First responders work at the scene of an apartment fire at 400 Canal St. in San Rafael on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
The landlord of a large apartment complex in the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael faced a dilemma.
So did its tenants, residents who were forced from their residences after a December fire at the Meridian apartments on Canal Street.
The landlord faced a city order to pay relocation expenses for displaced tenants. Failure to do so meant the city would withhold permits the landlord needs to make fire-damage repairs and renovations to the complex.
Wisely, for both the landlord and tenants, the city’s order is being followed.
For many, the dilemma highlights the housing struggles faced by those living on the economic fringe of Marin.
The dispute started with a December fire that displaced 10 families living in five fire-damaged apartments.
Community activists say there were 20 adults and seven children living in those five apartments.
The apartment complex was being renovated at the time of the fire, an accident fire investigators blame on that work. The owner’s attorney initially questioned the city’s order, but last month ownership agreed not to challenge City Hall’s action and is paying displaced tenants’ long-term relocation expenses.
“We are pleased with that outcome and the willingness of the landlord to support the displaced tenants with these payments,” Mayor Kate Colin said.
The renovation of the 99-unit complex has already been of concern after the owner, San Francisco-based Tesseract Capital Group, started asking tenants to voluntarily move due to the renovation work. Critics, worried that the renovation will lead to higher rents, say the tenants have few housing options in high-priced Marin.
Overcrowding in Canal neighborhood apartments has been a longstanding problem, but the biggest one is that there is a dearth of affordable housing available that could help resolve many of those problems.
In the wake of the fire, rent-paying tenants displaced by the damage got an offer from the landlord compensating them for giving up their lease.
The city’s order demanded the landlord pay for emergency housing for those tenants without requiring them to give up their leases.
The landlord’s attorney says it has provided displaced tenants housing at a local hotel. In addition, it had offered lease buyout packages ranging from $22,444 to $37,444 per unit, depending on their lease termination dates.
For some tenants, that might work.
For others, the payment might provide temporary financial relief, but they will eventually face the lack of affordable housing and be forced to leave Marin.
For community activists on the local housing front, it also means the likely loss of what had been part of Marin’s limited supply of affordable workforce housing.
The city cited a state law requiring a landlord to be responsible for tenants’ relocation benefits if it – or its agent – is responsible for damage that renders units unsafe to occupy.
City Hall stepped up and used the tools it has available to help the tenants, including getting them the financial support that would cover their loss of their apartment, payment for rent of another residence, moving expenses and additional payments if there are children, seniors or people with disabilities in the displaced household.
Local nonprofits, including the Canal Alliance led by Omar Carerra, the public member of the IJ’s editorial board, Community Action Marin and Legal Aid of Marin have launched a community fundraising drive to raise $50,000 to support the displaced families, who lost everything in the fire.
For the landlord, it is also a loss. But it might have been even worse if the city held up the permits for the renovations it wants to make to the 99-unit complex.
For the tenants, it is a crisis, one for which they are not to blame and deserve to be treated fairly and humanely.
Used with permission by the Marin Independent Journal.
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