About 50 tenants from 10 federally subsidized affordable and public housing complexes across San Francisco gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon before marching to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office and crowding inside.
Their mission: To hand-deliver a nearly five-foot-long letter demanding that the mayor hold their property managers accountable.
The mayor’s staff did not greet this incursion warmly. In a video shared with Mission Local, a member of the mayor’s staff warns tenants that if they don’t step outside, they will have to “escalate” the situation. After about 30 minutes of this standoff, a member of the mayor’s staff took the letter and met with tenants and housing advocates.
“Residents are living in dangerously unsafe and degrading conditions, many with persistent infestations, toxic mold, structural disrepair, and repeated plumbing and electrical failures,” reads a copy of the letter provided to Mission Local. “Requests for repairs and basic accommodations have gone unanswered for far too long … These conditions are not only inhumane, they are life-threatening.”
Organizers said it was the second time they had delivered the exact same message.
In May, when Lurie visited Bayview Senior Services, Maika Pinkston, a resident of the nearby Bayview Apartments, handed Lurie the same letter. Pinkston invited the mayor to visit other affordable and public housing developments in the Bayview and Western Addition to see for himself.
Pinkston says Lurie told her he would read it in his car. She never got a response.
The letter that the group delivered Tuesday was blown up to three times its original size in the hopes that it would get Lurie’s attention, organizers said.
That seemed to do the trick. After the staffer took the enormous letter, Ernest Jones, the mayor’s director of community affairs, came out and listened for an hour as the group listed its complaints, then gave them a handful of times Lurie would be available to tour Plaza East, Alice Griffith, and other public housing complexes over the next two weeks.
Tenants have complained for years of poor housing conditions in San Francisco’s low-income HUD programs, including both affordable and public housing, which are supported by the federal government.
Even public housing complexes that were recently redeveloped at significant expense report broken elevators, leaks, busted smoke detectors, mold, pest infestations, and neglected piles of garbage.
The letter, delivered by public housing tenants and members of the Housing Rights Committee’s “CityWide HUD Alliance,” asked Lurie to visit and detailed their multiple attempts to get in touch with him since March.
“Why is Bayview, Fillmore, and Alice Griffith being ignored?” asked a tenant on the steps of City Hall before heading into the mayor’s office. “Why do we have to come out here and beg for our voices to be heard?”
After not hearing from the mayor’s office, tenants and housing advocates were surprised when he arrived at Alice Griffith Apartments in Bayview-Hunters Point in June. He was accompanied by a property manager from the John Stewart Company, which manages Alice Griffith and a large number of other public and affordable housing developments in San Francisco.
The property manager had cleaned up before he arrived, tenants said. Lurie remarked on some dog feces on the sidewalk, but otherwise, tenants say, he silently walked through the property and shook hands with a few residents before leaving. Alice Griffith tenants say they haven’t heard from him since, and conditions quickly deteriorated again.
They’re asking Lurie to visit again, along with multiple other subsidized apartments in the Western Addition including Plaza East, Freedom West Homes, and Thomas Paine.
Though the Housing Authority and city government have less authority over redeveloped public housing projects transferred from government to private ownership than they once did, tenants say the city continues to hire developers that have been accused of mismanagement.
The mayor’s office recently announced legislation moving forward a new development at 530 Sansome in the Financial District in partnership with Related California, which has managed and developed a number of affordable housing in San Francisco and been accused of shoddy construction, managing apartments overrun with rats, and neglecting complaints to fix broken appliances.
Tenants say this is just one example of the city’s continued support of management companies accused of neglect and abuse of largely low-income, and Black residents in HUD housing programs, pushing them out of the city.
“These companies have harmed our residents for decades. Why are they getting rewarded for harming our Black communities?” asked an activist, holding a megaphone outside of City Hall. “They’re slumlords.”
Horrible !! At the end of each day…the mayor,city associates,housing mgrs.,property owners…go home to decent housing,with heat & hot water,no mold, no rodents, no spilling garbage ,no crime ,their children are safe…aren’t we all human??? It’s about human rights !! When the mayor was campaigning…he promised to do soooo much…..and haven’t delivered shit !!! SMH
Time to go after the landlords and owners who take government money and harm tenants
Also , curious to know how much tenants pay to live in these places and who pays
Taxpayers should not be expected to foot the bill forever .
Honestly, a large crowd can’t simply bust into someone’s office and expect a warm reception. What did they think the reaction was going to be? I can sympathize with them wanting something to be done, and the conditions in their housing is deplorable. But there’s a right way and wrong way to do something. Did anyone think about calling in the media to publicize it??? Anyone get ahold of a building inspector??? Government housing rep??? City housing rep???… Or did someone just decided to go directly to the mayor as if he’s the Wizard of Oz??…
There’s number of other ways and places to go 1st. And the first thing the mayor (or any other chief executive, CEO, military base commander, or any other top authority of a multi department entity) will ask us “Who did you talk to already”? “Did you try and work with them already”?
I don’t blame the mayor’s office’s unwelcoming reaction at all. Whoever was leading this wasn’t a leader aiming to get things fixed. Seems more of someone being an activist aiming to make a name for themself.
Double rock has always been underdeveloped. I feel they refused to clean the area up because there will a need for someone to be accountable to all toxic soil and trash around the around.
Lurie doesn’t care much for poor people. His actions to date reflect that despite PR.
At best they’re a token to be polished and shown before a camera when convenient.
The reality is he doesn’t see them as a future voting bloc in San Francisco;
He expects gentrification to be fully completed by the next election cycle.
“the mayor’s staff warns tenants that if they don’t step outside, they will have to “escalate” the situation”
The government of the City and County of San Francisco has developed an immune response to the residents of the City and County of San Francisco.
All of these people hold us in utter contempt as obstacles to be overcome and as sources of revenue.