Sean Fizdale, who goes by his art name, Sean Newport, spent the past 14 years renovating his warehouse apartment on Capp Street in San Francisco’s Mission District. A pickaxe leans against a beam in the living room, plants hide the basement steps, the skull of a steer hangs above an old-timey portrait of a bride and groom: Artifacts left by tenants of the past and present. 14 years of character spills from every nook and cranny of Newport’s home. Now, he’s being evicted. 

“It felt like the death of a part of me,” said Newport. “The eviction was almost like an, ‘Oh, I have nothing else after this.’”

Newport, a 43 year-old from Long Beach, California, came into the building while it was in poor condition. Newport worked on renovating the space, doing handiwork such as remodeling the kitchen and repairing sinks. In its heyday, the space was known as Engine Works. It acted as a venue for live music, eventually leading to concerts performed by musicians such as Ty Segall, White Fence, The Strange Boys, Nick Waterhouse and The Growlers. Once the venue was shut down by the city’s entertainment commission, Newport converted the space into a studio for artists to live and work. Now facing eviction, Newport has nowhere to go. 

“It took all of me to make this place, and it took a very, very sweet spot in life to convince other people to do it with me, and I don’t think I can do it again,” Newport said. “It’s like back then, minimum wage was the same but rents were half the price, so we had freedom to explore the dreams. We had freedom to explore the potential of trying anything out and not succeeding.”  

Newport is being evicted via the Ellis Act, a 9-step eviction process that was established in 1986. The San Francisco Tenants Union defines the Ellis Act as, “a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to ‘go out of business.’” Randy Shaw, co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and author of “Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in The New Urban America,” has been involved in every campaign to strengthen tenants’ rights in regard to the Ellis Act at the state level. Though these campaigns had successes 20 years ago, similar movements in 2014, 2015 and 2022 did not succeed.

“It’s the main way that long-term tenants get evicted in San Francisco and Los Angeles,” Shaw said.

Shaw argued that the original use of the Ellis Act was to allow landlords to keep a building vacant, but that it has changed into a tool for real estate speculators who can buy an apartment building then immediately go out of the rental business.

“The sponsor of the Ellis Act, Jerry Ellis, said, ‘I don’t think this law is gonna ever be used, because who’d want a vacant building?’” Shaw said. “The law wasn’t used for several years after it passed until a court ruled that you can occupy a building with owners and convert rental housing — it’s unbelievable. An insane court ruling that really has caused an incredible amount of housing loss in California.”

 In Newport’s case, he is being evicted to make room for an ashram known as Bhakti SF, a yoga studio whose website states their mantra as “based on the theological term Seva: Dedication to serve others.” 

Newport disagrees with their commitment to the mantra. 

“You shouldn’t be starting a karma neutral establishment off of the backs of 20 artists,” Newport said.

The unit above Newport’s is already acting as part of Bhakti SF. This occurred after the artists that lived there were bought out of the space. According to Newport, the landlord, Kent Putnam of Putnam Automotive, offered to buy out his space. Newport refused, fearing that it would set an example that would lead to other spaces in the area being bought out. His original eviction date was sometime in December, but he is hoping to get an extension for another year. 

After multiple attempts by Xpress to get in contact with Putnam, there was no response. 

“I’m not gonna make this an easy transition,” Newport said. “I want the people who go to this yoga retreat, this Bhakti yoga, I want them to know what they’re doing, like, the establishment they chose to go to, I want them to know what they are willing to do to get what they want.”  

On Nov. 8, Newport received a notice on the door that stated he had 3 days to abate the property for repeated instances of graffiti, which contained words of protest such as “artists live here” and “this is not a legal Ellis Act.” Newport says that he doesn’t know who painted the graffiti, but he knows that while it was being painted over, the windows were painted over as well.

Newport is not the only one facing eviction. He lives with two other artists who live and work on the property, while others just rent out studio space and live elsewhere. The number of these tenants/studio renters has varied throughout the years. One such studio space renter, Eric Collins,  splits his time between managing a bar and selling his paintings on instagram. He has been working at the property for two years.

“Without this space, there’s no way I could afford another studio, which is about 3-4 times the price, which means my career would be nonexistent,” Collins wrote via text message. 

Collins looks back at his time at the warehouse as a stepping stone of his career and cites it as a reason his career started at all.

“Sean, who runs the space, is amazing,” said Collins. “[He’s] Great to bounce ideas off and has a massive collection of materials that are open for anyone to use.”

Newport believes the city of San Francisco is plagued by a disconnect between itself and its people.

“I feel like this city has always been a get-rich-quick city, and unfortunately, I didn’t know that until I lived here.”

Jules Retzlaff, a community housing organizer, believes that San Francisco has some of the best renters protections nationwide, yet eviction rates are still too high.

“At the end of the day, it’s money,” Retzlaff said, “and [at] the end of the day, it’s about how much money they can make on someone, and clearly for this particular landlord, it was more of a viable option. They could convert the space into a commercial unit, and they wanted to go with money. That [is] all landlords in San Francisco, unfortunately. That’s their bottom line.” 

According to data published by the San Francisco City Government, there were 797 total eviction notices in San Francisco between 2023 to 2024. 43 of them were under the Ellis Act.

According to “Neighborhood Renewal: Middle Class Resettlement and Incumbent Upgrading in American Neighborhood,” a book written by MIT professor Phillip L. Clay, the influx of artists into a neighborhood usually signals the start of gentrification. In this, Clay describes the first wave of artists, designers, gays and lesbians moving into an affordable area and renovating it. This in turn makes the area more desirable, and eventually the artists are removed to make way for businesses and the middle-class. Newport feels as though he has grown to be a part of the community. He knows the homeless and when he opens up his garage, people come by and say hi to him and his dog, Billy.

“To leave this place would be to leave what I only know as myself,” Newport said. “My entire life and pattern would be completely different.”

Newport’s slice of the Mission District is home to many artist’s workspaces and he fears that the eviction of his building signals a threat to other art workspaces and venues in the area. 

Next door to Newport’s warehouse is The Secret Alley. According to its website, The Secret Alley aims “to promote the sustainability of artists and arts-driven businesses by providing them with affordable immersive studio environments that inspire imagination, foster collaboration and strengthen our bonds with audiences.”

Noel Von Joo, a videographer at The Secret Alley, helps manage the space. He believes Newport’s eviction sets an example for other property speculators to ruthlessly kick people out. He believes that artists are vital to the culture of a neighborhood and the sincerity of a city, and that the loss of Engine Works will make the art culture more invisible. 

“It definitely disrupts the community. It’s happened before,” Von Joon said. “There used to be, in this neighborhood, specifically this block, used to be filled with art spaces.”

Noel helped put together a letter to Putnam, along with a petition that was sent out to the community.

“We didn’t try to put it on the internet, we didn’t want it to go viral for people to just sign it to sign it,” Newport said. “We wanted people who signed it to be people who knew us and we knew them. This is a community, and these are the people within the community. If you look up their names, you can see that their addresses are within a few blocks of where we are. We have an impact on each other.”

Part of the petition read as follows: 

“Currently, San Francisco has no shortage of empty and available commercial spaces that would make a wonderful home to an ashram or yoga studio. The Mission District is no exception. Perhaps before the sale is final, you could consider alternative locations in the neighborhood that would not devastate the existing community we have here. 

As of December 13th, 424 people have signed the petition.

According to data published by the San Francisco City Government, office vacancy rates had increased somewhere in the margins of 5%-20% from March 2020 to June 2021.

Though the space is rent-controlled, Newport claims that the landlord is not taking rent right now. Newport moved into the property in May of 2010, while national rental costs were down due to the 2008 housing crisis. Newport claims that at one point, Putnam said he wasn’t going to buy the building and that he believed in Newport’s fight. Six months later, he bought the building.

The San Francisco City Government states that tenants being served evictions between the first of May in 2024 and February of 2025 must be offered relocation assistance from the landlord at relocation fee of $10,660 per tenant. Half of this would be paid with the initial notice of residency termination and the second half paid after the property has been vacated. Yet, Newport said that the Ellis Act Payout the other tenants and himself will be receiving is $3,997 now and the additional amount later.

Newport has attempted to find another residence, but he can’t afford it. He makes money in bulk by selling his artwork and is trying to figure out how to establish a more frequent income, even if it means making less per piece of art sold. He has been applying for grants for the past few months. After receiving the 3-day notice to abate the property on Nov. 8, Newport would have time to pack his bags, but would be forced to leave his art behind. 

“I don’t have any money to make any moves. I can’t go anywhere, I have nowhere to go,” Newport said. “So, if they really want me out, they’re gonna have to call the sheriffs and the sheriffs are gonna come and they can evict me.”

In the 90’s, Newport’s warehouse was called the Mission Burrito Project, as the previous occupiers would make burritos and give them out to the homeless.

After Newport and the original tenants found the place on Craigslist in 2010, they named it Engine Works after the faint lettering on the front of the building. They found it in poor condition.

“The electrical didn’t work, the toilets were leaking, the sinks were leaking, but I was young and dumb, and I wanted a project,” Newport said. “I had never really had an excuse to remodel a bathroom before, so instead of being upset about it, I used it as an opportunity to learn a thing.”

It took two years for Engine Works to get to the condition it is now. To fund the renovations, Newport and the other tenants started hosting shows. Their first show was with Ty Segall — an artist who now tours the country and has over 295,000 monthly listeners on Spotify — White Fence, The Strange Boys and Nick Waterhouse. According to Newport, this bill sold out The Fillmore two years later. For a time, two bands, one called Useless Eaters and the other called ‘Pow!,’ lived and practiced there. In addition to all these bands, The Growlers, a popular indie band with over 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, also performed.

“So many shows,” Newport said. “Comedy show; we did a play — it was an adaptation of the movie ‘Clueless’ called ‘As If’ — it was so good. It ran for two and a half weeks.”

In order for the actors to exit the stage, they would exit down through a ladder that led to the basement, then enter back up through the stairs.

Eventually, the original landlord made Newport evict people out of the basement, as it posed a fire risk. Beneath the basement runs Mission Creek, and all Newport has to do is lift a piping access channel up out of the floor to see the natural water sources flowing right below the property. Now that the space doesn’t have any shows, the basement area has been converted to studios for artists. Every tenant upstairs on the ground level gets a space. Currently, there are two rooms available at Engine Works, but because of the pressing eviction, Newport has felt hesitant to fill them.