Squatters Won’t Leave My Home
I am a First Generation immigrant who fled a communist invasion in East Africa in 1983.
My family came to America to contribute to the melting pot of diverse cultures. We hold dearly to Liberty and the Rule of Law that America offers. We stood and pledged our allegiance to one of the most poignant documents in the world: The Constitution of the United States.
In 1999, I started a retail marketing business along with a community alliance called the Center for African Heritage. Both were created to better serve our diverse Bay Area local and immigrant communities.
I purchased a home in 2006 and started a family in Oakland, California, happily enjoying the engagement with friends, family and colleagues. After a few years, I rented out the home while I moved out of the area knowing when I returned to Oakland, I’d still have my home waiting for me.
Unfortunately, I became a victim of Alameda County’s eviction moratorium as my home had been rented out to someone who stopped paying rent and then let other people live there. I don’t know who these people are. They are not paying me any rent.
The squatters presently refusing to leave my home have no rental lease, no landlord/renter relationship, no known identities, no COVID-related hardships – and they pay no rents. To leave my home, they are demanding a $90,000 cash payment. That’s on top of the $100,000 in lost income I suffered because they haven’t paid rent.
These squatters are enabled by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council. All of them refuse to listen to the property owners, housing providers, and business taxpayers of the county.
We are being told that owners have no representation in the legal process.
Even now, the squatters are encouraged to abuse the owners through this COVID-19 eviction moratorium, although it has been lifted in many parts of California except in Alameda County, Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles.
Since the illegal occupation of my home in November 2021, I have lost $120,000 in possible market-rate rents, $20,000 in legal fees, $36,900 in mortgages, $21,000 a year in taxes I had to pay, $30,000 for housing elsewhere, severe emotional distress and mental anguish.
They have brazenly refused to leave the only home I own.
My neighbors and maintenance workers are appalled at their lack of respect to the care of the grounds.
We can’t enter the home without police escort in fear of physical harm or false allegations.
I have appealed to lawyers, the County and State authorities, the police, the Alameda Sheriff’s department and Rep. Barbara Lee. Nothing has helped. No one seems to listen.
The rule of law, the respect for contractual agreements and due process all have been trampled on. It’s lawlessness.
#HelpSaveOurRights
By Sally Daniel, Housing Provider - Alameda County, CA