How local advocates argue for public housing
As free marketeers, the Opp Now team tends to look askance at public housing schemes. However, the left-leaning Mission Local website in SF does a literate and intelligent job of making the pitch in favor of better public housing management, so we respectfully excerpt Marina Newman's most recent article.
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.”
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.
“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.”
Read the whole thing here.
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