No more ‘property,’ no more ‘profit’

A group of homeless people and housing activists broke into and occupied a privately owned duplex in the Mission District of San Francisco on Easter Sunday “in what served as the climax of a protest designed to promote use of San Francisco’s vacant buildings as shelters for the needy,” reports James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The owner of the property — who was targeted over his eviction of a tenant who had remained on the property illegally after being given more than a year’s notice and relocation fees — said the demonstration was nothing more than breaking and entering.

“It’s not actually vacant. I use it for my own personal uses,” Ara Tehlirian of Daly City said in an interview, adding that he was in contact with the San Francisco Police Department. “I know nothing other than my property was apparently broken into.”

More than 50 people marched in rain through the Mission District, hoisting picket signs that read “House keys not handcuffs” and chanting “Whose city? Our city.” The action was organized by Homes Not Jails, a 20-year-old Marxist group affiliated with the San Francisco Tenants Union. The group’s posters and other propaganda contend the rights of squatters should be given preference over the so-called “property rights” of those who buy and manage real estate in search of profit.

By the time the tail of the procession reached the duplex on the 500 block of San Jose Street, at least eight people were inside, the Chronicle reported, holding banners from second-story windows. It wasn’t clear how they gained entry, and Ted Gullicksen, leader of the tenant organization, declined to provide details.

More than a dozen municipal police officers were on hand, most standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Asked earlier whether they would take action if protesters occupied the property, officers declined to comment. One said, “We’ll see.”

By 3 p.m., all but one police officer had left the scene — with the home invaders still in possession of the property. The single officer remained outside the building to ensure that “nobody is out of hand,” said a police official, Sgt. William Escobar. No arrests were made.

Jose Morales, 80, lived in the San Jose Street building for 43 years before he was forced to leave in 2008 through the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to get out of the rental business.

Did you catch that? A “property owner” in San Fransisco can’t evict a tenant — even with substantial notice — just because he wants to, or because he thinks someone else might pay a higher rent. He can only evict a tenant if he “gets out of the rental business” entirely. (Check out the movie “Pacific Heights.” It’s based on a real case.)

Mr. Morales said he now lives in a small space in an office building in the Mission District. “The city should have protected me,” he said. “It’s like they don’t see me. It’s like I’m a ghost to them.”

But attorney Andrew Zacks, who represented property owner Tehlirian, said the landlord resorted to the Ellis Act only after Morales remained on the property illegally, after being given more than a year’s notice and relocation fees.

The Marxists complain about a shortage of rental housing in San Francisco. But why on earth would anyone continue to invest in the upkeep of rental properties in such an environment, where even the police, duly paid by a property owner’s taxes, won’t intervene to block or punish an act of trespass and property seizure happening in broad daylight, right before their eyes?

This is the San Francisco of Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi. Is this the future for capitalism and property rights in the United States?

Some, evidently, will say “Yes,” and cheer.

No time machine is available to send them to Leningrad, circa 1921, to see the kind of happy workers’ paradise created when the state takes over provision of such goods, making everything “more efficient” by barring the provision of housing (or anything else) by “greedy capitalists seeking profit.”

Perhaps they’d like to visit Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, or Zimbabwe for awhile. At the very least — as it’s clearly too much to expect them to read “The Road to Serfdom” — a screening of “1984” or “Escape from New York” may be in order.

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