I have been living in San Francisco, California, USA, for many, many, many years. The reason why I first moved here was because it was very affordable and artistically stimulating. In 1985, I was able to live on $400/month, rent included. My main occupation was painter and musician, i.e., artist. I worked at a European-style cafe next to the warehouse I was sharing with five other housemates. We had an immense garage, music room with a piano and various instruments, painting spaces, a large sun room, a tv room, two bathrooms, etc. My total rent was $110./month.
By 1990, five years later, my then boyfriend and I found a place in the Mission (this is where the warehouse was, too) for $675./month, one bedroom Edwardian apartment. Four years later, in 1994, he and I moved to Bernal Heights and paid $850./month for a two bedroom house with a backyard, garage, etc. I had two huge closets in my room!
In summer of 2003, over nine years later, the landlord informed me that he was selling the house. By that time my boyfriend and I had long since moved out. The landlord didn't even give me the option of trying to buy the house. I moved to Berkeley, thinking that rents would be cheaper. I lived in a crack neighborhood off of Sixth Street and was constantly being harassed by tenants in my building and having my car windows bashed in and stereo ripped off. I had signed a six-month lease, fortunately, and tried to move with my two cats in December of 2003. No rooms in San Francisco accepted cats--or, at least two of them. I was forced to take an 8'x9' room in a boarding house situation back in Bernal Heights.
No formal papers were signed. The landlord said he was considered a roommate (even though there were no rooms available to him in the house and he in fact did not live there). Because I had to keep my babies, I decided that I would accept this place. It is now 2007, so I've lived in this place for 3 and 1/2 years. During this time, one of my cats died of old age (she was 17, named after rocker Lita Ford!). The other cat died prematurely this past January ( he was only 9 years-old).
I find myself in a situation in which I could possibly find a better place, but there are so far so many places that are extremely expensive that I don't know what to do. Today one of my housemates and I looked at places. The biggest one, and one which is in the Mission, was $2750./month for three bedrooms. The bathroom was the 4'X3'. The landlord wanted first month's rent plus two months' deposit. Although the place had high ceilings and nice floors, it was completely overpriced. The most depressing, saddening place we saw was back in Bernal Heights. The landlord wanted close to $3000./month for a "three" bedroom house that the elderly woman who greeted us at the door had been living in most of her life. The rooms were tiny. There were bars on the front windows ( I suppose since this woman had been living there a long, long time, she lived there when Bernal was a "bad" neighborhood and therefore still kept that idea in her head).
So many people have moved to San Francisco with tons of dollars that landlords are taking advantage of the fact. Areas of the Mission that were severely dangerous are full of people in designer clothes and cars eating and drinking in the chic neighborhood restaurants. One of the teachers where I work told me that she lived in what is definitely considered a dangerous neighborhood: outer Ocean View. I'd wondered how she could live there. What choices does one have to make? Live in a "safe" neighborhood like Bernal but with a landlord who harasses his tenants (particularly me because I moved my musical equipment up from the garage and put in the "common space") or move to crack neighborhood again and be harassed by neighbors!!!!
What is this all about: greed, harassment, i.e., non-community living but instead a city where "money changes everything."
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