TENANT COUNCILS OF SAN DIEGO - JULY NEWSLETTER
Have questions or want to join our efforts to organize the tenants of San Diego against their landlords?
Email us at tenantcouncilsofsandiego@gmail.com
Photo of Riviera Estates Tenant Union Launch, Source: RETU Instagram
TCSD and Allied Labor Union Members Demand Demetre Booker Jr and Elevate Commercial Come to the Bargaining Table
On Saturday, October 25, 2025, tenants at Elevate Eagle Mobile Home Community in Idaho launched Riviera Estates Tenants’ Union. The union represents 33 of 38 occupied lots united against San Diego-based corporate landlord, Elevate Commercial, and its owner, Demetre Booker Jr. It is a historic achievement in Idaho’s tenant movement as it is the first fighting, supermajority tenants union in the state’s history, and the first successful organizing effort by the Treasure Valley Tenants Union. After months of unsuccessfully demanding Demetre Booker Jr. meet with the tenants at the bargaining table to negotiate with the union, the Riviera Estates Tenants Union decided to launch a campaign to put the pressure on their landlord. Tenant Councils of San Diego joined them.
Although they are based in San Diego, Elevate Commercial owns a portfolio of mobile home communities that include at least 2,928 units across the country, mostly concentrated in the Midwest. Elevate Commercial owns Idle Wheels MHC in Ontario, Oregon, and Country Chalet MHC in Ketchum, Idaho. Demetre has repeatedly bragged about being a “socially responsible” landlord and contributor to his community in San Diego through groups like the Chollas Creek Community Planning Group. Yet Elevate Commercial raised Elevate Eagle tenants’ rent by 40% after purchasing the mobile home community. Demetre threatened tenants with eviction and displacement. He charged one resident, Suzanne, an unexplained $3,900.00 landscaping fee until the union launched a pressure campaign to force him to rescind the fee. He is disrupting the environment at the mobile home park by cutting down trees, and his development has cut off tenants’ access to resources like power and water without compensation.
TCSD's solidarity event gathering at Elevate Commercial's office to demand Demetre come to the table
On May 22, 2026, Tenant Councils of San Diego and allied union members in Labor Solidarity Action Network decided to expose Elevate Commercial at home by reading testimonies of tenants harmed by Elevate Commercial outside of what their website advertises as their corporate headquarters. Elevate Commercial’s owner wasn’t there, but we called him from the office and he colorfully cursed at us, consistent with how he responded to Riviera Estates Tenants’ Union members who called him.
At the same time, Riviera Estates Tenants’ Union and Treasure Valley Tenants Union organized a phone zap to shame Elevate Commercial’s leadership, as well as a canvassing campaign to obtain the surrounding community’s support for their petition.
As multistate corporations and landlords buy up homes across the United States to exploit for profit, tenants must organize across state lines to make sure that landlords can’t avoid responsibility by targeting tenants outside of their own communities. Numerous landlords live in luxury in San Diego while wreaking havoc on people’s lives across the United States. These landlords must confront and eliminate the harm they are doing to our fellow tenants!
La Suzanna Tenant Council Shows We Don’t Have to Accept RUBS in San Diego
Ratio Utility Billing Systems (RUBS) is a method of utility billing that allows landlords to charge tenants for utilities by allocating a portion of the entire complex’s bill to each tenant instead of charging tenants for their actual usage. It is a system under which tenants have no control over their bill and no way of knowing how their landlord is calculating their bill without demanding the accounting, which landlords frequently refuse.
Landlords bill utilities with RUBS because it allows them to pass operating costs on to tenants in a way that is easier to hide. Many use RUBS to get around rent stabilization laws by funnelling increased charges into utility bills. According to the National Consumer Law Center, landlords do this by manipulating formulas for calculating individual bills, hiding fees in the master bill, and paying a master-metered utility bill at a commercial rate but passing a higher residential rate onto tenants.
Campaigns to ban RUBS have taken off in Los Angeles and Seattle, but have yet to establish themselves in San Diego. Nevertheless, when the tenants of La Suzanna Tenant Council received news that their landlord was going to switch from a low, flat utility bill of $30.00-$60.00 to RUBS on top of yearly rent increases, they decided to do something about it. They told their landlord that their first RUBS bill of $173.00 was unacceptable. They coordinated to stop paying their monthly utility bill together until their demands were met. They also demanded an accounting of the bill under the Residential Tenant Utility Fee ordinance (O-21987).
Below is a question and answer session we had with the tenants at the council about their organizing efforts and the results!
Q: What was the thing that ticked you off and made you feel like it was time to get organized?
A: Yearly rent increases as well as the changeover to RUBS is what got us organized.
Q: How do you understand RUBS and what it accomplishes for the landlord vs. what it offers tenants?
A: tenants in an unfair way.It allows landlords/property managers to pass the increasing cost of basic utilities onto their
Q: How did you get people together and begin organizing demands?
A: Most of us were already friendly with each other so it was not difficult. Also it wasn't difficult to get people to agree that we would like to try and save money by pushing back on the implementation of RUBS. We were even able to bring non-RUBS tenants on board by letting them know it will eventually affect them as well. Just started with a mass text and had a meeting at our apartment and invited everyone.
Q: What victories were you able to claim from your efforts?
A: We unfortunately could not eliminate the transition to RUBS completely. But - We were successful in getting the management company to reduce the RUBS max from $200 a month down to $100 a month. We were also able to push management to renegotiate the cost of trash pick-up. We requested all billing information we were legally allowed to obtain. When we reviewed the cost of trash pick-up, we realized the owner was paying for services that were not being rendered. We pushed back on this cost and were able to get it reduced greatly.
Q: Any takeaways from this experience that are important for yourself and other tenants in San Diego?
A: Yes – There is strength in numbers and always try to negotiate. If it was just one apartment barking about RUBS the property management most likely would’ve blown us off. They were not able to do that when they knew most units were fighting RUBS.
RECAP: TCSD on San Diego Land History and Tenant Struggle at BAB
In case you missed it, on June 12th Tenant Councils of San Diego had the privilege of presenting at Burn All Books on the history of land and development in San Diego!
TCSD member Ali took us through San Diego’s early history to make the case that present-day conditions of working class struggle in our city didn’t arise from an industrial base. Instead, San Diego’s early growth was shaped by how local capitalists exploited land enclosure and real estate speculation for profit. This process began with land theft from indigenous groups such as the Kumeyaay and was accelerated by Alonzo Horton, who made the city what it is by buying land from San Diego’s impoverished local leaders at a pittance and subdividing it into parcels he could sell at a massive profit by promising the development of a functioning harbor and rail system.
Another of TCSD’s members, Ananth, followed up by drawing a line from the speculatory schemes of formative exploiters such as Alonzo Horton and his land-trading cohort, to the contemporary battles between tenants and landlords today. He examined the efforts of the Holt Tenant Council as they organized against their landlord Matt Holt, who sought to eject tenants from their homes in order to flip his properties for profit.
Again, thank you to Ali and Ananth for sharing their knowledge. Keep an eye out for future educational events!