California landlords allowed to evict tenants for nonpayment — even if they’re able to pay

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.