A 93-year-old East Hollywood woman is packing up her boxes and preparing for a move as she is being evicted from her apartment in three weeks.
Andrea Perez family said the owners are using the Ellis Act — a California law that allows landlords to evict tenants and remove properties from the rental market.
Perez has lived in her unit for the past 40 years.
“I feel sad,” Perez said. “I would want to cry, but I don’t want to cry.”
Since 1927, her fourplex was owned by the same family. When they sold last year, the new owner told tenants they must move.
Gloria Miguel is Andrea’s daughter. She lives with her husband and son in the unit next door. They are being evicted too.
“I was like ‘Oh my God, where can we move that we can afford’,” Miguel said. “Just like the whole feeling that everything you’ve known for like 30 years, 40 years is no more.
“This isn’t your place you got to go’.”
The family learned that the new owners were utilizing the Ellis Act when they were sent a written eviction notice by the new owner Avenue Homes. Avenue Homes did not return our calls seeking comment.
Joseph Tobener is a tenant rights lawyer.
“Landlords invoke the Ellis Act all the time. Especially for smaller parcels, two, three, four unit buildings,” Tobener said. “Local rent control jurisdictions have to allow landlords to go out of the rental business, according to state law.”
Tobener said people facing eviction due to the Ellis Act should look for errors in the landlord’s paperwork.
“Nine times out of 10, I would say a tenant rights lawyer can find errors in the Ellis Act notice and get the tenant more time,” he said.
Tobener also said evicted tenant should keep an eye on the property to see if the owner returns to renting within five years.
“The damages for wrongful eviction if the landlord returns to the rental business without offering it back to this tenant will be in the multiple hundreds of thousands,” he said.
After their forced move, each unit will receive nearly $25,000 for re-location assistance.
“Now it’s like ‘Oh my God, I’m depending on other people to let me know if I can live in their house,’ because the place that I live in, where I’ve always paid my rent, they’ve told me I have to leave,” Miguel said.
Friends and family have also set up a GoFundMe to help them during the transition too. Andrea’s Grandson just hates to see his Grandma hurting.
“It’s been awful, it’s been absolutely awful,” Marcel Borbon said. “She is by far the strongest woman I know, fiercest woman I know.
“It’s absolutely criminal to make somebody go through this at this age.”
But with no other option, Andrea will soon take her possessions and memories and move to a new home. Though she’ll always remember her time in East Hollywood.
“All the time, I’m going to miss this place,” Perez said.
