Hello,

I am a life-long local resident and happy to see someone who says they want to help people.

Your housing provides low-income, disabled, elderly, and the houseless with the opportunity to affordable living.

Something concerns me and I’m hoping you can answer this for me and other community members. 

It is documented through local reporting and court documents that you told a local reporter that [your tenants] “are in minority”, that you need to make ends meet, and said on record that you would find a legal path to evict people being influenced by others, and even stating that you will find legal loopholes and using renovation as a future excuse for eviction.

This concerns me DEEPLY because:

• you seemingly write these tenants off right away as having no voice because they are minority
• each of these groups are vulnerable and seem to be being met with hostility and blame
• this is the very group of people you claim to be helping
• shows you will utilize loopholes for personal gain as needed in the future, and
• you seem to be protecting personal interests and actually treating these people very poorly

How are you a good fit in our community?

— Evelyn Garber

Response

Anil Dwivedi

Evelyn, Thank you for asking this question. I genuinely mean that. If you are concerned about how I treat vulnerable people, you deserve a direct answer from me.

First, I want to be very clear: I did not make the statements attributed to me in your question about tenants being “minority,” nor did I ever say that I intended to use renovations as any excuse or a “loophole” to evict any vulnerable tenants.

I encourage and invite you and anyone reading this to look beyond headlines and read the actual legal documents. They are public records. I provided documents and my side of the story to the Lost Coast Outpost as well, and most of the important context and documentation I provided was not reflected in the coverage.

But rather than asking you simply to believe me, I invite you to investigate for yourself.

Come see my housing. Meet my tenants. Ask them questions directly. Ask them about the condition of their apartments. Ask them how I treat them. You don’t need to take my word for it.

The reality I see every day is very different from the picture presented in this question.

Through my properties, I help provide private, permanent housing to more than 40 extremely low-income individuals and families, including seniors, people with disabilities, and people who have experienced homelessness or serious housing instability. Many live in renovated private studios and one-bedroom apartments in a building with an elevator. Their average out-of-pocket housing cost is approximately $300 per month, with most utilities and services included.

These aren’t statistics to me. They are part of my family, my neighbors and tenants. They are human beings I know personally.

I am grateful to have very positive relationships with the overwhelming majority of the people who live in my properties. That doesn’t mean every landlord and tenant will agree about everything. But disagreement does not mean exploitation, and an allegation does not automatically become a fact simply because it appears in a headline.

The suggestion that I would dismiss someone because they are low-income, elderly, disabled, homeless, or otherwise vulnerable is particularly painful to me because those are exactly the people I have spent years helping house long before I ever asked Eureka for a single vote.

I know landlords are often viewed skeptically, and sometimes for good reason. Don’t give me special treatment because I am a landlord, and don’t condemn me simply because I am one. Judge me by what I actually do.

Evelyn Thank you so much for asking this question. I am not offended by your concern. I welcome it. If I am asking you to trust me with leadership of this city, you have every right to question my character and my record.

I simply ask that you examine the complete record.

Read the documents. Visit my properties. Meet the people I house. Ask them directly. Ask me directly. Then decide for yourself whether the person described in a headline matches the person and the record you find in real life.

I am confident enough in my record to welcome that scrutiny.

Anil Dwivedi

 

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