him healthy. Sanchez tells Curbed she’s lived in the small two-unit property since 1996 and that she worries about having to leave Venice, where her daughter goes to high school. Tenants Union member Mai Llorens, who helped to organize the campaign against the eviction, says demonstrating in front of Wilson’s business is a strategy designed to pressure him to sit down with Sanchez to talk about ways she and her family might remain in their home. my wife refused to stay at our house because of the things that were being said online.” “The way people are talking about me is pretty gross,” he says. Given that Ellis Act evictions are relatively common, Wilson says he feels unfairly targeted by the protests. Patricia Sanchez, center, says she’s lived in her rent-controlled home since 1996.Īccording to the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenant advocacy group, landlords have used the 1980s law to pull more than 24,000 rent-controlled units from LA’s rental market since 2001. Records show Wilson notified the city’s housing department in June that he planned to withdraw the home where Sanchez lives from the rental market. But California’s Ellis Act gives landlords the opportunity to clear residents out of their buildings if they are leaving the rental business. Tenants like Sanchez, who live in units covered by Los Angeles’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, are generally protected from being evicted if they haven’t violated the terms of their lease. “The fact that she can’t find housing-I feel for her,” he told Curbed in a phone call. Wilson says he’ll be sorry to see Sanchez go, but that the property has become too expensive to maintain, and he’s not interested in the rental business. “There’s no place nearby that I can afford.” “It’s very stressful,” she tells Curbed, speaking through a translator. Two months later, Sanchez says she received word that she would have to move out of her rent-controlled home within a year. Property records show a trust controlled by Wilson paid $1.5 million for the property in April. “Yuppies are ruining Venice,” a demonstrator shouted at puzzled patrons. “We’re going to stay here until he sits down with us and decides to drop the eviction,” tenant Patricia Sanchez said Saturday. It was the latest picket organized this month by members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, demanding that restaurant owner Tyler Wilson change plans to evict the tenants of an unassuming residence that sits directly behind his Lincoln Boulevard eatery. Dozens of tenant activists gathered Saturday outside the Venice location of popular gastropub Wurstküche, chanting “homes not sausages.”
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