Malia M. Cohen, the only African American member of the California Board of Equalization (BOE), has some critical concerns about the cost homeowners will have to bear because of Proposition 19, a constitutional amendment that took effect on Dec. 16, 2020.

 Cohen, who represents 10 million Californians in 23 counties on the board, is concerned with how Prop. 19 will affect Black and other minority homeowners across California. The BOE is the commission responsible for implementing the law.

“The challenge is that it was voted upon and the election has been certified. So, it’s the law,” Cohen said during a virtual media news briefing with reporters from across the state on January 29 organized by California Black Media.

In her commentary, Cohen discussed the ways the law will impact all property owners.

 “It not only affects our respective Black communities,” she told the reporters. “It affects all homeowners and property owners in the state of California. When people wake up there is going to be a massive coalition (to fight it) — possibly an uprising. People need to know what the real deal is.”

 Cohen said she is planning other events similar to the news briefing she had with CBM. There, residents of California will begin to hear about “the first steps” they can take to become educated about how Prop.19 will hit their bottom lines. This is something she feels was not adequately explained to voters when the referendum was placed on the ballot last November.

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 On Nov. 3, 2020, California voters approved Prop. 19, the “Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act.”

 Although Prop. 19 was enacted in December, Cohen warns that a critical part of the legislation will take effect on February 16. Until that date, the state currently allows tax breaks for parent-child transfers. When parents give or sell real property to their children (or perhaps, grandchildren), that heir continues to pay property taxes at the same rate assessed on the home value as the parent.

 After February 16, Prop. 19 will eradicate the parent-child exclusion. Then, parents would still be able to transfer their house to a child, and the child may keep the parent’s assessed value. But the Prop. 19 law has added one critical condition: the child must move into the residence and make the property his or her own primary residence. If not, the property will be reassessed at what the current tax cost is for the home at that time.

 Cohen discussed the immediate property tax implications and how it might impede property owners’ intentions to create generational wealth by transferring their personal residence and other property they own to their children as part of their estate planning.

 BOE Tax Counsel Richard Moon also participated in the briefing.

 “What is required is that a child moving into the home must file a homeowner exemption and that needs to be done within a year of the transfer date,” Moon said. “The child has one year to move into the family home and maintain that family home in order to keep the exclusion. But if they move out after three years, the property would be assessed at that point.”

 Rates of Black homeownership in California and across the country are still far below that of Whites and other minorities. Critics of the law say the fact that Prop. 19 could set up even more barriers to African Americans owning homes – and straddle struggling families with additional financial burdens – is problematic. About 2.2 million Black people reside in California, around 5.5% of the state’s population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of white American homeownership is over 73%, while that of African Americans stands at 41%, Black Enterprise magazine reported in 2019.

 According to data compiled by Lending Tree, the country’s leading online home loan marketplace, Los Angeles is one of the cities with the highest percentage of Black homeowners. Utah’s Salt Lake City, Texas’ San Antonio, Oregon’s Portland, and Northern California’s San Jose are also included on that list.

 African Americans primarily generate wealth through homeownership and home inheritances, according to data included in the Urban Institute’s “2019 Black Homeownership Gap: Research Trends and Why Growing Gap Matters” report.

 “Homeownership is currently the largest single source of wealth-building” among the Black population, the study stated. Between 2005 and 2008, over 240,000 African Americans lost their homes to foreclosure according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

 “The financial crisis triggered a massive destruction of wealth for African Americans,” Alanna McCargo, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center told the Washington Post in 2019. “Wealth is inextricably linked to housing, and that wealth gap is evident in figures for Black-owned property in this country.”

 The law, as it is written, would exclude from the term “purchase” and the phrase “change in ownership” for purposes of determining the “full cash value” of property in the purchase or transfer of a family home or family farm, for example.

 Hardy Brown, Publisher Emeritus of the Black Voice News in Riverside says some of the spirit of Prop. 19 may have been positive. The state intended to provide financial cover for the mostly white Californians living in fire- and flood-prone parts of the state in the event disaster happens. But what it ends up doing, he argues, is decimate the wealth of Blacks and other minorities.

 “It doesn’t help,” said Brown. “It might make a quick buck for campaign contributors or help the state to be a good neighbor to some people, but severely harms others in the process. What it really ends up doing is putting another law on the necks of Black people in the state of California. It will choke the breath right out of us.”

 Under its constitutional mandate, the BOE oversees the assessment practices of the state’s 58 county assessors, who are charged with establishing values for approximately 13.6 million properties each year.  

 “We are not talking about $25 million palaces in Malibu. We are talking about humble homes. Middle-class homes,” Cohen said. “I live in the Bay View community (of San Francisco). We’re talking about Baldwin Hills of Los Angeles or Encanto in San Diego and other communities throughout California. Homes that were purchased for $100,000 decades ago that now have a market value of over $1 million. These homes were paid for through hard work and could be potentially lost.”

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By Reginald James

Holding signs saying “Protect our right to stay” and chanting “Housing is a human right,” residents of Oakland’s California Hotel, the stately old five-story brick landmark at 3501 San Pablo Ave., demonstrated July 14 against being unlawfully kicked out of their homes. The owners attempted to intimidate the 72 remaining residents of the 150-unit building into moving by having property manager the John Stewart Co. threaten to stop paying the property’s utilities and security bills.

However, last Friday, an Alameda County Superior Court judge granted a temporary restraining order requiring the owners, Oakland Community Housing Inc. (OCHI), to keep the gas, water and electricity on, according to attorney John Murcko.

“When we are removed by what is called urban renewal, we call it what it really is: gentrification.”

Oakland Nation of Islam Minister Keith Muhammad

“The tenants want to stay here,” said Murcko, who also represented the tenants in two previous lawsuits over deplorable conditions at the property. “A lot of them have been here over a decade. Most have no place else to go.”

Murcko stated that OCHI is under contract requiring them to manage the property as affordable housing to very low-income tenants. That is a stipulation of the low-cost 30-year government loans OCHI used to buy and maintain the hotel.

Residents initially received a letter June 18 stating, “The John Stewart Company will no longer be the management agent for your community effective July 15, 2008.” As if to add confusion and insult to injury, the letter continues, “It has been a pleasure working with you and we wish you the best.”

A follow-up letter dated June 20 states, “Cahon Associates, Inc., the owner of the building, cannot afford to hire another management company to operate the California Hotel or subsidize the operating deficit that exists at the property. In addition, local and state law require onsite management for buildings the size of the California Hotel. If the owner does not replace the onsite manager, the building will be out of compliance with local and state law.” Cahon Associates is a subsidiary of OCHI.

The letter continues, “As a result, the building may close down shortly after July 15. Tenants should begin to look for another place to live and plan to vacate the building on or before July 15^th. Eden Information & Referral (Eden I&R) will be available to provide some tenant assistance to help in your search for new housing.”

The City Council approved a little over $893,000 for relocation assistance for residents of properties owned by OCHI. However, as reported in the materials presented to the Council, the scarcity of affordable housing stock has contributed to the difficulty of tenants relocating.

“The closing of seven affordable rental properties will have significant negative impacts,” according to the June 17 City Council agenda materials. “Foremost is the tremendous negative impact on the 215 current residents who will have to relocate in a rental market that is already tight.”.

“There’s nothing available,” California Hotel tenant Robin Menefee said. “There’s nowhere to go.” Menefee will stay after the John Stewart Co. abandons the property.

OCHI subsidiary Cahon Associates claims it is broke. “They own 13 buildings probably worth $130 million,” said Murcko. “This is a fraud on the city and a fraud on the people of Oakland.”

Since informing the city, OCHI has received a $1.5 million subsidy to cover management and other operating costs for their numerous properties in Oakland, with most going to the California Hotel, according to the Oakland Tribune. But residents don’t feel the money was invested in improving their living conditions. There were many complaints of infestation. Even a major lobby window on the ground floor on San Pablo was broken and boarded up.

The company received $5.1 million from the City of Oakland in the ‘80s to buy the property and has since received tens of millions in state and federal monies.

The Oakland Tribune reported that Sean Rogan, deputy director of the city’s department of Housing and Economic Development, attributes the failure of tenants relocating to bad advice from outside agitators. “It’s unfortunate and counterproductive that other organizations are urging the tenants to not sign anything and don’t take the tenant relocation assistance,” he said.

However, residents attribute their determination to stay to the lack of available housing and their resentment at being forced to move out of their homes. Although they’ve consistently paid rent, they’ve never reaped the improvements they’ve been promised.

“They want me to get the hell out,” said Lee Jenkins, a 60-year-old resident who has lived in the building for 16 years. “I don’t want to go nowhere. They haven’t given me an eviction notice, so I’m going to fight it.”

Jenkins, like many of the elderly or disabled living in the building, who are either low income or no-income, has nowhere else to turn.

Oakland Nation of Islam Minister Keith Muhammad, who spoke at the rally, put the events in context of the larger land grab taking place in Oakland:

“When we are removed by what is called urban renewal, we call it what it really is: gentrification,” said Muhammad. “They want to turn West Oakland into East San Francisco.”

The minister also saw a relationship between the removal of tenants and the recent so-called “Nutcracker” sting in June, which resulted in 50 arrests. Muhammad suggests the raids, resulting in the seizure of 40 weapons but no arrests of any actual weapon suppliers is “managed mayhem” that will allow the plan to force low-income people, especially African-Americans, from their homes to escalate and intensify.

“When this property hits the open market, no one who lives here now will likely be able to live here again, because we will not be able to afford it,” Muhammad added.

When asked by television reporters, “What happens if property management leaves,” Murcko responded, “The tenants will step up.” And they have.

On IndyBay.org in an update, Lynda Carson reported that “George Stringer, a long-time tenant of the California Hotel … stated that the John Stewart Company packed up and moved today, shut down the front desk and left by around 5-6 p.m.

“‘The John Stewart Company packed up to go, and left behind a security guard to keep an eye on the place, and the rest of us that are holding out are doing just fine, so far,’ said Stringer. ‘These people tried to force us out as though we do not have any rights as tenants in Oakland or California, and we’re staying as long as we can. The rents are too high for us to try and move anywhere else at this point, and we are better off staying put and exerting our rights as tenants.’”

Stringer, born in Monroe, Louisiana, and raised in Oakland, knows the rules. He managed the Exodus House in Oakland until he moved to the California Hotel three years ago. There he pays $400 a month for a single room with bath and shares a kitchen with other tenants on his floor.

“The California Hotel is just the first building,” said Robbie Clark, an organizer with Just Cause Oakland, who led the chants and rallying cry with tenants and supporters Monday. “There will more than likely be others. We have to come together as a community and prevent the displacement of residents.”

Cahon Associates also owns six other affordable housing developments in Oakland, including Marin Way, San Antonio Terraces, James Lock Court and Slim Jenkins Court. One property, Drasnin Manor, is facing foreclosure by Washington Mutual. Foreclosure would possibly eliminate any affordable housing restrictions, according to City documents.

All six are scheduled to be closed down and turned into transitional housing with the eviction of the residents in the future after the California Hotel is shut down.

A June 5 report from the Redevelopment Agency and the City of Oakland warns that at least 537 tenants in 11 out of 14 properties owned by OCHI are at risk of losing their housing. OCHI owns about 638 units of affordable housing and all of their tenants are at risk of losing their homes in the coming months, according to the report.

OCHI did not respond to requests for comment but will have to face tenants in court July 30 at 2:30 p.m. at the Hayward Hall of Justice, Department 510, 24405 Amador St. in Hayward. For more information, contact Robbie Clark at Just Cause Oakland, (510) 763-5877, email Robbie@justcauseoakland.org or visit www.justcauseoakland.org.

Reginald James is editor-in-chief of the Laney Tower newspaper at Laney College in Oakland. Email him at reggiegeneral@yahoo.com. Housing rights advocate Lynda Carson contributed to the story. She may be reached at tenantsrule@yahoo.com or (510) 763-1085.

This story is published as part of SFBV’s Bay View Archive project, made possible by the San Francisco Foundation. For more information, click here.

This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Bay View.

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Steppenwolf Theatre Company is thrilled to welcome Leelai Demoz as its new Associate Artistic Director. Leelai Demoz has had a varied career in the arts, on stage, in front and behind the camera. He is a founding partner of Small Ax, a digital production company/agency based in Venice, CA. Demoz produced the award-winning film DIFRET (2014 Sundance World Cinema and 2014 Berlin Panorama Audience Awards). He was nominated for an Academy and Emmy Award for the documentary film On TipToe, which is a profile of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and was directed by ensemble member Eric Simonson. His other work has been seen on MTV, Discovery, Travel Channel and BET. He also directed a set of ‘get out the vote’ public service announcements for the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, featuring LL Cool J and Alicia Keys.

As an actor, he has appeared at several Chicago area theaters as well as The Kennedy Center, The National Theater of Great Britain and Broadway. His first professional stage production was at Steppenwolf Theatre in The Grapes of Wrath.

Outside of the arts, Mr. Demoz has consulted with the United Institute of Peace and served on a working group for a project with The William Jefferson Clinton Foundation’s Rwanda Initiative. He is a board member of The Schoolhouse Foundation and of Action Civics California (Mikva Challenge).

“When I was a young actor growing up in the Chicago area, acting meant only one thing: Steppenwolf Theatre. The members of the ensemble epitomized the craft and art of acting. So to be cast in The Grapes of Wrath and playing the National Theatre in Great Britain as a 20-year-old was a life-changing experience,” shares Leelai Demoz. “Now, after a career as a film and television producer in NY and Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance to be considered for this job. I can’t think of a better place than Steppenwolf to be collaborating with so many artists who are asking fundamental questions about our community and our world. I look forward to bringing my experience, energy, passion, naivete, and unbridled enthusiasm to my new position. I thank the Board, the staff, David Schmitz, and Anna Shapiro for this incredible opportunity. When I was acting, I was always asking the question ‘Who am I?’ Now I am most interested in the question, ‘Who are we?’ To quote Anna, I’m ready to ‘get in here’.”

As Associate Artistic Director (ADD) Leelai Demoz will oversee and facilitate the day-to-day artistic operations of the theatre while assisting the Artistic Director in maintaining the highest possible administrative and production standards for the company. He will create and maintain communication channels within the organization and will work closely with both the artistic staff and all other departments to manage flow of information, allotment of resources and calendar management for the season. Demoz will also serve as a consistent public face of Steppenwolf Theatre both locally and internationally. Reporting to the Artistic Director, the ADD will serve as a member of Steppenwolf’s senior management team and work closely with the Executive Director, General Manager, Director of Production, Director of Marketing & Communications, Director of Development, Education Director, the Artistic Associates, the Ensemble and the Board of Trustees. Demoz will lead a sophisticated and talented group of artistic administrators, including Artistic Producers, a Casting Director and Director of New Play Development.

Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro comments, “I cannot stress to you all how happy David and I are to have been able to re-imagine this position and then to have been able to fill it with someone as accomplished as Leelai. A true associate AD is necessary for the health and productivity of any theatre that is as committed to excellence, continuity and growth. As Steppenwolf continues to chart its course for the next many years, we know that adding Leelai to our family helps guarantee a stable and exciting future.”

“Leelai Demoz is a talented producer, administrator, artist and filmmaker. With his variety of professional experiences, he will immediately add value to the range of projects happening at Steppenwolf at any given moment. As a department head and leader of the artistic office at Steppenwolf, he will be collaborating throughout our organization and our community, and I am thrilled that he is joining our talented staff,” adds Executive Director David Schmitz.

Year of Chicago Theatre Steppenwolf Theatre Company is proud to be part of the 2019 Year of Chicago Theatre, presented by the City of Chicago and the League of Chicago Theatres. To truly fall in love with Chicago, you must go to our theatres. This is where the city bares its fearless soul. Home to a community of creators, risk-takers, and big hearts, Chicago theatre is a hotbed for exciting new work and hundreds of world premieres every year. From Broadway musicals to storefront plays and improv, there’s always a seat waiting for you at one of our 200+ theatres. Book your next show today at ChicagoPlays.com.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the nation’s premier ensemble theater. Formed by a collective of actors in 1976, the ensemble represents a remarkable cross-section of actors, directors and playwrights. Thrilling and powerful productions from Balm in Gilead to August: Osage County  and Pass Over—and accolades that include the National Medal of Arts and 12 Tony Awards—have made the theater legendary. Steppenwolf produces hundreds of performances and events annually in its three spaces: the 515-seat Downstairs Theatre, the 299-seat Upstairs Theatre and the 80-seat 1700 Theatre. Artistic programming includes a seven-play season; a two-play Steppenwolf for Young Adults season; Visiting Company engagements; and LookOut, a multi-genre performances series. Education initiatives include the nationally recognized work of Steppenwolf for Young Adults, which engages 15,000 participants annually from Chicago’s diverse communities; the esteemed School at Steppenwolf; and Professional Leadership Programs for arts administration training. While firmly grounded in the Chicago community, nearly 40 original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success both nationally and internationally, including Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Sydney, Galway and Dublin. Anna D. Shapiro is the Artistic Director and David Schmitz is the Executive Director. Eric Lefkofsky is Chair of Steppenwolf’s Board of Trustees.

For additional information, visit steppenwolf.org, facebook.com/steppenwolftheatre, twitter.com/steppenwolfthtr and instagram.com/steppenwolfthtr.

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