This Thursday, July 28th, neighbors and members of the city's poetry community will rally to support 81-year-old North Beach poet Diego Deleo, who is set to be evicted from his home of over 30 years under the Ellis Act. The rally will be held at Washington Square Park from 12-1pm.
Deleo first learned of his potential eviction from his Chestnut Street apartment on July 1st, 2013, when landlord Martin Coyne sent notice of his intention to use the Ellis Act to remove Deleo from the backyard cottage that he and his wife shared for years until she passed away in 2012. The controversial California state law allows landlords to get out of the business of being a landlord as a last resort, but critics say that it's being used too frequently by real estate speculators to flip buildings for a quick sale.
According to the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Coyne is the co-owner of popular North Beach bar La Rocca's Corner. Since moving to evict Deleo, he's also evicted tenants to move himself and his daughters into an upper unit of the building on Chestnut Street. A "bookkeeper of Coyne bought the bottom unit as a TIC," leaving Deleo as one of the last renters in the complex.
Beyond Chron writes that Deleo's original landlords were the Tarantino family. When they sold the building to Coyne, they stipulated in their contract that Deleo would never have to pay more than $800 per month for the life of the lease, which remains his current rent.
Now, Deleo's fate will be determined by the courts. His case is set to be heard sometime next month, and if things don't go his way, he may be forced to leave.
Deleo, who moved to the U.S. from Italy at the age of 17, initially worked as a bricklayer; he then spent 25 years working for SFPD as a Senior Escort Crime Prevention Specialist, until the program lost funding. With little formal education, he came to poetry late in life, but now writes every day.
"Diego Deleo represents the spirit that is being drained from San Francisco," said Tony Robles, a San Francisco poet and activist who is leading the event. "His poetry is gleaned from being part of a living, breathing community that is not connected via an app, but by voices and stories and histories that renew themselves with the coming of the fog and smells of the close-knit Italian culture that is being lost to flat postcard images sold to the highest bidder."
In 2013, just a few months after he learned of his impending eviction, Deleo told KALW, "At my age it's a death sentence, in a way. It hurts."
