Fifteen former tenants of a West Oakland building where four residents died in a fire last month are suing the building’s owner and master tenants on grounds that serious code violations made the blaze worse and prevented people from escaping.
The lawsuit was filed this morning in Alameda County Superior Court, according to attorney Ken Greenstein, who is representing several tenants of the former transitional housing facility at 2551 San Pablo Ave.
Plaintiffs are suing property owner Keith Kim and his company Mead Avenue Housing Associates, as well as nonprofits House of Change, Dignity Housing West and Urojas Community Services, which had signed leases indicating they were responsible for maintenance.
The building had many documented fire safety violations that the fire department was aware of since January. An inspection conducted three days before the March 27 fire found problems with the alarms, sprinkler system, wiring and that the building lacked fire extinguishers.
Pastor Jasper Lowery of Urojas had stopped paying rent in September, sending a letter demanding help with upkeep and deferred maintenance by the landlord a few weeks before the fire. Kim was seeking to evict Lowery and bring in a new property manager, though according to a spokesman, his intention was to let Lowery’s tenants remain.
Greenstein, who said he has filed lawsuits all over California concerning tenants' issues for the last 18 years, described the building as “probably one of the worst properties in Oakland.”
Eliza Anderson, 29, one of the tenants in the lawsuit, said she barely made it out of the building with her children. Anderson said her aunt kicked down her door to alert her to the fire, as she didn’t hear any alarms. As Anderson and her kids made their way out of the building, there was no light in the hallway, she added.
“There are slumlords and we need to take care of them,” Anderson said. “It’s killing people… we almost died in that building.”
Anderson said she had lived there since February 2013, but since the fire she has been staying in transitional housing in Oakland. She and four other plaintiffs lived on the third floor of the building and had written rental agreements, according to Greenstein.
There were reports of squatters living on the third floor, but Greenstein said that in talking to people who lived there he hasn’t encountered anyone who didn’t have an agreement with the property managers.
In a statement today, Kim’s attorney William Kronenberg said that Dignity Housing West had a long-term lease that made it responsible for maintenance.
“Dignity West brought in Urojas Ministries and Pastor Jasper Lowery, who receive public funds to operate, although it is unknown whether there is any oversight or accountability of the funds,” Kronenberg said. “It is my understanding that these funds are intended to be used for the benefit of Urojas’ tenants at the property which would include providing basic maintenance and ensuring a decent and habitable living environment.”
He said the building had been operated by the East Bay Community Recovery Project for 20 years without incident and that only in the last five years, since Dignity Housing West came in, that it has fallen into neglect.
Attorney James Cook, who has been representing Lowery and Urojas regarding the eviction, pointed out that only four of the fifteen tenants in the lawsuit named Urojas and said there's a possibility those allegations could be dismissed.
"This lawsuit shows that there's a chance for the city of Oakland to rewrite the eviction laws," Cook said, adding that he has been trying to meet with Mayor Libby Schaaf and other officials to discuss the issue, but has yet to receive a response.
