When San Francisco sheriff’s deputies arrived to his home on Wednesday morning, Lyndell Mims was ready. He had his things packed in bags and a hamper and piled them outside his apartment on Dakota Street on Potrero Hill. His 4-year-old daughter had her hair done up with brightly colored hair ties.
It was eviction day, and Mims knew what was about to happen. His was just one of five evictions the sheriffs had scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Potrero Hill Terrace-Annex, and one of three that was carried out.
The Terrace-Annex, one of the last and oldest public-housing complexes in San Francisco, is being slowly demolished and replaced. Ahead of the demolition of the deteriorating buildings there and the erection of a new, mixed-income community, tenants have gradually moved out, leaving behind vacant units. These have quickly been occupied by squatters amid an affordable-housing shortage in San Francisco.
In recent months, the Eugene Burger Management Corporation, the troubled company that oversees the complex, began evicting squatters, some of whom have lived on the site for years. Some of them allegedly paid under-the-table rent to Lance Whittenberg, a since-fired site manager employed by Eugene Burger.
Mission Local reported that Whittenberg allegedly took payment from squatters across the complex who were desperate to stay on the premises. Many of them, in fact, believed they had legitimate leases in effect.
City officials have held multiple hearings to investigate the management firm after Mission Local’s reporting. The company has been tight-lipped about its practices.
It is unclear why the company began evicting residents. Eugene Burger did not respond to a request for comment.
“You don’t have anything else? You want to walk through real quick and see if there’s anything that you need?” asked a sheriff’s deputy who stood outside with Mims and his daughter, as several other deputies carrying large black shields filed into the apartment to ensure it was empty.
Mims silently agreed to do another walkthrough, and came out with a tub of laundry detergent and cleaning supplies. After the deputies left, and a friend took his daughter to be with her aunt, Mims took a moment to stand outside his apartment of about two years, with his small pile of essentials.
“I wouldn’t say it feels good, that’s for sure. But I’m cool,” said Mims, betraying little emotion. At least he has family; his daughter’s mother lives in the same housing complex, and he has other friends in the area. “It’s time for me to get my own place now.”
Eugene Burger has apparently been ramping up its evictions: After conducting no evictions in April, the Sheriff’s Office said it has conducted five in May, six in June, and already 13 in August.
“I’m getting nervous,” said Serena, a woman who lives in a vacant unit near Mims. Before she fell on hard times, she was a paying tenant in the complex. Watching Mims being evicted from afar, she said hasn’t found an eviction notice on her door yet, but is afraid one might be coming soon.
Wiping tears from her eyes, Serena hurried to catch up with the “vacant site monitor” who walked around on Wednesday, offering Mims and others flyers with phone numbers for city services and homeless shelter information.
Mims is also one of several residents who claimed he paid Whittenberg $200 in cash for several months before Whittenberg was fired in December. Once he heard that Whittenberg was caught for his purported scheme, Mims realized things might change.
“I knew it was coming. I kinda prepared,” Mims said blankly.
Others didn’t want to be there when the day came: On Connecticut Street, Douglas Evans was out of the house when the deputies began calling at his door at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Evans was taking his 11-year-old to school, and had a “helper” there to finish packing his things.
“Right now, I’m just finna get a room,” Evans said later in the day, adding that his son will stay with his grandmother for the time being, but doesn’t want to bother the rest of his family. “I’mma just get a room for tonight, and then deal with it day by day.”
Evans said he had been living on Potrero Hill for three or four years, after arriving amid a divorce to crash with his little brother in the place where he grew up. Eventually he began squatting in a vacant unit, and subsequently began paying rent under a lease — or so he thought.
“I seen an open unit, and I went in it,” Evans said. “So I did start off squatting, and then once I got introduced to Lance, he started making sure everything was official and so they couldn’t put me out.”
Attempts to reach Whittenberg for comment were unsuccessful.
Evans said he realized he didn’t have an official lease when the management company began coming at him — first putting all his belongings outside in the rain, then shutting off the electricity to his unit. Once he wrote a statement that he had made payments to Whittenberg, however, the management company turned his power back on.
Last week, Evans received a notice that he would be evicted in a week, and he sought help from the Eviction Defense Collaborative to fight it. But a judge on Tuesday denied his motion to drop the eviction.
“We went to bat for him, and that’s sometimes the best we can do,” said attorney Jason Hain, who represented Evans. The collaborative is also representing a handful of other alleged squatters facing eviction, but once a person has already been evicted, Hain said, there is little legal recourse.
Supervisor Shamann Walton’s aide Tracy Brown-Gallardo, meanwhile, said all evicted residents are being connected to city services.
“I couldn’t tell him no more ways than I did how much I appreciated him letting me know in advance, so I wouldn’t have my son here,” Evans said, of the sheriff’s notice of eviction, his voice trembling. “It just hurts my feelings … I’m just getting put out like I did something wrong.”
Over on Watchman Way, a woman stepped outside to watch deputies conduct an eviction two doors down, at the home of a man she refers to as a de facto son. Deputies approached the door with guns drawn, but inside was just another family member, rolling the last few boxes out on a dolly.
Kalani, who lived in the unit for 20 years and raised his children there, had already packed up and left.
“I know, sooner or later, they’re gonna tear it down,” Kalani said. “But until then, they’re not moving nobody in, so why kick me out?”
He was born and raised on Potrero Hill, Kalani said. His children were raised in that home. His oldest is now 19, and his youngest is nine. After he found himself without a lease, Kalani said he stuck around and, when Whittenberg came on the scene, he paid him in exchange for turning a blind eye to his squatting.
When he went back to Potrero Hill later in the day, Kalani saw his old home boarded up, with the lights taken out and the doors removed.
“I was gonna go back in there, but I’m just like, I’m sick,” he said. “I’m just, like, sad as fuck.” For now, he’ll crash with his brother.
Others on Potrero Hill managed to get lucky — for today.
Ericka Ramirez, 25, who lives in a unit on Dakota Street with her 2-year-old and her sister, was told she could stay an extra day, because she had a small child with her.
A sheriff’s deputy who spoke with Ramirez in Spanish said that the deputies decide on a case-by-case basis whether to postpone an eviction.
Despite the temporary relief, when asked how she was, tears began streaming down Ramirez’s face, as her daughter babbled happily in her arms. Ramirez arrived in San Francisco from Guatemala a year ago, and is looking for work while her sister works as a cleaner.
For now, all Ramirez knows is that she has a place to sleep tonight, and that tomorrow she will visit Catholic Charities, which could help refer her to a homeless shelter.
Down the hill on Connecticut Street, Leon Speed, who has lived for four years in his unit, told deputies about his health issues when they knocked on his door, demanding to see his hands.
They agreed to let him stay an extra week. Though Speed never paid rent to squat in the unit and generally liked Whittenberg, he said his adult son had paid Whittenberg at some point. So, today, his plan — in addition to going to the courthouse to see about his eviction — was to go talk to Whittenberg and possibly get paid back.
Kalani, on the other hand, said he’d had enough.
“Probably time to move on from here anyway,” he said, though he doesn’t know where he’ll go. “I just gotta get up out of here.”
Meanwhile, since Newsom has made it a crime to be homeless, cops who are supposed to “protect and serve” are forcing people to be “criminals” by serving only the rich.
Surprised they can sleep at night, since they obviously don’t care about duty OR honor.
I mean really what do you expect even you’re squatting and you can’t tell me they HONESTLY believed it was a legit lease paying $200 in SF.
Long past due. Corrupt city officials, activist, homeless programs….. support this Illegal behavior without any gameplan or infrastructure. Only action plan… “we need to build more housing for the homeless”. CA spent over $17.5 billion on homelessness. SF alone spent more than 2 billion oh the homeless since 2021 with absolutely no results as the situation has gotten worse.
Not only do these people want a refund for $200 a month rent, they see that as a legit lease? The audacity! I could have saved up 10s of thousands of dollars they should be grateful!!
Squatting is freeloading. Most of the people interviewed seemed to realize that what they were doing was not legitimate. No one was paying rent, they may have paid someone to look the other way.
Breed’s election-year War on the Poor has no winners.
The war on the rich has no winners either, in fact as recent events in Venezuela have shown, it has lots of losers….
The fellows with the badges, batons, and guns are nothing more than enforcers (armed fat thugs) for corrupt politicians and wealthy real estate developers; the same kind of despots who are bulldozing homes in elsewhere.
Feed the poor, eat the rich