After Lies and Inaction from Slumlord Byong Yu, Tenants Picket KP Market

Report from Tenant and Neighborhood Councils on recent rally and picket of a landlord in Oakland, CA.

Oakland, CA — On Sunday, July 14, the Valley Street Tenant Council and Tenant and Neighborhood Councils carried out a noisy picket at KP Market, owned by landlord Byong Yu. If Byong Yu fails to respond to tenants’ demands for basic habitability repairs and dignified housing, the union will call for a boycott of KP Market.

A crowd of some 50 tenants, protesting the landlord’s eviction-via-disrepair campaign, picketed at the grocery store and then marched to the Koreatown Northgate business district office where Byong Yu has been a longtime member and participant.

Byong Yu has refused to repair the apartment he owns at 2341 Valley Street despite years of tenant complaints and city citations, leaving families living with water-damaged walls and ceilings, no heat, and rampant pests. (For some documentation of habitability issues at the building, see below.)

Tenants brought these issues to the City of Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Program, but have been met with lies and even a disappearing act from Byong Yu’s representative, BLVD Residential property manager Julieann Phipps. The city has not acted to hold Byong Yu responsible. (For additional information on the Rent Adjustment Program hearings, see below)

“We know what it’s like to live in a place where they don’t pay tenants any attention, they don’t do repairs, they don’t listen to you, and you don’t have adequate housing,” said Antonia, a council member picketing with her young children.

“We are not living here for free, we’ve been paying our rent, so why have we been abandoned by the owner and the manager,” said Maria, another council member. “I think that the city is now more aware of the situation we’re living in than the owner or manager.”

“Thank you to everyone here, together we are taking a very important step to advance our apartments, our building, into a model for a just and dignified place to live in Oakland,” said Arturo, another council member.

The multilingual, working-class tenants of this rent-controlled housing have long complained to management and city officials about leaks, pests, security concerns, mold and lack of heating.

Tenants first picketed KP market in November 2023, before their first hearing with the Rent Adjustment Program.

In addition to owning KP Market, Byong Yu is a major Oakland landlord who enjoys a powerful role with the Koreatown Northgate (KONO) business improvement district. Byong Yu has been a longtime participant and Advisory Board member of the KONO business district, at the same time as he refused to make basic repairs for his tenants in the neighborhood. (Note that the Advisory Board positions have now been removed from the website, but we’re included as late as 2023. Byong Yu has also served as the Chair of the Security and Operations committee.)

Just behind his flagship grocery market, Byong Yu subjects his tenants at 2341 Valley Street to severe and protracted habitability issues in an attempt to empty the 41-unit apartment building.

In the past three years, city inspectors have issued Byong Yu four notices of violation for missing radiators, chronic leaks, mold, infestation, and crumbling drywall. Still, Yu has refused to make repairs.

Early in the pandemic, Yu’s tenants formed the Valley Street Tenant Council in affiliation with Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) to collectively resist the landlord’s constructive eviction, demanding repairs and dignified housing conditions for their families and neighbors.