"The jury - a cross section of San Franciscans - sent a clear message to the landlord that prohibiting overnight guests is unreasonable and cannot be enforced," said Kara Portnow, who represented the tenants on behalf of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. "Implicit in the jury's verdicts is the recognition that the right to have overnight guests is fundamental to the meaning of the home and cannot be abrogated by a landlord's unreasonable visitor policy."

"The ACLU became involved in this case not only to preserve the housing of these tenants, but because we believe that under the state constitution, tenants have a fundamental right to privacy in their homes," said ACLU attorney Robert Kim. "That right does not change if they are poor or live in low-income housing."

The tenants live at Yerba Buena Commons, a 257-unit building, at 88 Perry Street in San Francisco.