Eviction Defense Collaborative and Tenants Together are losing their offices to WeWork, a co-working start-up, reports San Francisco magazine. As the online article points out, the space falls within the so-called Twitter tax break district (a region that earned its moniker for an incentive that exempts companies moving into Mid-Market buildings from a 1.5 percent city payroll tax). When it was enacted, many feared it would squeeze non-tech companies out. The irony of the situation moved a San Francisco reporter to opine that it's a situation that is "a clash of old versus new San Francisco so self-referential and potent that we think we just heard David Campos's megaphone short out."
WeWork is reportedly taking over the 12th floor of 995 Market in January. It has been the home of Eviction Defense Collaborative for the last 10 years, and Tenants Together subleases from them. According to EDC Executive Director Paul Cohen, the organization helped 2,000 households fight evictions last year. Now, they are asking for help on their website and raising funds with an event on December 2 that will help them cover the rent on a new Mission Street office that will (according to San Francisco) cost $28,000—twice as much as they were paying.
Tenants Together officials told the magazine that that organization was in talks to lease a space in the Tenderloin.
· Even an Eviction Defense Group Can't Stop Itself from Being Displaced by a Startup [Modernluxury.com]
· Eviction Defense Collaborative [Official Site]
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