Public Comment

Berkeley’s ineffective, useless anti-displacement program

Elisa Cooper, with introduction by Moni T. Law
Friday June 30, 2017 - 10:01:00 AM

Berkeley lost a champion for justice last Friday. I was sorry and shocked to hear of the death of Elisa Cooper, the person who did her homework on issues and spoke boldly for people who are often overlooked. She was a Cal alum. She was a brilliant researcher and writer. And she struggled financially on a meager $331 disability check. She suffered in pain from a serious health condition-- but she persisted, advocated, raised issues that I care about and hopefully others do as well. She also camped out in the freezing cold with a few of us in 2015 in a vigil for our homeless neighbors.

I told her a couple years ago while attending an event in South Berkeley that I was always impressed by her council comments. She told me that I gave her the courage to start speaking up because she had not until then. I was very touched and humbled. She and I exchanged many emails and strategies on affordable housing.



Moni T. Law, J.D.



Dear Councilmembers,

This letter is to reinforce my alarm regarding the ostensible "anti-displacement program" that was buried in the Consent Calendar at the May 2nd Council meeting. The terms for receiving assistance are so strict that they will exclude the people who most need assistance to avoid immediate displacement or homelessness. Most people reach the absolute end of their own resources before even looking for help. Also the City's criteria are similar to Season of Sharing and other emergency rent charities: the City should be helping the people who fall through the cracks of those programs.

As I mentioned during the Council meeting, I wouldn't be eligible for the Anti-Displacement Program under the terms stated. 

1) I pay more than 80% of my income toward rent. I'm not sure it can even be called income since it's State assistance dedicated to rent. 

2) I don't have the income to pay monthly expenses, and I often can't meet them. I often get assistance from my housemate, mom, and others in expectation that I will receive SSI later. I get by on an $80/month transportation grant from the DOR which is irregular. I didn't receive it this month. This is one of the ramifications of the taxpayers discouraging any forms of "cash" assistance for poor people. 

3) The idea that my problem is "budget management" is laughable. Do you have any idea how much of these bureaucratic workshops people like me have to go through already? This is just "poverty pimping" or giving income to consultants and workshop leaders rather than the people whose problems would be solved if they had an income to budget-manage. 

4) Demanding a notice of eviction is also unfair since many people who are on the edge of losing their housing do not want to notify their landlord of their situation or generate the very piece of documentation their landlord needs to get rid of them in 30 days. Existing programs in Berkeley also use "notice of eviction" as a requirement, and that may be one of the reasons people just fall into homelessness without getting help they might have been eligible for. 

Also, Steve Martinot is right about the problem with reporting income leading to the under-recognition of people who are paying over 80% of their income toward rent. In the past, when I've reported temporary work, the bureaucracy automatically cut off all my services - including Medi-Cal - and it took me two months of re-applications and crazy-long phone calls that can only be conducted during business hours to get it back. That's because any income means benefits may have been "overpaid", and the bureaucracy grinds to a halt while all the adjustments are made. This is why you don't hear much about the type of problems I bring up. They don't want to accidentally trip over some rule that might cause them to lose their benefits. 

In short, the people most likely to be displaced won't be helped by this program, and it would be really irritating for poor people to see City Council making a big deal over their in-roads toward addressing displacement when all they are doing is providing a second bite for people in the layer that is already being helped. 

On that note, City Council doesn't know about these things because the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission doesn't inform you about them. I've complained for years about how this commission doesn't deal enough with poverty issues in Berkeley, how they fail to fill the requirement for Representatives of the Poor, and how the City hasn't been meeting the requirements for the Community Services Block Grant because the poor aren't granted adequate participation. 

I noticed that the HWCAC brought up an agenda item for clarifying the Commissioner Manual for the umpteenth time. If we went back for a few years, I wonder how many policy items addressing the concerns of poor people were brought to City Council by the HWCAC? Because I kept bringing up this issue during campaign season, Councilmembers made campaign promises about putting actual poor people on the HWCAC - yet the commission was regarded with so little importance that when the time came, the same old people were reappointed. 

I came across something interesting in the City Ordinance Section 3.78.010: 

C-1. Four of the nine members of the commission appointed by the council shall be members or officials of business, industry, labor, religious, welfare, education, or major groups and interests in the community, as required by California Government Code Sections 12736(e), 12750(a)(2), and 12751, the language of which is incorporated herein by reference. 

I was wondering who kept track of who the 4 "interests of the community" appointees were. It's not the District 3 representative and Chair Praveen Sood - he's a marketing guy who has never held a job that relates to social issues. Perhaps this is part of the problem with getting the HWCAC to focus on local poverty issues. 

Once the HWCAC is fixed with actual representation of the poor and appointees who know/care something about local poverty issues, then the Anti-Displacement Program should be reviewed by them. It's clear from the criteria of the current Anti-Displacement Program that Councilmembers do not have enough information to successfully address this issue. Since I have lived in month-to-month danger of displacement for around 5 years, seeing this useless "Anti-Displacement Program" was devastating for me. 

Sincerely, 

Elisa Cooper 

Ps. If displaced, I also wouldn't be eligible to apply for 2902 Adeline's "affordable" units. 50% AMI for the "Very Low Income Units" is above what people get for SSI (under $12k/year) and above the State's General Assistance ($636/month - total amount must be used for rent). It was equally distressing to see no one fighting for "Extremely Low Income" units in a rapidly gentrifying area where 20% of the residents live below the poverty level (yes, the poverty level is below 50% AMI).