SFALP students have worked on a wide range of cases and projects designed to address San Francisco’s housing crisis, including an ongoing lawsuit against the operators of a senior assisted living facility for failing to set aside units for low-income seniors as required by the defendants’ contract with the City; efforts to ensure that homeowners comply with the City’s affordable housing program; and cases against landlords who discriminated against and harassed tenants.
As one example among many, SFALP students played a key role in securing the City Attorney’s $2.4 million judgment against Anne Kihagi, a San Francisco landlord notorious for illegally evicting tenants from their rent-controlled homes in order to spike rental prices. The San Francisco Superior Court order found that Kihagi’s pattern of fraud, harassment, and threats—including interrupting utilities, bullying disabled and elderly tenants, refusing to abate unsafe habitability conditions, and retaliating against tenants who cooperated with city inspectors—violated a slew of San Francisco and state housing laws. In addition to the financial penalties, the City Attorney won a 5-year injunction against Kihagi and her associates, which ensures that Kihagi’s years of tenant intimidation, harassment, and abuse will come to an end.
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