One of San Francisco's most colossal landlords says it won't evict tenants if they can prove their failure to pay rent was related to the coronavirus

Katie Canales

Mar 12, 2020, 21:58 IST

One of San Francisco's most colossal landlords says it won't evict tenants if they can prove their failure to pay rent was related to the coronavirus

One of San Francisco's largest landlords says it is halting evictions of tenants who cannot make their rent due to financial disruptions brought on by the coronavirus disease.
Residents will be asked to provide documentation as proof of hardship.
The move comes days after San Francisco lawmakers pressed for legislation that would ban evictions related to the coronavirus.
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One of San Francisco's largest property owners will halt evictions for tenants facing financial hardship related to the coronavirus disease outbreak, the company wrote to residents in an email.

GreenTree Property Management, a subsidiary of Veritas Investments, advised its tenants to contact the Resident Services team if they were unable to pay their rent on time. Tenants will be asked to provide "reasonable documentation" proving that the financial disruptions were brought on by the coronavirus disease.

"As the spread of COVID-19 reaches our community, we at GreenTree Property Management want you to feel confident that your housing is secure as we confront the economic and health impacts from this outbreak," the company wrote in the email.

The notice also advised all residents to sign up for online payments if they haven't already in an effort to practice social distancing to help prevent the spread of the disease. GreenTree operates 6,000 residential units across 285 properties, all rent-controlled, according to SF Weekly.

The measure comes days after the cities of San Francisco and San Jose pressed for legislation that would prevent the eviction of tenants "who cannot pay rent if they lose income as a result of their compliance with recommendations of [the Department of] Public Health," San Francisco supervisor Dean Preston wrote on Twitter.

The department has a slew of guidelines for residents amid the coronavirus outbreak in the city, including the recommendation to stay home if anyone is feeling sick, a step many feel they cannot afford to take.

The company's move is one of the latest in San Francisco as the city and businesses respond to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has killed four people in California and 38 people in the US. San Francisco declared a state of emergency on February 25 and has banned large gatherings of 1,000 people or more for two weeks. There are 14 confirmed cases of the virus in the city, and more than 173 across the state. Bay Area companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have asked their tens of thousands of employees to work from home as the virus spreads.