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“Nicholas” – a 65-year-old long-term survivor – reached out to ALRP when his landlord threatened to evict him, falsely claiming that he had not been paying rent. Nicholas was receiving a subsidy from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) to help with rent, but his landlord claimed that SFAF had not paid their portion for several months in a row. In fact, SFAF had records of each payment. 

It turned out that the landlord had failed to link SFAF’s payments to Nicholas’s account. As a result, Nicholas was hit with late fees, a letter of a delinquent account, and, ultimately, the eviction notice. To make matters worse, the landlord disabled Nicholas’s access to the payment portal, preventing him from submitting new monthly rent payments.

Allison Pruitt

Allison Pruitt, Senior Supervising Attorney

ALRP Senior Supervising Attorney Allison Pruitt immediately got to work. She contacted the landlord to dispute the eviction notice, demanding that all late fees be waived and that Nicholas get his access to the payment portal restored. She also requested verification that the information SFAF was using for electronic payments was correct to ensure this did not happen again in the future. 

Despite his own responsibility for the error, Nicholas’s landlord ignored the request for several months. So Allison escalated the request to the landlord’s corporate office. Finally, the landlord complied: He confirmed that the eviction notice was rescinded or at least cured, waived all late fees, restored Nicholas’s access to the portal, and provided new instructions for SFAF to submit payment.

Nicholas can now rest assured that his subsidy will be accepted and his housing is secure. He shared:

“Allison was very knowledgeable. But it was more than her competence; it was her calming influence as the months rolled by playing cat and mouse with my landlord. I just received notice that there was a resolution, with a few loose threads, but eviction is off the table. Thank you so much Allison and team!“