By Cassi Feldman

IT'S THURSDAY NIGHT and Karen Baker is moving. She's dumping eight years of clothing, computer equipment, and books into Hefty bags and then carrying them in batches, on foot, to a storage locker near her Berkeley residential hotel. At least her stuff has a place to go. Once her five-day emergency voucher runs out, Baker herself will be homeless.

How did she – how does anyone – get into this situation? Officially, she's being evicted for breaking house rules. Unofficially, it might have more to do with her role as a tenant activist. As the economy falters, more people are forced to compete for each affordable housing slot. The ones who make trouble are the first to go.

Known as Twister to her friends, Baker just turned 40, but you wouldn't guess it. Her hair is still thick and dark, and she has a teenager's feel for sarcasm. But beneath the jokes is a quiet sadness that hints at times she'd rather not remember.

"Most of the people who live here have had some kind of drug history or some kind of criminal history," she told us. "We know better than anyone else that your past is always with you."

In 1989, Baker moved from Austin, Texas, to Berkeley, where she shared a subsidized apartment with a friend. She worked on and off as a computer technician, but she also struggled with addiction. "I feel ashamed of things I did," she said. "I wasted a lot of years when I should have been doing something for people's betterment."

Now Baker is trying to make up for lost time. She recently landed a full-time job at Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), a Berkeley nonprofit. She told us it's particularly frustrating to lose her home now that her life is finally coming together. "They wait till a girl gets a good job with a cause she believes in," she said, "and then yank the rug out."

The rug at University Avenue Homes, Baker's residential hotel, used to be a welcome mat. Baker said she was relieved to find a place where people who couldn't quite hack it in the regular housing market could form a community. Since rent there is capped at one-third of a tenant's salary, she was able to get a room, albeit a tiny one with a bathroom down the hall, for approximately $120 a month.

UA Homes, at the intersection of University and San Pablo Avenues, opened in 1992 as a place for those made homeless by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The nonprofit University Avenue Housing purchased and remodeled the building using funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Red Cross, and the city of Berkeley. Not only did it look better, but the new 75-room hotel also offered free art classes, communal meals, and counseling.

As Jennifer Barrios wrote in an Aug. 29, 2001, East Bay Express story, UA Homes was an early model of "supportive housing," a combination of shelter and services that's now touted as the best way to help those battling drug addiction or mental illness.

But Baker and other residents say the place has gone downhill since Resources for Community Development (RCD), an East Bay nonprofit housing developer, took over in 1999. "The residents don't seem to have as much power or say," explained Eric Gustafson, who assists a blind tenant. "It seems like they've given up a lot just to live there."

And they aren't getting much in return. A nurse and a psychiatrist visit the building just once a week for a few hours. Ideally, there should be one full-time social worker for every 20 residents, according to Robert Ratner of Lifelong Medical Care, who supervises the building's support staff. Currently UA Homes has only one person for all 74 tenants, and he only became full-time two months ago.

Ratner admits that UA Homes "can't provide an intensive level of support" with that ratio. He told us it comes down to money. "There's funding out there, but who should find it?" Ratner asked. "I'd say the owners of property bear the biggest responsibility."

Others say that HUD, which pays most of the tenants' rent, should become more involved. Although the Berkeley Housing Authority monitors the hotel, it does not set specific requirements for staffing or services.

That's a problem, residents say, especially since that single social worker is their only line of defense against the building's for-profit landlord, the John Stewart Co. According to court records, UA Homes has filed 27 evictions since January 1999.

RCD argues that JSCo managers need the threat of eviction to keep tenants in line. "There are three different reasons for eviction: nonpayment of rent, drug activity, and violence," RCD's executive director Dan Sawislak said. "I'm pretty positive that those are the reasons that people are being evicted." And, he added, many of those who do get eviction notices are ultimately reinstated.

Laura Lane of the East Bay Community Law Center said she doesn't think eviction should be used as a disciplinary tool. Even if the tenant gets to stay, she explained, his or her credit is permanently marred. "I don't know why they are choosing to spend all this money on litigation when that money could be paying for social workers," she said.

Lane, who estimated that UA Homes tenants make up half of her caseload, said the managers seem biased against residents who assert themselves. While some people are given a lot of leeway, she said, others get evicted the first time their rent is late.

Sawislak acknowledges that management has been spotty at times. So why not switch to a better company? "They are the best option we've had," he said. They also happen to employ RCD's former executive director, Jack Gardner, who now serves as acquisitions director at Edison Capital, a subsidiary of JSCo.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," said Maria Nadilini, a tenant who just had her eviction overturned after spending a week living in People's Park. "They're clearing the whole building out. They want people who don't know their rights. They want people who don't know that there's a tenant association."

That might explain why Baker would seem like a threat. Several of her cotenants told us that she was the one who helped them stand up to their landlord and encouraged them to seek legal aid.

But when Baker went to the same organizations for help with her own eviction, she was turned away because of a conflict of interest. Apparently they had represented another tenant involved in a contested police raid (see "Zero Tolerance for Harm Reduction," 8/1/01) during which Baker and others were accused of drug possession.

All charges against Baker were dropped, but she says JSCo found a way to evict her anyway. According to JSCo administrator Mikal Pruitt, Baker refused to follow the terms of a stipulated agreement she signed to avoid eviction after the raid. She did not pay her late-rent fees, get written permission for having a guest, or keep her room up to code, he said. Baker disputes those accusations. She says Pruitt told her the stipulation started in January and then, after she broke a rule, said it actually started in November.

Listening to Baker and the other tenants facing eviction invites a bit of skepticism. Surely they couldn't all be as innocent as they claim. Maybe they really are "problem tenants" or at least not taking responsibility for their own actions.

Boona cheema, executive director of BOSS and a former service provider at UA Homes, doesn't think so. "I know that the population there has problems," she said. "But if we're saying we're here to provide services for the residents, then we need to provide those services."

Ultimately, even if nothing improves, no one wants to see UA Homes shut down. "That would be the worst of all possible answers," Baker says. "None of us are social role models, but there has to be a place like this for people like us."