This is heartbreaking. The fight is lost. In San Francisco, the elderly Chinese American couple who were fighting to stay in their low-rent apartment near Nob Hill, were forced out this week. The Lees moved out belongings and went to a motel. Evicted: S.F. family loses fight, evicted after 34 years.
The plight of Poon Heung Lee and Gum Gee Lee, who had lived in the apartment with their mentally disabled daughter for 34 years, drew a great deal of support from community advocates, the mayor's office and several city supervisors -- to no avail. Another household falls prey to the San Francisco housing boom.
The evictions were legal under California's Ellis Act, which allows landowners to evict tenants to renovate apartments and sell them as tenant-in-common units. With San Francisco housing showing no signs of stopping the rent-sanity, Ellis Act evictions have shot up 81 percent in the past year.
Meanwhile, the Lees are trying to find a permanent place to live, with help from the community, but they haven't been able to find anything close to the $778 rent they paid for their apartment on Jackson Street, and it's evident that suitable options in the city are shrinking.
More here: Lee family bids heartfelt good-bye to longtime home.
