They tried to pay their overdue rent. Their landlord wouldn’t accept it

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Crouching on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood last Monday, Bradford Berger shuffled through legal papers in a wrinkled manila folder. It was a stressful morning; he was scrambling to get ready for a chemotherapy appointment with his wife, who’d been diagnosed with lymphoma the month before.

In two days, sheriff’s deputies were scheduled to evict the two of them from the subsidized apartment they’d shared for the last 15 years — even after a local rental assistance program offered to pay the landlord, an affordable housing nonprofit, the back rent they owed.

It was a gloomy way to mark their anniversary for the couple, who’ve been married 19 years as of this month. It was also a fairly common situation, legal aid attorneys say. 

California law allows landlords to evict tenants for nonpayment regardless of whether they are willing and able to pay their overdue rent. Tenant advocates say that undercuts the effectiveness of rental assistance programs, a key strategy local governments and nonprofits use to keep people housed. They’re pushing a proposal in the Legislature that would bring California in line with 21 other states that ban nonpayment evictions for tenants willing and able to pay up. 

The California Apartment Association, which represents landlords, says the legislation is unnecessary because tenants can already delay evictions if they’re facing financial hardship, and has dubbed it one of its top five “rental housing killer” bills this year.

Nonpayment evictions plummeted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when California banned them for tenants with pandemic-related financial challenges. They’ve since spiked in many areas. Of the 166,463 eviction notices filed in the city of Los Angeles between February 2023 and mid-November 2024, for example, 94% were for nonpayment of rent, according to the city controller’s office. Rent delinquency accounted for more than 85% of eviction cases in San Mateo County in 2023, a Stanford study found. 

Statewide data on eviction causes, and how often landlords reject tenants’ attempts to pay, is difficult to obtain because eviction records are sealed, court statistics do not always include the cause of the eviction, and much of the negotiation takes place in mediation sessions and informal conversations in courthouse hallways.

Cities and counties have also expanded their rental assistance programs in recent years, helping to cover payments for tenants who fall behind due to temporary hardships such as a job loss or medical crisis. 

In theory, the programs prevent homelessness. But payments can be slow in coming. Jacqueline Patton, supervising litigation attorney for San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative, says the average time from when one of her clients applies to payment actually reaching the landlord is about three months. The landlord needs to cooperate by sharing information about the debt owed and agreeing to accept the payment.

Meanwhile, California tenants have just three business days to respond to a landlord’s initial notice that they must pay rent or be evicted. After that, the property owner can proceed with the eviction regardless of whether the tenants have paid their bill. Tenants experiencing hardship can petition the court for a temporary stay to give them more time to find new housing, but it’s not always granted.

“(Tenants) missed a shift, they’ve applied for rental assistance and time just runs out,” said Juliet Brodie, director of the Community Law Clinic at Stanford University. “And they end up being displaced and homeless instead of giving that money to the landlord. And the landlord ends up chasing a money judgement that’s uncollectible and incurring the cost to turn over the unit.”

A ‘right to repair’

Landlords can work with tenants who’ve applied for help, and many do, often requiring that tenants commit to a payment plan or pledge to pay on time in the future. “Owners would rather have the rent than go to court,” said Debra Carlton, executive vice president of government affairs for the California Apartment Association.

But tenant attorneys say it’s also common for landlords to refuse payment once they’ve decided to evict. They say that because the property owner can choose whether to allow the tenants to catch up on rent, factors such as the tenants’ relationship with an onsite manager, or even their race or disability, can sometimes play a role.

“Discriminating in housing on the basis of a protected class is illegal and we don’t want landlords to have a workaround by saying I’ll accept rent from some tenants and not others,” Brodie said.

Property owners who file a nonpayment eviction may have other reasons to want to evict particular tenants, such as if they are not keeping their unit clean or antagonizing other tenants, said Daniel Bornstein, a San Francisco attorney representing landlords. 

“The easiest type to prove is nonpayment of rent,” he said.  

If tenants can wait to pay their back rent until a sheriff is knocking at their door, he said, there’s no incentive to pay on time, rendering the lease meaningless. “There has to be a line in the sand from a public policy standpoint or there never is an end point when the debt has to be paid.”

The bill pending in the Legislature would require a court to dismiss a nonpayment eviction if at any point before tenants are actually removed from their home, they can pay all the rent accrued up to that date. A court would also dismiss the case if the tenants provides proof they’ve been approved for rental assistance in that amount.

“If you are struggling and able to recoup the funds and pay what you owe, that eviction proceeding should have stopped immediately,” said bill author Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Democrat from Fremont. 

The bill, sponsored by the renter advocacy groups Public Advocates, Tenants Together and Western Center on Law and Poverty, is one of a number of efforts in recent years to extend the legal timeline for eviction cases, which in California unfold more quickly than a typical civil lawsuit. State lawmakers last year passed a measure doubling the time tenants have to file their official response when a landlord sues them to evict. Backers of those efforts point out that property owners who fall behind on their mortgages or utility bills often have months to catch up before facing consequences. Tenants, they say, should get the same grace.

The 21 states that allow renters to redeem their tenancy by paying back rent include blue and red states, according to a survey by the Stanford Community Law Clinic. Some allow tenants to pay their bills all the way up until they are physically evicted, while in others, they must pay before the case goes to trial. In some states, tenants also have to reimburse landlords for at least part of their attorneys’ fees.

Falling behind

Eviction sagas are often convoluted, punctuated by the kinds of misfortunes that disproportionately affect people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. Berger, for example, has supported himself on disability payments since his back was crushed while he worked at a mechanic’s job years ago. He said he took in about $900 monthly after deductions, the sole income for the couple and their two cats since his wife stopped work after falling ill; their rent was about $250. “There’s not a lot left for food and cat supplies and laundry,” he said.

Last year, the couple fell behind on the rent, according to court documents. “I was juggling a lot of balls, and I guess I dropped one,” Berger said. Their landlord, the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, offered a payment plan with the condition that they pay on time going forward. They made two on-time payments, the couple said in court filings, but in December Berger lost his wallet and they again fell behind. The city’s rental assistance program deemed them eligible for help, and Berger’s wife, Kimberly, wrote to their landlord asking for leniency.

“I am sure that you can imagine the impact that eviction and homelessness would have on me at this moment, given the severity of my disability,” she wrote, attaching a record of her cancer diagnosis. 

Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation proceeded with the eviction. Through their attorney, Bornstein, they declined CalMatters’ requests for an interview. 

To a landlord, the Bergers might simply look like unreliable tenants, who have more than once failed to pay rent on time. But Bradford Berger says he doesn’t understand why an organization that leases property from the San Francisco Housing Authority in order to provide supportive housing wouldn’t want to accept his checks. “They’re, like, contractors from the city. I would think they should be recouping as much money as they can however they can,” he said. “Especially if there’s no other problems and it’s just strictly financial.”

Marvellus Lucas, a comedian and nonprofit outreach worker also living in San Francisco, wondered the same thing. He, too, fell behind on rent after suffering an intestinal infection and helping to pay for his brother’s funeral. A second-generation San Franciscan, he worried about losing the $3,150 per month two-bedroom apartment that had become a gathering place for friends who’d been displaced to cities like Vallejo and Antioch.

He was relieved when his employer, the Booker T. Washington Community Center, helped him cover the $8,000 debt, he said — then stunned when his landlord (who also declined to be interviewed) moved to evict him anyway. After reaching out to San Francisco’s city-funded eviction defense program, he negotiated a settlement and was able to stay in his home.

Patton, the Eviction Defense Collaborative attorney, represented Lucas and said Wahab’s legislation would be a “game-changer” for San Francisco’s cadre of taxpayer-paid tenant attorneys, helping them save time and energy on similarly straightforward cases.  “It would be so much less posturing – we would just be like, ‘We have the money, here is the money, dismiss your case.’ Instead of (going) back and forth for three months,” she said.

The Bergers weren’t as lucky as Lucas. On Wednesday, Bradford Berger said, eight sheriff’s deputies knocked on their door to evict them. The Bergers were out on the street, with just enough money for a few nights’ hotel stay and no firm plans.