"We were very multi-cultural, and--unlike most communes, which are limited to the visual arts--very multi-media," says Guild.
Guild is a comedy writer who is now writing a biography of her partner Niko, a watercolorist who died of brain cancer in 1993.
The pair had lived in middle-income units, but when Niko developed cancer, they had to move into low-income units, Guild says.
According to Guild, Breuner had received $3.5 million in federal funding for The Piano Factory, on the condition that he maintain at least 88 middle-income units and 44 low-income units.
The Piano Factory, however, became very popular. According to Guild, Breuner illegally cancelled the middle- and low-income leases, increasing the rents of those units by 1,000 percent.
Had SB 541 been in effect, Guild says the residents of The Piano Factory would have had to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars of rent at the increased rate in order to bring their landlord to court.
"We wouldn't have had a case--we would have had our hands tied," she says.
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