Facing Eviction after 43 Years
The Toll of the Housing Affordability Crisis and Real Estate Speculation
Jeanine Reisbig and Gale Golden have lived in the same rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco’s Castro District since 1980. Now in their seventies, they are fighting eviction from a new property owner. In an article on high eviction rates and the lack of affordable housing in San Francisco, local journalist J.K. Dineen profiled their situation. Jeanine and Gale are our next-door neighbors.
In 2016, the 5-unit building in which they live was sold for $2.55 million to an investment group and then a little over a year later to another buyer for $3.75 million. The latest owner bought three of the five units from tenants and then sold them. Jeanine and Gale have been issued eviction notices. California’s Ellis Act allows new property owners to convert rental units to condos or tenancies-in-common and sell them off for a profit.
Jeanine and Gale have worked in San Francisco for decades. Jobs have included painting houses, delivering newspapers, driving for different companies, grocery store clerking, and running a moving company. Jeanine now serves as a home health care aide to support Gale, who suffers from health complications after being hit by a drunk driver years ago. Gale reflected on the eviction threat:
You spend your whole life working in a city. Why should you just be pushed out and forced to make a whole new life somewhere else? We just want to live out the rest of our days here. (credit: These neighborhoods have high eviction rates, but little help from the city)
It shouldn’t be this way.
Their home is more than just an apartment, extending into the neighborhood and city. They rely on doctors at a nearby medical facility. The Castro neighborhood has always been welcoming and invigorating to them as an interracial, lesbian couple. They are wonderful neighbors, always looking out for others and quick to engage in a sidewalk conversation. With a scarcity of affordable housing options nearby, they may be forced to move far from the place they have called home for much of their lives.
Gale and Jeanine live connected to their place, and yet, like many others devalued in the current housing system, those ties and all their associated benefits may be severed. Everyone should be able to live close to where they work and stay there once they retire.
The Castro neighborhood and San Francisco have become less economically diverse, with rapidly rising housing prices and rent over the past few decades. Stories like Jeanine and Gale’s show the human toll of the housing affordability crisis and real estate speculation.
As California’s many recent housing measures are finally making clear, it’s time to change the housing system. Yet, San Francisco and other cities continue to drag their feet and resist change. We must build more housing, reduce the power of speculators in the real estate market, and commit to housing all people close to amenities and where they work. And no one should be forced out of their community once they retire.
Jeanine and Gale have completed training to become first-time home buyers, authorized by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development in San Francisco. If you’d like to help them buy their apartment, consider donating to their GoFundMe campaign. Their eviction date under the Ellis Act is in less than one year.