Berkeley tenants crash landlords’ party to celebrate end of COVID-era evictions ban
A group of tenants in the expensive California suburb of Berkeley stormed an event where landlords were celebrating the end of a COVID-era ban on evictions, plunging the event into violence and sparking a brawl that left an elderly landlord punched in the face.
The City by the Bay was among the last in Alameda County to eliminate protections that landlords say were used as a cover for widespread rent avoidance.
It prohibited them from evicting anyone who didn’t pay rent, but landlords say it has cost them tens of thousands of dollars over the past three years.
The unemployment rate in Berkeley is 3.8 percent – similar to the national average – and the average rent is $3,800. It is known as a wealthy enclave with a deep academic community thanks to the university of the same name.
To celebrate the end of the milestone, the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) hosted a party at a bar.
But more than a hundred angry tenants stormed the soiree, calling it “very cruel.”
Renters in Berkeley stormed a party thrown by landlords to celebrate the end of a COVID-era moratorium that banned evictions for failure to pay rent
Tenants complained that end of eviction ban would lead to ‘homelessness’
Fierce protests saw landlords arrive to celebrate the end of Covid-era tenant protections
Landlords had to run the gauntlet of protest to reach the event marking the return of their eviction powers
“I went around telling our members to stay quiet and peaceful and not engage, but they didn’t,” BPOA President Krista Gulbransen said. Berkeleyside.
“I don’t know how it happened, but before I know it people are pushing each other.”
Gulbransen himself was pushed to the ground when “several fights” broke out after a group of protesters decided to enter the venue an hour after the party.
One male landlord reportedly punched a female protester in the face, while another protester knocked off a landlord’s glasses.
“We have no hesitation in celebrating the end of the eviction moratorium,” Gulbransen said.
“We celebrate the end of tenants who could have paid rent but didn’t.”
The BPOA, which has about 750 members, said an elderly participant was punched in the face.
The Berkeley Property Owners Association organized the event to talk about the end of the moratorium, which they say has cost landlords thousands of dollars.
BPOA president Krista Gulbransen says she was pushed to the ground when protesters entered the party. She is among those who were happy to see the moratorium end
And it criticized the Berkeley Police Department for refusing to remove protesters after they arrived on the scene.
“One officer said they wouldn’t do anything because this was ‘political,'” spokeswoman Becky Warren added.
“We don’t believe that breaking into a local restaurant to disrupt, throw things and push people is political, it’s wrong.”
She said Gulbransen saw her car had been broken into when she got back in it, and that some members have received “threatening messages online and phone calls” since the event.
“Hostile dissidents disrupted a private meeting at a local restaurant to intimidate, harass and physically assault our members, who are law-abiding small business owners.
“Their protest planning included language celebrating the mass murder of landlords, guillotine celebrations and references to landlords as parasites.
“Their tactics to escalate, intimidate and cause harm not only impacted our members, but also the restaurant employees and customers dining at the restaurant.”
The eviction ban was introduced in March 2020, along with many nationwide eviction bans intended to protect people left unemployed by closures due to the pandemic.
New York lifted the ban in January 2022 and Los Angeles at the end of March this year.
But Jesse Arreguin, the Democratic mayor of Berkeley, resisted intense demands from landlords to follow suit.
The self-described “unapologetically progressive” previously served on the city’s Rent Stabilization Board and has made it his mission to “restore Berkeley to the forefront of progressive environmental and social justice leadership.”
Rent payments have been protected during the pandemic by California’s Covid-19 Rent Relief Program, with many subsidies paid directly to landlords.
Berkeley’s Eviction Defense Center claims the city’s landlords received more than $5 million from the scheme.
But it has been 18 months since the scheme closed to new applicants, and Warren said tenants taking advantage of the moratorium had now cost some of her members tens of thousands of dollars.
“If (a landlord) only has one or two properties, that’s a huge hardship,” she told DailyMail.com.
‘There is no property owner who would ever want to unnecessarily evict a tenant.’
According to the US Census, the median household income in the Frisco suburb is $97,000.
But nearly one in six live below the poverty line in a college town where fewer than half are owner-occupiers and the average rent is nearly double the national average.
An hour after the event started, some protesters decided to follow the landlords
Some landlords and tenants took the time to exchange ideas on the sidelines of the event
Leah Simon-Weisberg of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board said the BPOA has not provided any evidence that landlords have suffered harm as a result of the eviction ban.
“While the moratorium is over, COVID-19 continues to spread in our community,” she shared SFGate.
It seems very insensitive to those who might become homeless to ever celebrate their eviction.”
She called the party “completely in character” for the BPOA, but said most landlords in the area had “been very generous and patient and made a real effort to help tenants” during the pandemic.