Who Are The Patels?
The Patels are an extremely large family of Indians belonging to a populous Gujarati caste. The name Patel means "landowner". Since their arrival to the United States several decades ago, they have purchased a massive amount of property, mostly in cheap motels and SRO hotels.
The Patel family have siezed ownership of almost all housing options available to low-income residents of San Francisco. I have confirmed over 95 hotels and motels owned by related Patels in the city. To view a Google Map of these hotels, visit my map page.
Why Are They Wrong?
The Patel family control virtually all cheap housing in San Francisco. With today's economy, the numbers of homeless and low-income residents in San Francisco continue to rise, creating a higher demand for affordable housing.
The Patels hold a monopoly on the cheap motels and SRO hotels in San Francisco, leaving tenants with nowhere else to go. This forces low-income residents of San Francisco to keep funding the Patel family, who in turn horde the funds and use them to finance politicians who are in favor of allowing their monopoly to flourish.
They neglect their hotels and violate numerous health and safety building codes, leaving them legally uninhabitable. They support politicians such as former Mayor Willie Brown and current Mayor Gavon Newsom, as well as District Attorney Kamala Harris. These politicians assist the Patels in maintaining control of the hotel industry, and prevent tenants from taking legal action against them.
Do We Have Proof?
One of the major things I struggled with when I began my research was finding sufficient proof to support my suspicions. I began my investigation by looking up the names associated with the address of a residential hotel owned by the Patel Family. I found several Patel names in the household, and performed a property search on each name I found. See my Research page for more details.
Each time, I discovered that each name was associated with multiple residential hotels. I looked up names associated with the addresses of these other hotels, and found more Patel family members. In addition, I discovered an online directory of Patel hotel owners, and I noticed that many of the names of the other hotel owners I had found were associated with hotels owned by their relatives. See http://ihooa.org/members/memzone/memberdir.php?page=p.
Eventually, I uncovered connections between over 95 residential hotels in the city. While searching the web, I discovered an official county website that kept record of all monetary contributions to various political campaigns. I found over 68 different records of various Patel family members making generous donations to the city's most corrupt politicians. To view these records, use google to search the following query: "contribution amount" "patel" site:sunset.ci.sf.ca.us or just click here.
Their contributions aren't limited to local politicians either. Go to Campaignmoney.com and search contributions by "Patel" or click here. They have also compromised the Department of Public Health - there is two Patels in the SRO Task Force, one of whom (Dipak Patel) is on my list of Patel family relatives and owns multiple hotels. See http://www.sfdph.org/dph/comupg/oprograms/commTaskForces/SRO/aboutUsSRO.asp.
The Patels are also famous for several cases of fraud, money laundering, child abuse, harboring illegal aliens, and various physical and financial injuries to tenants in their hotels. To view some of these cases, visit http://dockets.justia.com/search? and search for "Patel". You can also search Google for "Patel was arrested" by clicking here to see some of these cases as they are reported in the media.
How Can We Stop Them?
In order to bring an end to the Patel monopoly, we have to organize and take action. Here's some things that you can do to help:
1.) Spread the word. - Tell people about this blog, help educate society about the Patel family and their monopoly. Post your own blogs and network with others to raise awareness of the issue.
2.) Find Patels in your area. - Find Patel-owned property management companies and hotels in your area and keep a list of them. Use Google Maps to map out the locations of these properties. Document any connections you find between them - these are critical in helping us connect the dots in the Patel family puzzle.
3.) Boycott them! - Don't stay at their hotels! Rally people together to stop funding the Patel family cartel. Help tenants who are already staying in Patel-owned buildings find alternate housing. Post reviews for their hotels online warning people that they are owned by the Patel family and the fact that they are notorious for neglecting their buildings and violating tenant rights.
