Potrero Annex-Terrace Mismanaged by Private Firm

BY REBEKAH MOAN

Eugene Burger Management Corporation (EBMC) is mismanaging the Potrero Annex-Terrace and Sunnydale housing complexes, according to a San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) report.

Located around 26th and Connecticut streets, the Annex-Terrace complex encompasses roughly 600 housing units with nearly 1,300 residents, 43 percent of whom are Black. Mostly consisting of standalone three-story rectangular structures stacked on hillsides, buildings are beset with broken elevators, plagued by cockroaches and rodents, with poorly maintained plumbing.

In January, EBMC failed all SFHA’s requirements, including reducing threats to residents’ life or safety within 24 hours, delivering monthly performance reports, collecting rents and managing delinquencies, and charging leases with no more than five percent errors. Similarly, EBMC didn’t meet Section 8 Housing Quality Standards, which consist of such metrics as functioning windows and working appliances, though it achieved the criteria in February.

According to SFHA, EBMC failed to classify work orders related to “lifethreatening conditions,” such as plumbing and sanitation defects that expose occupants to risks of illness or injury. By not categorizing conditions as lifethreatening and thus emergencies, EBMC circumvented the 24-hour response time required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It took an average of 39.5 days for EBMC to respond to nonemergency work orders. That reflects residents’ experiences, according to Mission Local. One tenant, who has lived in Annex-Terrace for 11 years and asked to remain nameless, said that it took two months for her broken toilet to be fixed.

EBMC failed to remove abandoned vehicles or cut back overgrown vegetation, exacerbating poor conditions at Potrero Annex-Terrace and Sunnydale.

Maria, an Annex-Terrace resident since 1999, told Mission Local that when she complained about mice to EBMC she was told not to worry, as mice weren’t dangerous.

“Mice don’t bite,” she said an EBMC employee told her.