From 5-8pm Wednesday, Dec. 2nd, two tenants rights nonprofits, Eviction Defense Collaborative and Tenants Together, hope you'll stop by their offices at 995 Market St. to help raise money for their upcoming relocations.
As San Francisco Magazine and Curbed have reported, the groups announced on Facebook earlier this week that the owner of the office building at 995 Market St., which has been undergoing substantial interior and exterior renovations over the past year, has not allowed either nonprofit to renew their leases, which expire at the end of this year.
Terra Graziani, communications coordinator at EDC, tells us that the nonprofit originally moved into the building 20 years ago, when it was full of not-for-profit organizations. After a brief stint elsewhere, they moved back to the building 10 years ago and have been there ever since. While EDC and Tenants Together are separate entities, they both have offices on the 11th and 12th floors of the building.
Today, 11 of the building's 15 floors are leased by WeWork, which rents out office space to start-ups and small companies, at $4 per square foot, compared to the $2 per square foot EDC pays, Graziani said. Those numbers have yet to be confirmed by WeWork, but Graziani adds that when they move out, there will only be one nonprofit left in the building: Compass Family Services. When asked if EDC has considered renting space in the building through WeWork, she said that the pricing was unaffordable for the nonprofit.
While Graziani couldn't say where EDC plans to move to, she did say that if their current lease negotiations pan out, their new offices will be in a smaller building in SoMa that's walking distance to the courthouse — which is key for staff and clients. She also noted that the office they have their sights on is currently empty, so no one will be displaced by their move.
Relocation will be costly, however. Graziani estimates that the new space will cost double what EDC is paying now. To help cover the difference, they're applying for a grant from the Northern California Loan Fund, which partnered with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development and a handful of local service providers to assist displaced nonprofits and arts organizations. Other than that, there are no resources available for displaced nonprofits, she said.
"No one is immune to the eviction epidemic that's happening in San Francisco," Graziani warned, and encouraged anyone who has been affected by eviction to attend their Eviction Party on Dec. 2nd. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project will be in attendance to document personal eviction stories, and both organizations hope to raise funds to help cover their relocation costs.
