San Francisco realizes letting people steal homes might not be a good idea
Image by Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. The main characters are seen here illegally squatting in an abandoned apartment.
As SF Chronicle reports, San Francisco recently announced they’ll be doing controlled demolition of deserted houses with illegal squatter residents. This project will provide (via redevelopment) 800 new affordable homes and 800 new market-rate units, with the eventual goal of building 5,300 new apartments.
The plan called for the rebuilding of 619 public housing units, plus another 200 affordable units and 800 market-rate homes. With spectacular views of the bay, a quaint shopping district on 18th Street, and a median home sales price well over $1 million, Potrero Hill seemed likely to attract market rate developers.
But progress has been glacial. Eight years into what was pitched as a 15-year plan, just 72 of the affordable units have been completed — the first building opened in 2019 — and the other 157-unit building is expected to be delivered in the middle of 2025. Of these, 117 will be replacement units for existing residents. Meanwhile, none of the old housing stock, much of it barely habitable, has been demolished, creating opportunities for squatting at a time when the city is in the midst of a desperate housing shortage.
“It’s very hard to ensure that those units, on a day-to-day basis, are not infiltrated, are not broken back into after you board them up, after you secure them,” [SF Housing Authority CEO] Lediju said. “You can do that each and every day, and the next day you come back, those units, oftentimes, are re-entered.”
Friday’s vote greenlighting the demolition comes as 40 eviction cases, pertaining to “squatters” at the site, work their way through the legal process. Some households have already been evicted and are staying in vehicles or shelters while others are waiting for trial dates.
The Housing Authority has said that “not a single lease-holding resident” at the Potrero Hill site is facing eviction, and that all “unauthorized individuals have been offered relocation services and assistance” through the MOHCD. …
Eventually, Hope SF will replace 1,900 public housing units with 5,300 apartments, some of which are slated to be market-rate. So far at Potrero, a 72-unit building has been completed which houses 53 households that were previously living in the older public housing.
Read the whole thing here.
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