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Public Housing in Private Hands

With the pandemic raging, the Public Press is focusing on the most vulnerable renters in the nation’s most expensive housing markets.

Plaza East apartments

Yesica Prado / San Francisco Public Press

A private developer proposes that Plaza East Apartments in San Francisco, built less than 20 years ago, be demolished and rebuilt. Tenants want to see a plan for repairs to existing homes.

“Public Housing in Private Hands” is a series that explores poor living conditions in government-run and other subsidized housing, examining the decisions of both public officials and developers. Stories also examine the limits of local and state eviction moratoriums designed to help those in economic need in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The reporting team includes reporters Nina Sparling and Madison Alvarado, data journalist Frank Bass, infographics intern Jenny Kwon and research assistants Ande Richards and Imran Ali Malik, who are students at UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program.

Support for this series was provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Thanks also to the Investigative Editing Corps, which helped launch this series, “Public Housing in Private Hands,” in 2020.

Housing

Plaza East apartments

With Mayor’s Backing, Developer Asks to Demolish, Rebuild 20-Year-Old Public Housing

03.30.2021

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By Nina Sparling, Reporter

Federal officials are considering a proposal to allow a developer to tear down and rebuild a 20-year-old public housing complex in the Western Addition — a plan that does not address residents’ demands for repairs to health and safety issues in the current structures.

Housing

A crochet white teddy bear peeks through the window of a family home in the Ingleside neighborhood. The teddy bear wears blue scrubs, a stethoscope and a mask. As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into its second year, evictions have resumed, and the city’s most vulnerable are bearing the brunt.

Despite Pandemic, New Wave of Court-Ordered Evictions Displacing Poor Tenants

02.24.2021

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By Nina Sparling, Reporter

After an eight-month pause, court-ordered evictions in San Francisco have resumed, and they’re coming down hardest on some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. The Sheriff’s Department has conducted evictions at 33 addresses across the city since November 2020, according to documents obtained through a California Public Records Act request. More than half — 18 — involved tenants in permanent supportive housing.

Housing

Keeshemah Johnson peers out the window of the home she once shared with her partner, Maurice Austin. Her T-shirt pays tribute to Austin.

Hundreds of SF Renters Threatened With Eviction During Pandemic

02.16.2021

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By Nina Sparling, Reporter

Landlords have tried to force hundreds of San Francisco renters from their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. From March 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, landlords filed close to half the number of eviction notices as in the same period a year earlier, even as state and federal moratoriums on pandemic-related evictions remain in effect.

Housing

A woman chats on her phone, wearing a mask,while walking down Ocean Avenue in early January.She strolls pass a mural highlighting, “Ingleside Pride,” painted on a closed medical business. Residents in the neighborhoods of Ingleside, Excelsior, Mission and the Tenderloin are struggling to continue paying rent.Despite the region’s high rents, the percentage of San Francisco area residents who are behind on their rent is lower than the national average.

One-Quarter of Bay Area Tenants Say They Can’t Pay the Rent

01.19.2021

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By Nina Sparling, Reporter and Frank Bass

As the pandemic stretches into its second year, an estimated 278,000 households, or roughly one-quarter of the Bay Area’s 1.1 million renters, have little or no confidence they will be able to make next month’s rent, according to a San Francisco Public Press analysis of Census Bureau data. An estimated 60,000 renters living in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo and San Francisco counties who were behind on their rent in mid-December said they feared eviction in the next 60 days.

Housing

A protest in 2014 outside a building where residents had been evicted.

Tenant Attorney Expects ‘Avalanche’ of Evictions as Protections Expire

01.08.2021

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By Laura Wenus, Reporter & Host for "Civic"

Months ago, legislators approved several layers of protections to keep renters from being kicked out and potentially made homeless during a pandemic. Now, several of those protections are expiring, though there are efforts under way to extend them and Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he supports an extension.