Eviction of 400 Families Delayed

More than 400 suburban families facing eviction from their rental homes here by a Japanese billionaire won at least a temporary reprieve in court Tuesday after their attorneys argued that the looming mass uprooting could create a public nuisance.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster said the tenants will stay put until he has a chance to hold a March 20 hearing on their request for an injunction.

Gensiro Kawamoto caused the controversy earlier this month when his property managers gave 30-day eviction notices to tenants in 420 houses in the Sacramento region and another 150 homes in Santa Rosa. Some tenants have lived for more than a decade in the comfortable middle-class houses, which Kawamoto intends to sell.

Attorneys in the dispute, which has grabbed national media attention, said they hoped to soon reach an agreement that might allow renters until summer to find other living arrangements or an opportunity to buy their houses.

“We’re very hopeful,” said Jon Givner, a staff lawyer with Legal Services of Northern California who represented tenants.

The mass eviction caused a storm of protest. Tenants in whole neighborhoods owned by Kawamoto faced the unexpected chore of pulling children from school and finding new living quarters in an extraordinarily tight rental market. The vacancy rate in Sacramento County is about 3%.

Givner said lawyers argued that the “wholesale evacuation” of entire neighborhoods threatened to create ghost towns that could be plagued by arson, crime, squatters and other public nuisances.

School officials, he said, worried that children would be pulled out of classes, disrupting their education and undermining funding to their schools. About two-thirds of renters in the neighborhoods have school-age children, Givner said.

Tenant lawyers also said Kawamoto was engaged in unlawful business practices because in some cases eviction notices did not offer renters 30 days to get out. One 75-year-old woman got a notice to vacate in 12 days, Givner said.

A Hawaii-based representative for Kawamoto has said the investor needs to unload the houses quickly to finance unspecified investment opportunities that are available only every few decades.

Kirk Giberson, Kawamoto’s attorney in Sacramento, declined to comment after the hearing.

Renters in the Sacramento area communities of Citrus Heights, Orangevale, Antelope and Rocklin were pleased by the decision.

“I hope we can buy more time. Thirty days isn’t enough to do anything,” said Edwin Gipson, a 70-year-old retiree who has lived in one of Kawamoto’s rental houses for a decade. “My wife and I would like to buy, but we don’t know whether we can qualify. I’ll probably have to go back to work.”

Tenants rights groups say about half the renters might try to buy their homes if given the chance. The houses are expected to range in price from $180,000 to $225,000.