Issue 27 by San Francisco Public Press

independent

A New Prescription

nonprofit

in depth

NOT SO DIVERSE: Ling Ling Chang, a non-white GOP female legislator, is a minority of one in state. | 9

Richmond’s bold experiment to heal itself one young man at a time is led by DeVone Boggan, left, and an innovative city program. | 10

SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG • $1.00

SPRING 2019 • ISSUE 27

TAKING ON BIG TECH

As city works to write rules on personal privacy, possible consequences emerge

Searching for The Truth in Suit Against Huge Landlord Renters say Veritas tries to force them out, but firm says charges are false By Noah Arroyo // Public Press

hen the Great Recession destroyed San Francisco’s 20thcentury kings of rent-controlled buildings — the infamous Lembi family — the founder of Veritas Investments Inc. began buying pieces of that broken, over-leveraged empire on his way to becoming what is perhaps the city’s largest residential landlord of the 21st century. Besides bricks and mortar, Veritas shares something else with the Lembi legacy: a lawsuit accusing the corporation of a litany of offenses intended to push out people paying below-market rents so that new residents will pay substantially more as rent caps are lifted. Veritas — the name is Latin for truth — vigorously denies all claims of malfeasance and in turn accuses lawyers and tenants of pursuRenters ing a frivolous suit for vs. a big payout. Landlords “Veritas chooses to invest in San Francisco and its aging housing stock,” company spokesman Ron Heckmann said via email. “There are no specific claims, fact based or other, about neglected maintenance or pushing out Residents, just boilerplate allegations.” The company, founded in 2007, says it owns more than 230 apartment buildings with more than 5,000 units, all subject to rent control because they were built at least 40 years ago, with many around 100 years old. That makes the structures cheaper to buy, while expensive to maintain or rehabilitate. The foundation of the company’s business model is to buy and improve these aging buildings, delivering “superior financial performance” to individual and institutional investors, its website states. Founder and CEO Yat-Pang Au, a Bay Area native who pursued a career in engineering before getting an MBA at Harvard, has said he plans to expand the $3 billion Veritas empire around the region, with Oakland as his next stop. The lawsuit pits a corporate landlord, answerable to investor-owners, against low- to middle-income tenants fearful of being evicted and fighting to remain in a city that has become unaffordable. When the Public Press first wrote about the lawsuit last fall after activists confronted Au in a protest, Veritas did

HOUSING

SOLUTIONS

Illustration by Reid Brown // Public Press

By Andrew Stelzer // Public Press

it by bit, San Francisco has become a place where it’s assumed that tech companies — many of which are based here — are tracking your every move. Until now, it has largely been up to you to find ways to stay off their collective corporate radar. But instead of having to dig deep into the privacy settings of your phone or an app to opt out of sharing your personal information to do something as pedestrian as, say, rent one of the now-ubiquitous electric scooters, imagine never having to opt in in

the first place. As city officials this spring craft a “privacy-first policy” mandated by voter-approved Proposition B, supporters hope its lofty ambitions will start to become a reality this summer. The local regulations — among the first emerging in cities nationwide — could fill potential holes in the separate landmark statewide privacy law that takes effect in 2020. San Francisco’s initiative might also accelerate efforts to pre-empt cities and states through the adoption of federal standards, which the technology and business lobbies could be expected to water down.

Already there are signs that the city could move to the forefront of enforcing limits on data collection and reshaping our relationship with technology companies. City leaders have made bold, but so far not very specific, claims about their ability to limit the personal-information freefor-all that is at the heart of the business model for data brokers, many startups and other digital enterprises. Since passage of the ballot measure in November, supervisors have introduced legislation to restrict or ban surveillance

Your Data, Their Dollars

VERITAS continued on Page 6

VERITAS’ VIEW: Representative of one

The Fight Over Privacy

of city’s biggest landlords answers questions from the Public Press. | 5

MORE INSIDE

PRIVACY continued on Page 3

Environmentalists Say Housing Talks Didn’t Include Them By Kevin Stark // Public Press

B Photo by Max Whittaker// CALmatters

Gov. Gavin Newsom says strict environmental regulations are one reason for the shortfall in affordable housing construction.

oth the California builders’ lobby and the state’s largest trade union for construction workers backed Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor. When the Democrat won in a predictable landslide in November, they proceeded with a common purpose: to knock down barriers to fast housing construction — among them the state’s primary environmental law. Participants in the negotiations said that in addition to working with Newsom, then lieutenant governor, they also consulted with some community groups. But they did not engage with some of the most prominent

Activists object to plan to speed up construction OKs environmental organizations, at least until February 2019 — just before Newsom announced support for broad changes aimed at speeding projects that might add affordable housing to the state. “We’ve been supportive of all the major environmental policies and advances that the state of California has passed,” said Cesar Diaz, the legislative and political director of the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California. “But we’re dealing with a housing crisis.”

Diaz said the Legislature “hit the ground running” on various proposals, some of which would streamline the local environmental review process. “We have now opened up conversations with the enviro groups and will continue to meet with the majority of them to have these discussions. Whether they can agree or come to support, I’m not sure.” But several environmental leaders said they were locked out of these talks that involved what could amount to a frontal attack on their most valuable legal tool, the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA continued on Page 9

STREET TALLY: Volunteer’s first-hand

account of the city’s one-night count of homeless residents. | 12

RENT FREEZE: Designer of affordable

projects offers his idea on how to ease the region’s housing crisis. | 8

10 YEARS LATER: Public Press’

independent voice needed more than ever. | 2

2 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019

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FROM THE EDITORS

A Decade of Defying Downward Expectations

n February 2009, our freshly launched website featured just a handful of stories. So, we were surprised when a reporter from the Wall Street Journal called wanting to know whether the San Francisco Public Press, which was planning to officially launch in March, was going to “replace” the San Francisco Chronicle. Facing falling revenues (it said it lost $50 million the previous year) and a protracted labor dispute, Hearst Corp. said that unless it was able to make steep staff reductions within weeks, it would sell the paper or, if no buyer emerged, close it. The threat earned national headlines, and though the Chronicle remained open for business, it lost many good reporters and editors. While the question from the Journal reporter was absurd, the crisis that brought it to that point was real. Ten years ago, the bottom was falling out of the daily newspaper business model. Media pundits were warning that local, ad-supported journalism was an endangered species. So a group of us started the Public Press as a nonprofit, with the quixotic idea of keeping independent, professional muckraking alive through a community-support model. One of our first big projects was an investigative reporting collaboration with the local independent publisher McSweeney’s called the San Francisco Panorama. We collaborated on producing a 10,000-word exposé detailing how the cost overruns on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge grew over more than two decades of planning.

later, we have refined our methodology and won more than a dozen journalism awards on many topics, including the resegregation of the city’s public schools, the persistence of thousands of unoccupied residential hotel rooms while neighbors languish in homelessness, the stalled efforts to enforce earthquake retrofitting in residential buildings, and widespread Bay Area waterfront development that seemed to fly in the face of new climate change warnings, with scientists saying sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet within a human lifetime. For 2019, we plan to expand into audio, build a new website, host civic education events and delve into stories about enOur first edition was published in June 2010. vironmental justice, affordable housing, digital privacy, education financing and By 2010, we started publishing our more. own ad-free, quarterly newspaper. In We are in an aggressive growth phase, early issues, we exposed backroom deals thanks in part to support from about a between developers at Treasure Island dozen foundations. But our community and allies of former Mayor of more than 500 individual Willie Brown, profiled real supporters (see their names DONATE NOW estate speculators sitting on in the first column on this entire neglected blocks of page) now covers about a Online: sfpublicpress. Market Street, and mapped third of our costs. org/membership Mail: San Francisco a broken city transit network As we start our 10th anPublic Press, 44 Page with data showing how poor niversary year, we’re askSt., Suite 504, San neighborhoods got the slowing for your help to keep Francisco, CA 94102 est bus service. independent, influential and Call: 415-495-7377 We specialized in stories accountable local journalism about under-covered isgrowing. Consider joining sues and the interests of under-served online or sending a check. audiences. We requested public records, We are grateful to all of our supportsought out whistleblowers and used dataers. The Public Press wouldn’t be here sets to tell provocative stories. without you. Twenty-seven roughly-quarterly print Michael Stoll, Executive Director editions and more than 3,000 articles Lila LaHood, Publisher

SAN FRANCISCO

PUBLIC PRESS INDEPENDENT NONPROFIT IN DEPTH The mission of the San Francisco Public Press is to enrich the civic life of San Francisco by delivering public-interest journalism through print and interactive media not supported by advertising. 44 Page St., Suite 504 San Francisco, CA 94102 415-495-7377 info@sfpublicpress.org Spring 2019 • Issue 27 (Vol. 10, No. 1) Published March 1, 2019

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Patricia M. Bovan Campbell Kaizar Campwala David Cohn Liz Enochs Neal Gorenflo Lila LaHood Holly Million Peter Scheer Michael Stoll

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Michael Stoll

PUBLISHER Lila LaHood

DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP & COMMUNITY Daphne Magnawa

SENIOR EDITOR Michael Winter

ASSISTANT EDITOR Noah Arroyo

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACROSS 1. Clobber with snowballs 5. Oktoberfest quaff 9. Burial place 14. Medicinal plant 15. Singer Guthrie 16. Subsided 17. College prank popular in the ‘50s 19. In the red 20. “No thank you,” in modern parlance 21. Summer Games org. 23. ”With all ___ respect...” 24. It may be bitter 25. “It’s a Wonderful Life” actress 28. Furthermore 30. Baldwin of ‘30 Rock’ 32. Tennis term 33. Stereotypical name for a poodle 35. “Little” Stowe character/Actress Longoria 36. Docking places for boats 40. On someone else’s coattails 43. Get established in a new pot 44. Sundial hour/ Super Bowl won by the Joe Namath led Jets 45. Peau de ___ (dull satin fabric) 46. Hoops org. 47. Disney-animated clown fish of 2003 49. Channel for film buffs 50. Beatles album of 1969 54. Coolers in windows, briefly 56. Pasture sound

DIRECTOR OF DESIGN

Crossword by Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

HyunJu Chappell // Magna Citizen Studio

COPY CHIEF

57. Ostrich’s cousin 58. Basra natives 61. Ignore the cue cards, say 63. “Where are your manners?” 66. Tart and spicy 67. Adhesive strip 68. “A ___of Two Cities” 69. Clean, as a blackboard 70. Attention-getting sound 71. Idyllic spot/ First place? DOWN 1. “Big” name at Fenway Park 2. Jack of ‘Rio Lobo’ 3. Yearned 4. Range of the Rockies 5. Poet of yore 6. Notable time period 7. Yale collegian 8. “The Thinker” creator 9. Modern treasure hunt 10. Like a cold, damp day 11. “All kidding ___...” 12. Where the action is 13. Nosed (out) 18. “Star Wars” sage 22. For the heck of it 25. “Whip It” band 26. Simple wind instrument 27. Brings up, as children 28. Many miles away 29. Cleopatra’s river 31. Pitcher Randy Johnson’s power source 34. ___ fell swoop 37. Group that puts down uprisings 38. Govt. banking protector 39. Appear to be

Kurt Aguilar

GRAPHIC ARTIST Reid Brown

WRITERS

Yesica Prado • Kevin Stark • Andrew Stelzer

PHOTOGRAPHERS Terry Pon • Sharon Wickham

PARTNERSHIP EDITOR Michele Anderson

COPY EDITORS

Richard Knee • Dean Takehara

CONTRIBUTORS

SOLUTION on Page 9

41. Get in car, in baby talk 42. Like games that head into overtime 48. Rowboat propellers 50. Knock for a loop 51. Justice Ruth ___ Ginsburg 52. Model wood 53. “Straight ___ Compton” (groundbreaking gangsta

rap album) 55. A la ___ (menu option) 58. Gossip page couple 59. Twiddling one’s thumbs 60. “You ain’t ___ nothin’ yet!” 62. The “I” in T.G.I.F. 64. “No way!” 65. Orang or chimp

Wesley Allsbrook Suzanne Bohan (author, “Twenty Years of Life: Why the Poor Die Earlier, and How to Challenge Inequity”) Elizabeth Castillo (CALmatters) John Osborn D’Agostino (CALmatters) Matt Levin (CALmatters) Dyan Ruiz (People. Power. Media) Joseph Smooke (People. Power. Media) Max Whittaker (CALmatters)

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTORS

Kevin Christian • Andrea Carla Michaels

WEB EDITOR John Angelico

BUSINESS, OPERATIONS, AUDIO & WEB PRODUCTION

Stacy Bond • Kevin Davis • Amanda Hickman Linda Jue • Aaron Kingon • George Koster Carla Laser • Ellison Librian • Megan Maurer Chris Mosson • Bill Schwalb • Jeff Shaw Josh Wilson • Garrick Wong

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORTERS PARTNERS FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE

The San Francisco Foundation is an incubator for community investment, original ideas and passionate leadership in the Bay Area. One of the nation’s largest community foundations in grantmaking and assets, it has been the primary funder of the Public Press since 2009. sff.org

The Fund for Investigative Journalism supports investigative reporting projects around the world. fij.org

The Center for Cultural Innovation promotes knowledge sharing, networking, and financial independence for individuals in the arts. cciarts.org

craigslist Charitable Fund provides millions of dollars each year in grants to hundreds of partner organizations addressing four broad areas of interest: environment and transportation; education, rights, justice and reason; nonviolence, veterans and peace; and journalism, open source and the Internet. craigslist.org/about/ charitable

The James Irvine Foundation’s mission is to expand opportunity for the people of California. irvine.org

The Reva and David Logan Foundation supports social justice, scholarship, the arts and investigative journalism. Dedicated to lasting support for the founders’ powerful and eclectic mix of grants. loganfdn.org Jonathan Logan Family Foundation Empowering world-changing work. jonathanloganfamilyfoundation.org

The Institute for Nonprofit News consists of 120 nonprofit, nonpartisan news organizations conducting investigative reporting in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. inn.org

Fund for Nonprofit News at The Miami Foundation administers the News Match, a national campaign to encourage grassroots support for nonprofit news organizations. The fund was established with grants from Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. miamifoundation.org

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. knightfoundation.org

CALmatters

A nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. calmatters.org

People. Power. Media

Reports on efforts and perspectives from marginalized communities where grassroots organizations are working to change public policy. peoplepowermedia.org

OTHER PUBLIC MEDIA & CIVIC PARTNERS The California Endowment’s mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. calendow.org

California Humanities promotes the humanities in California in order to help create a state of open mind, and aims to inspire Californians to learn more, dig deeper and start conversations that matter among our dramatically diverse people. calhum.org

AlterNet Bay Nature California Health Report The Center for Investigative Reporting Center for Public Integrity Commonwealth Club of California Earth Island Journal EdSource El Tecolote Ethnic Media Services Grist KALW Radio KPFA Radio KQED Radio MapLight Mission Local National Radio Project Public Policy Institute of California Richmond Confidential Richmond Pulse San Francisco Neighborhood Newspaper Association Shareable World Affairs Council

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SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 3

“It’s kind of a Wild West and there’s an entirely new range of technologies and spaces where privacy questions are really impacting the real world and our everyday movements and transactions.” — Angelina Yu, aide to Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer

Illustration by Reid Brown // Public Press

S.F. Could Pay a Price for Protecting Privacy “We felt that it was important to be transparent and upfront that that type of data was being collected and analyzed,” she and facial recognition. But the idea of being said. “It’s inferring a lot more data than able to use online services in San Francisco just a simple transaction. without providing any personal details is “We’re hoping this will dovetail with a the most controversial proposal. It is also lot of the efforts around ‘privacy first,’” said potentially the most transformative and Yu, adding that Fewer’s office planned to disruptive to an industry that has reaped meet with Amazon. “We are at this time riches from “disruption.” where it’s kind of a Wild West and there’s As officials work to add teeth to the an entirely new range of technologies and larger privacy framework, critics warn spaces where privacy questions are really that aggressive regulations could chase impacting the real world and our everyday companies that make their money mining movements and transactions.” Big Data out of San Francisco, or into the (In February, Fewer backed off advanccourts to battle regulators. ing her measure “at this time” but did not “I think it’s going to be very difficult to say why.) change the business model that underlies District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who a lot of current services, because it enables sponsored Proposition B, followed Fewer’s things to be free,” said Kelsey Finch, an proposal in late January by introducing attorney at the Future of Privacy Forum, the “Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance.” a nonprofit think tank and advocacy group It would require that the Board of Supervibased in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to sors approve any city department request have both free products and services and to acquire new surveillance technot provide any data. And that will nology, or use current surveillance be a logistical hurdle. It may be a equipment in a new way to monipolitical hurdle.” Your Data, tor or track residents and visitors. Brian Hofer, who chairs the Their Dollars It would also ban facial recognition Oakland Privacy Advisory Comby city departments, setting up mission, agrees. “If the restrictions San Francisco to be the first U.S. are perceived as being too cumbercity to do so. some for the private industries, I The proposal is in line with what think there’s going to be a lot of Sameena Usman, with the Bay pushback,” he said. Area Council on American Islamic Strict regulations would have a The Fight Relations, was hoping for last “far-reaching impact in a lot of difyear, when her group endorsed Over Privacy ferent technologies,” said Cynthia Proposition B. Usman told the Cole, a privacy attorney with Palo Public Press in October that she Alto-based Baker & Botts, which saw the city Charter amendment represents more than half the Foras “a stepping stone” toward a surveillance tune 500 companies. She cited geolocation ordinance. Though Peskin’s plan does not and biometric data as rapidly expanding directly cite the privacy-first policy, a fact fields that could be drastically affected and sheet distributed by his office called it “an whose stakeholders could respond accordimplementation vehicle” of Proposition B. ingly. Peskin legislative aide Lee Hepner “I think you could have a dissuasive called it a way to “build on the mandate of impact on companies saying, ‘Are we going the voters last November to protect their to put our offices in San Mateo or Oakland, personal information, to protect them from or are we going to put it in San Francisco?’” unwarranted intrusion into their private Cole said. “And they might say, ‘OK, well, worlds.” Down the line, he said, supervisors San Francisco has these laws that make might also look at banning facial recogniit even more stringent, even stricter for tion at private events that receive city us with respect to our business model. So, permits for the use of public space. we’re going to just implant ourselves right Once the privacy policy is in place, it outside San Francisco instead.’” is expected to provide a legal platform on which supervisors might introduce dozens CHALLENGING BIG TECH of other transformative regulations applying to city agencies, contractors and any The first warning shot came just a month entity that receives permits or payments after city voters endorsed the 11 “guiding from the city, which Proposition B calls for. principles” in Proposition B, which are But privacy advocates in City Hall envithe foundation of the privacy policy. The sion an expansive agenda moving forward, measure covers data collected by city agenwhich if pursued could become a significant cies, anyone with a city license, permit or headache for business, especially local tech contract, and anyone receiving city funding. giants that grow by making acquisitions. In December, District 1 Supervisor SanHepner said Peskin’s office is “trying to dra Lee Fewer introduced an ordinance to look at data privacy regulation as somerequire stores to post signs and notify the what of an antitrust tool.” The goal would city if they are using surveillance cameras be to prevent the accumulation of massive to monitor, track or collect data on shopamounts of data by large companies that pers. Standard security cameras were purchase startups solely for that purpose. exempted. “If you are a permittee of the City and The proposal, which included unspecified County of San Francisco and you are “administrative penalties” for noncompliacquired by Amazon or Google or Uber ance, was sparked by a new breed of stores or Lyft, that should force a reevalualike partially automated Amazon Go, which tion of your permit … to see how policies have cameras that “can sense if a customer reaches out and grabs an item and puts it back down,” said Fewer aide Angelina Yu. PRIVACY continued on Page 4 PRIVACY from Page 1

Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

“If the restrictions are perceived as being too cumbersome for the private industries, I think there’s going to be a lot of pushback.” — Brian Hofer, Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission

4 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to change the business model that underlies a lot of current services, because it enables things to be free.” — Kelsey Finch, Future of Privacy Forum

Dispute Brewing in City Over Personal Data PRIVACY TIPS FROM THE NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY ALLIANCE ADVICE FOR ORGANIZATIONS: PRIVACY IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS Create a culture of privacy in your organization. Educate employees on the importance and effect of protecting consumer and employee information as well as the role they play in keeping it safe. Top three tips for transparency and trust: • If you collect it, protect it. Follow reasonable security measures to keep individuals’ personal information safe from inappropriate and unauthorized access. • Be open and honest about how you collect, use and share consumers’ personal information. Think about how the consumer may expect their data to be used, and design settings to protect their information by default. • Build trust by doing what you say you will do. Communicate clearly and concisely to the public what privacy means to your organization and the steps you take to achieve and maintain privacy. ADVICE FOR CONSUMERS: SAFEGUARDING YOUR DATA

Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, right, shown with aide Angelina Yu, introduced a privacy-related bill in December, but put the measure on hold in February.

In his February State of the State Address, Gov. Gavin Newsom congratulated the Legislature for passing the nation’s first state privacy law, saying that “companies that make billions of dollars collecting, curating and monetizing our personal data have a duty to protect it. Consumers have a right to know and control how their data is being used.” He then proposed a “data dividend” for Californians, “because we recognize that your data has value and it belongs to you.” “California’s consumers should also be able to share in the wealth that is created from their data,” he said.

PRIVACY from Page 3

are changing and shifting relative to the exchange and use of people’s personal information,” Hepner explained. The city’s policy “does absolutely threaten the business models of some companies,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s director of grassroots advocacy, Shahid Buttar, who evaluated Proposition B as it was being drafted last year. “Companies will have to let the users decide how they are to participate and how they are to be monetized, as opposed to imposing their own interests on users that want to use their platforms.” The threat of relocation could be private industry’s primary negotiating tactic. “There are ways to put pressure on cities that you don’t have that option on a federal level or less so even on a state level,” said attorney Cole, who has numerous gig-economy and other tech clients that expect to be affected by San Francisco’s regulations. Seattle has developed one of the nation’s more robust citywide privacy regimes. In 2015, it created privacy principles to guide city government and companies with city contracts. Seattle chief privacy officer, Ginger Armbruster, said that occasionally the city has to tell a vendor “this just doesn’t work for us if you want to do business Your Data, with the city.” But unlike Their Dollars what San Franciscans envision, Seattle’s privacy policy is just advisory and not legally binding. That means with tech giants like Google and hometown Amazon, the city has had The Fight to bend. Some private entities Over Privacy have an attitude of “we take data, we use it, we monetize it, we share it, we do what we want with it because we’re a large company and we don’t have to negotiate that,” Armbruster said. “It becomes complicated when we deal with large companies who say, ‘These are our data practices, love it or leave it.’ There’s really no room for discussion,” she added. “There are times when some of those data practices can be at odds with what we’re hoping to do with public data. If we had a choice, we would rather do X, but here we are doing Y because we need to provide the service.” Armbruster said transportation-focused companies are especially guilty of overcollecting data not relevant to the services they provide. She said some of her conversations with startups have bordered on comical. “We ran into that all the time. Like, ‘Why are you collecting this information?’ ‘Well, we just want it.’ ‘Well, I can understand why you want it, but, you know, help me with what you’re doing with it, we have to be specific,’” Armbruster recalled. “And you know, we didn’t feel like we have such a mature process for privacy that we should be talking to a private entity that doesn’t have that figured out. But those are the questions you have to ask, and you have to make some real trade-off decisions about that.”

Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

THE QUESTION OF ENFORCEMENT

Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, right, with aide Lee Hepner, authored the voter-approved privacy policy ballot measure, and later introduced a more detailed surveillance ordinance. Oakland’s privacy commission, which advises the city on collection methods and storage of residents’ data, has seen the same patterns in which a private partnership “promises to make our life better, whether it’s measuring parking spaces or traffic … and there’s always some sort of trade-off,” said Hofer. “Usually they offer us this service for free or at very low cost, but it’s in exchange for our data, and we want to know how that data’s being used, where it goes, what the purpose is, and put some reasonable guidelines into place,” he added. “Some of these proposals come to us pretty thin,” Hofer said. “There’s not a lot of analysis. They haven’t really studied the impact, they’re just trying to figure out how to get large volumes of data and go sell it to their customers, to third parties. The tech mentality is just ‘if we can collect it, let’s collect it,’” he said. “Whereas we’re coming a little bit more from the legal civil liberty side: ‘Should we collect it?’” Hofer said he hopes privacy-first policies cause companies to ask themselves, “What data do I need to achieve that purpose, and what is the minimum amount of retention to hold the data until I can delete it safely?” For tech companies, of course, data equal

profit. Facebook, Google, Experian, CoreLogic, Acxiom and other data harvesters have been joined by thousands of large and small brokers that buy and sell, or give third parties access to, personal information. International Data Corp., which provides market research for technology and telecommunications companies, has projected that in 2020, Big Data and business analytics will generate more than $210 billion in revenues worldwide. Users’ personal information can be the most valuable asset some startups have and the foundation of their business model to attract investors. Hepner said one major goal of San Francisco’s privacy policy is to limit the jackpot their founders are seeking. “If you’re providing a service to the public — an alternative transit service, for instance — that’s great and we want you to provide that service,” said Hepner. “But if the profit motive of your business is the acquisition of people’s personal information, or the potential misuse and abuse of that personal information, and your business model is actually like a data broker and facilitating data-broker monopolies, then that’s something that we definitely want to put up some safeguards.”

“Companies will have to let the users decide how they are to participate and how they are to be monetized, as opposed to imposing their own interests on users that want to use their platforms.” — Shahid Buttar, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Photo by Terry Pon // Public Press

Proposition B directs the city administrator to draft the privacy policy by May 31. As of early February, that office was still months away from writing any “meaningful content,” said spokesman Bill Barnes. “We already have a lot of laws in San Francisco that govern different types of information,” he said, highlighting the voter-approved Proposition D in 2006, which strengthened restrictions on when the city could disclose private information. “The city’s treatment of private information is generally fairly robust.” The city administrator is also working in the shadow of the state attorney general, who is hammering out the details of the California Consumer Privacy Act, which becomes law on Jan. 1, 2020. Buttar, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends civil liberties in the digital realm, said that although “Big Tech is quite active in pushing back against the regulatory schemes that the state Attorney General’s Office is building,” he hasn’t heard about similar lobbying efforts at the city level, at least not yet. He pointed out one crucial detail of the state law that has yet to be determined: Whether individuals will have a “private right of action” to sue, and who will enforce the law — the attorney general or the courts. “If the private enforcement goes off the table and the AG’s office is then the sole source of enforcement, it will likely get inundated by reports of violations and abuse from users around the state,” Buttar said. San Francisco has to wrestle with a similar question: Will enforcement fall to the city attorney? “How will the compliance mechanisms work? What will the complaint processing look like, what kinds of remedies will or will not be offered?” said the Future of Privacy Forum’s Finch, who built a tool Seattle uses to evaluate privacy risks for its open-data program. “It’s very important to be clear with the people of San Francisco what those will be.” The city administrator’s spokesman said it was too early to comment. “As we draft this with the City Attorney’s Office, we’ll obviously look at everything,” said Barnes. To Buttar, “The most important aspect of both of these reforms at the state and the municipal level is the empowerment of users and their agency and autonomy, and their right to choose how their information is used. If that’s all we get out of these measures, even that would be a pretty big step forward.”

• Personal info is like money. Value it. Protect it. Information about you, such as your purchase history or location, has value — just like money. Be thoughtful about who gets that information and how it’s collected through apps and websites. You should delete unused apps, keep others current and review app permissions. CONSUMER-FRIENDLY TIPS TO HELP PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY • Share with care. Think before posting about yourself and others online. Consider what it reveals, who might see it and how it could be perceived now and in the future. • Own your online presence. Set the privacy and security settings on websites and apps to your comfort level for information sharing. Each device, application or browser you use will have different features to limit how and with whom you share information. • Think before you act. Information about you, such as the games you like to play, your contacts list, where you shop and your geographic location, has tremendous value. Be thoughtful about who gets that information and understand how it’s collected through websites and apps. • Lock down your login. Your usernames and passwords are not enough to protect key accounts like email, banking and social media. Strengthen online accounts and use strong authentication tools like a unique, one-time code through an app on your mobile device. The NCSA is the nation’s leading nonprofit, publicprivate partnership promoting cybersecurity and privacy education and awareness. NCSA works with stakeholders in government, industry and civil society. NCSA’s primary partners are the Department of Homeland Security and NCSA’s board of directors, which includes representatives from ADP; Bank of America; CDK Global, LLC; CertNexus; Cisco; Cofense; Comcast Corp.; ESET North America; Facebook; Google; InfoSec Institute; Intel Corp.; Marriott International; Mastercard; Microsoft Corp.; Mimecast; NXP Semiconductors; Raytheon; Salesforce; Symantec Corp.; Visa; and Wells Fargo. For more information on NCSA, visit staysafeonline.org/about-us/ overview.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 5

Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

Fifty-seven Taylor St., in the Tenderloin neighborhood, was built in 1906. In recent years, some of its 116 units had problems with pest infestations and lead, records from the Department of Public Health show.

Veritas Says it Maintains ‘High Standards’ By Noah Arroyo // Public Press

n reporting on the tenant lawsuit against Veritas Investments Inc., the Public Press engaged company spokesman Ron Heckmann at length. Here are excerpts of some of our questions and his responses via email from Jan. 7 to Jan. 18. To date, this is the most extensive public account of Veritas’s response to the lawsuit, which is called Evander, et al. v. Veritas Investments, Inc., et al.

Company spokesman accuses attorneys for tenants of pushing a ‘false narrative’

Veritas systematically neglects maintenance work. Plaintiffs’ counsel cannot get their story straight. Veritas treats 100% of our Residents with respect and responsive service. We have a Residents First program that establishes a means to care for all Residents regardless of rent paid or length of stay with us. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS: The Veritas has an internal team of 20 Mainlawsuit alleges that Veritas has systematitenance Technicians and support whose cally neglected essential maintesole purpose is to be responsive nance work or performed frequent to Resident maintenance needs and disruptive renovations in and address matters promptly. We its buildings, in hopes that rentrespond to complaints within 24 controlled tenants would move out hours and on average address work so rents in their units could rise to orders in less than a week. market rates for newcomers. Does Much of San Francisco’s stock of Veritas have a response to this apartment buildings is aging and allegation, or to any specific claims presents the alternative of either in the lawsuit? neglect, or investment to rehabilitate these properties. Veritas Renters RON HECKMANN: Veritas does chooses to invest in San Francisco vs. not neglect repair work or perform and its aging housing stock. VeriLandlords tas manages some properties that renovations in the hope that tenants will move out. It performs are older and require significant repair work and renovations to ensure its improvements and maintenance. buildings adhere to its high standards. Additionally, we are highly responsive to This is not mere rhetoric, it is reality new City mandates relating to Fire Lifeborne out by data and evidence. The data Safety and Seismic upgrades as our tenestablish that Veritas is one of the best and ants’ health and well-being is our priority. most proactive landlords when it comes to While we recognize that work on a buildmaintenance and care for its buildings. An ing can at times be disruptive, it is also independent firm that tracks Complaints our obligation to Residents and the City and Notices of Violation (NOV’s) has stated to maintain these classic properties. To minimize the impact on tenants, we follow restrictive construction hours (much less than the City allows) and other consider“The data establish that ations to reduce the impact of construction Veritas is one of the best work. In the last year alone, Veritas has rehaand most proactive bilitated units and even replaced furniture, landlords when it comes all at our own expense, of several long-term Residents who were not maintaining their to maintenance and units in habitable condition. There may care for its buildings.” have been other options in these cases but those were never explored and instead our Property Management team went above that “Veritas is definitely one of, if not and beyond in an effort to keep long-term the most proactive property management Residents in their homes at considerable companies in San Francisco in regard to effort and expense for Veritas. … building code complaints / violations.” This We keep detailed records of every work factual statement is driven by their gatherorder, complaint or question by Residents ing of publicly available data maintained such that we can provide excellent service. by Department of Building Inspection We truly look forward to the facts coming (DBI), a contrast to unsubstantiated alto light, as opposed to unsubstituted (sic) legations made by plaintiffs’ lawyers. ... blanket allegations, as it will demonstrate On average, Veritas’ residents have been how Veritas is a leader in providing quality in their apartments for 10 years. By conproperties and quality service. trast the average length of stay for tenants moving out is approximately 3 years. We PUBLIC PRESS: You said: “On average, find that new residents are more transient Veritas’ residents have been in their apartor have more frequent life circumstances ments for 10 years. By contrast the average (family / jobs) that result in them changing length of stay for tenants moving out is aphousing more frequently. … proximately 3 years.” Could you clarify the And note the inherent conflict between second sentence? When you refer to the tenthe allegations that Veritas performs too ants who move out after 3 years, are you much construction work and the claim that talking about Veritas tenants? (You’re not

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referring to tenants generally, citywide?)

HECKMANN: Yes, we refer to Veritas residents. Our experience is echoed by national research in which residents who are newer to properties also tend to move out sooner than long-term residents. Our experience in having, on average, residents staying in our apartments for 10 years demonstrates that Veritas has no intent to try to displace longer-term tenants, contrary to the false narrative pushed by plaintiffs’ counsel. As we have stated repeatedly, Veritas welcomes and encourages all our residents to stay in their apartments as long as they wish. PUBLIC PRESS: You said: “Veritas has an internal team of 20 Maintenance Technicians and support whose sole purpose is to be responsive to Resident maintenance needs and address matters promptly.” Are you able to share the company’s data/info about the work that this team has accomplished? As complete and granular as possible — type/cost of work, building loca-

Photo by Noah Arroyo // Public Press

A painter inside 57 Taylor St. The lawsuit against Veritas alleges it prioritizes improving vacated units over occupied ones.

tion, date each case was opened/closed, etc?

HECKMANN: With 230 properties, we have thousands of work-orders we address each year — from leaky toilets to painting touchups to appliance replacements. We respond to each work-order request within 24 hours and close out work orders on average in 6.5 days. This responsiveness is built into our service level commitments and customer care standards. … For the 39 buildings at issue in the Evander lawsuit filed on October 11, 2018, Plaintiffs cite only 14 Notices of Violation (“NOVs”) as evidence of alleged poor maintenance. But that means that most buildings have no NOVs at all. And as for the 14 NOV’s cited, 12 have already been abated, one is awaiting sign-off on a permit, and the last one is just awaiting completion of a work order on a sticking window. That is evidence of responsiveness, not neglect. PUBLIC PRESS: You said: “Veritas manages some properties that are older and require significant improvements and maintenance.” Can you give some examples of specific buildings that have needed extensive work? What work did Veritas do, and how much did it cost? HECKMANN: We said “significant improvements and maintenance,” not merely “needed extensive work” as you restated it. The nuance is important. 634 Powell is an example where Veritas upgraded basic systems, including electrical, plumbing, security, roofing and common areas, to improve the building. It should further be noted that the residents sued the prior landlord for substandard conditions and, since acquisition, we have been actively addressing the property on a holistic basis. Plaintiffs’ counsel pushes the false narrative that Veritas just does cosmetic work to attract tenants, but that narrative is at odds with the reality that Veritas invests in improving basic infrastructure, in addition to the more obvious improvements like upgrades of common areas. That investment is good for the San Francisco housing supply. There is an obvious inconsistency between plaintiffs’ counsel allegation that Veritas neglects its buildings and the allegation that Veritas undertakes so much construction that residents move out. All but one of the Plaintiffs in the Evander lawsuit is still a tenant. Residents are simply not being driven out. The San Francisco Rent Ordinance provides that plaintiffs’ lawyers recover attorney’s fees on such claims, providing a strong incentive to contrive such cases. And to punctuate that point, we view eviction as a last resort and our eviction rate is 0.18%, which is far less than 1%, and among the lowest in the City. Any eviction is almost exclusively due to continuing nonpayment of rent and non-responsiveness to otherwise resolve the matter. PUBLIC PRESS: You said: “To minimize

the impact on tenants, we follow restrictive construction hours (much less than the City allows) and other considerations to reduce the impact of construction work.” Within what specific hours does Veritas allow construction work at its buildings? What are the “other considerations”?

HECKMANN: The City allows construction 7 days per week and from 7am to 7pm. Outside of emergencies or critical work, we only allow construction 5 days per week and from 8am to 6pm such that impact to our residents is minimized. We always follow City regulations and special considerations and accommodations are made on a case-bycase, where possible. In all cases we make every effort to proactively, fully inform and accommodate residents.

“The San Francisco Rent Ordinance provides that plaintiffs’ lawyers recover attorney’s fees on such claims, providing a strong incentive to contrive such cases.” PUBLIC PRESS: Why does Veritas purchase primarily, if not exclusively, rentcontrolled buildings? Why not purchase market-rate buildings? HECKMANN: Apartment buildings built prior to 1979 in San Francisco are rent-controlled, and Veritas invests in this class of properties. Others invest in newer properties but Veritas has developed expertise in acquiring and managing older properties. HECKMANN had one final comment:

Research from external and internal sources supports our record of responsiveness and customer service. First, we looked at Yelp. As measured by Yelp’s 1-5 rating system, San Francisco Property Managers who have a minimum 30 reviews averaged a 3.25 rating whereas Veritas’ property management rated 3.5 and our leasing group, a 4.0. With our own survey of Veritas’ Residents using the same scoring, our Building Managers scored a 3.9 and our Apartment quality rated a 3.5. While we don’t profess to be perfect and there is always room for improvement, the high positives speak to a culture and Resident community of quality and service focus, as opposed to the allegations, which are isolated and lack any factual foundation. … Do you live in a building owned by Veritas or managed by Greentree Property Management Co.? If so, we’d like to know how the company’s statements compare with your experiences. Drop us a line at editors@ sfpublicpress.org.

6 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019

PLAINTIFFS LIVE IN OLD BUILDINGS, MOSTLY DOWNTOWN The tenant plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Veritas Investments Inc. live primarily in San Francisco’s northeast. Some reside in the Mission District or near Golden Gate Park. Most buildings were constructed early in the 20th century. C

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Lawyers filed the original lawsuit in October with 69 plaintiffs. The case is known as Evander, et al. v. Veritas Investments, Inc., et al., named after plaintiff Lance Evander, who lives at 720 Baker St. Media coverage and word of mouth prompted more tenants to contact the lawyers, who then filed an amended complaint two months later with additional plaintiffs. In mid-February, the attorneys indicated that they were preparing to amend the complaint again, with more people joining. By late February, there were a total of 106 plaintiffs living in 39 buildings. Among their dozens of allegations, they say Veritas has neglected essential maintenance in occupied units while performing frequent renovations in vacated apartments that are “intended and designed” to inconvenience the residents next door. The plaintiffs also allege that the company passed inflated Renters vs. construction costs on to Landlords tenants as rent increases, and sometimes removed asbestos or lead paint “in an unsafe and unauthorized” manner. Heckmann countered by saying that Veritas “performs repair work and renovations to ensure its buildings adhere to its high standards.” He added that the company paid to rehabilitate apartments and replace furniture in 2018 for several long-term residents “who were not maintaining their units in habitable condition.” Challenging the claim that construction had made conditions intolerable, he said, “You will note that all but one of the plaintiffs still reside in a Veritas property.” The suit also charges that Veritas and Au “falsely deny receipt of Plaintiffs’ rents, intentionally make Plaintiffs’ rent ledgers confusing to purposefully allege arrears, and claim fraudulent late charges.” Heckmann acknowledged that, because the company oversees so many buildings, “it is possible that some sort of billing confusion might arise in an individual case.” “What we can assure is that both Veritas and the Rent Board provide ample communications to residents concerning the amount of rent due,” he said, referring to the city department that adjudicates disputes in rent-controlled buildings. “More importantly, I wish to make clear that Veritas does not pursue evictions based on some sort of billing mistake; to the contrary, evictions are pursued only as a reluctant

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not respond to requests for comment. In a series of emails this winter, Heckmann rejected claims that Veritas forced tenants out, and defended the company by saying that it had a low rate of complaints and building-code violations.

necessity due to continued nonpayment of rent or, in rare cases, based on serious tenant misconduct. As I’ve said before, the eviction rate is very low.” The plaintiffs’ lawyers paint a darker picture. “You have a very sophisticated business entity that’s attacking the tenants,” said Ryan Vlasak, a partner with Bracamontes & Vlasak, one of two firms representing tenants in the suit. “It’s a pretty unbearable situation that they’re creating.” Vlasak said Veritas’ offenses differ from those of other landlords in type and scope. “We’ve never seen all these tactics orchestrated in such a calculated and widespread manner,” he said. “A smaller-scale landlord will pick one strategy and try to stick to it.” Vlasak, who is working alongside lawyers at Greenstein & McDonald, speculated that this could be “an eight-figure case” — $10 million or more, including punitive damages from Veritas, which has several subsidiaries, including Greentree Property Management. He said a trial could begin within a year and last about three months. Neither Veritas nor its CEO is listed as the legal owner of any of the 39 buildings named in the lawsuit, according to the real estate database at the Assessor-Recorder’s Office. Instead, the owners are limitedliability companies or limited partnerships, usually named for the addresses. For example, the owner of the apartment building at 57 Taylor St. is 57 Taylor I7, LLC. Each company is therefore different and seemingly unrelated to the rest. Limitedliability companies or limited partnerships allow owners to reduce legal exposure and reap tax benefits. “It is a standard, widespread practice in real estate to own properties through specific LLCs, and this practice has been in place for quite some time, not exclusive to Veritas,” Heckmann said. The plaintiffs live in Veritas buildings concentrated in the city’s northeast. Many are in the Tenderloin, Chinatown, the Mission District and around Alamo Square. The differences in their housing costs, based on the lengths of their tenancies, are striking. Most moved in over the past 14 years, and eight have lived in their units since the 1970s, court documents show. The tenant with the lowest rent, $247 a month, arrived in 1972. The highest rent is $3,350, shared by two tenants who began occupying their unit in 2017. The highest individual rent is $2,695, for a tenant who started renting in 2015. The lawsuit does not describe the sizes of the plaintiffs’ apartments.

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Lance Evander is a tenant at 720 Baker St. and plaintiff in the suit against Veritas. He says his rent fluctuated frequently, leaving him unsure he was paying the right amount.

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BUILDING ADDRESS

PURCHASE DATE*

PURCHASE PRICE (MILLIONS OF DOLLARS)*

YEAR BUILT

RENTAL UNITS

AREA (SQ. FOOTAGE)

AVERAGE SQUARE FOOTAGE PER UNIT

240 Saint Joseph’s Ave.

May 16, 2018

$6.8

1963

10,433

696

1075 O’Farrell St.

May 7, 2018

$2.5

1922

6,075

506

20 San Antonio Pl.

Sept. 13, 2017

$3.9

1958

5,232

654

57 Taylor St.

June 29, 2017

$25.5

1906

116

53,805

464

320 Turk St.

June 29, 2017

$14.0

1924

24,550

491

516 Ellis St.

June 29, 2017

$10.0

1910

21,855

575

665 Pine St.

June 22, 2017

$16.6

1928

23,840

611

3201 23rd St.

May 19, 2017

$10.0

1922

16,830

701

916 Pacific Ave.

Dec. 14, 2016

$7.7

1917

17,021

655

10 920 Leavenworth St.

Dec. 8, 2016

$12.9

1912

16,352

681

11 1 San Antonio Pl.

Oct. 7, 2016

$7.4

1961

13,629

1,136

12 337 10th Ave.

Oct. 7, 2016

$4.4

1926

7,350

613

13 721 Geary St.

Aug. 23, 2016

$10.0

1922

19,844

709

14 655 Powell St.

July 19, 2016

$24.5

1923

31,790

662

15 2730 Sacramento St.

Jan. 19, 2016

$8.9

1916

11,250

938

16 990 Geary St.

Dec. 11, 2015

$22.2

1914

41,385

690

17 350 Judah St.

Dec. 11, 2015

$10.0

1926

26,130

769

18 1035 Sutter St.

Dec. 11, 2015

$16.5

1922

22,331

657

19 990 Fulton St.

Sept. 4, 2015

$14.8

1926

25,100

717

20 1025 Steiner St.

June 26, 2015

$3.5

1900

5,352

446

21 50 Laguna St.

Feb. 6, 2015

$22.4

1928

38,461

610

22 1819 Golden Gate Ave.

Dec. 19, 2014

$4.1

1925

10,430

652

23 610 Clipper St.

Dec. 9, 2014

$9.0

1964

16,811

801

24 1064 Dolores St.

Sept. 8, 2014

$5.3

1964

10,878

907

25 720 Baker St.

Aug. 25, 2014

$3.3

1913

9,960

830

26 698 Bush St.

May 29, 2014

$7.2

1907

21,750

483

27 270 Turk St.

Sept. 13, 2013

$9.9

1927

47,054

547

28 3663 20th St.

Oct. 31, 2012

$4.3

1906

12,814

641

29 685 Geary St.

May 3, 2012

$5.2

1916

19,188

446

30 3809 20th St.

May 3, 2012

$7.3

1922

17,552

702

31 621 Stockton St.

Feb. 11, 2011

$5.8

1917

16,047

698

32 915 Pierce St.

Feb. 11, 2011

$3.2

1934

13,830

768

33 1126 Bush St.

Nov. 5, 2005

$3.8

1923

19,500

591

34 520 Buchanan St.

Aug. 30, 2005

$2.8

1924

10,830

570

35 1440 Sutter St.

June 4, 2004

$3.5

1976

15,015

1,001

36 1260 Broadway

April 2, 2004

$2.7

1928

11,681

649

37 709 Geary St.

Dec. 20, 2002

$3.6

1917

23,976

615

38 845 California St.

Sept. 11, 2002

$17.0

1931

43,006

741

39 655 Stockton St.

Sept. 11, 2002

$17.0

1915

20,379

618

RENTS RANGE FROM $247 TO $3,350 Landlords of rent-controlled buildings may set rents for new tenants at any level, but subsequent annual increases are small and regulated by the city. Therefore, recent move-ins tend to pay more. Most of the 106 plaintiffs took up residency in the past 14 years.** $3,500 $3,000

C U R R EN T MON THL Y R E N T

$2,500 $2,000 $1,500 $1,000 $500 1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

YE A R PL A IN TIFF MOVE D IN TO A PA R TME N T Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

Ten of the 106 plaintiffs live in a Veritas building at 57 Taylor St. in the Tenderloin. Built in 1906, with 116 units, it is the largest building involved in the lawsuit.

* Veritas owns its properties through limited-liability companies and limited partnerships. This makes it difficult to check the purchase dates and prices on file with the S.F. Planning Dept. ** Number of squares does not add up to 106 because some dots are superimposed on others, some plaintiffs cohabitate and rent price was unavailable for others.

Sources: Property information from S.F. Planning Dept.; plaintiff addresses, rent levels from S.F. Superior Court documents

Graphics by Reid Brown // Public Press

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 7

“You have a very sophisticated business entity that’s attacking the tenants. It’s a pretty unbearable situation that they’re creating.”

“There are no specific claims, fact based or other, about neglected maintenance or pushing out Residents, just boilerplate allegations.”

VERITAS from Page 6

complaints and violations only in San Francisco databases, enables landlords to “repair before the inspector arrives,” says a promotional message on its website. Last fall, company spokesman Devon Bradley told the Public Press that Veritas, a client, “has a lower-than-average rate” of complaints and violations than do other landlords. Heckmann said some buildings Veritas buys “have deferred maintenance issues at acquisition. For such buildings, Greentree works steadily to improve the buildings, sometimes addressing decades of neglect by prior owners.”

— Ryan Vlasak, attorney for tenants

— Ron Heckmann, Veritas spokesman

buildings erected before 1979, granting longtime tenants below-market rents. The Lembis’ story began in the late 1940s, when a young Frank Lembi bought a slew of buildings in probate after returning from World War II. They became the foundation of his companies Skyline Realty and CitiApartments. Skyline and its many subsidiaries, under the leadership of Lembi’s son, Walter, purchased rent-controlled properties and was accused of pressuring longtime tenants into moving out and replacing them with tenants paying higher, market-rate rents. In 2006, City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the company for “a shocking panoply of corporate lawlessness, intimidation tactics, and retaliation against residents.” The lawsuit claimed that company personnel used “strong-arm tactics” to pressure tenants to leave, such as shutting off utilities or showing up, armed, at their homes. The company settled with the city in 2011, admitting no wrongdoing and agreeing to pay up to $10 million. By then, the Lembi Group was in shambles. It had overleveraged in its efforts to buy up additional properties, so that when the housing bubble burst it was unable to pay back its loans. Big banks, insurance companies and other creditors sued the Lembis and their family trusts, and the majority of their properties were foreclosed upon, seized or sold. Broke, Walter Lembi died of esophageal cancer in August 2010, several months before the settlement with Herrera. The city was able to collect only $836,649 before the defendants went bankrupt, said John Coté, communications director for the City Attorney’s Office. Veritas CEO Au bought many Lembi properties in the aftermath of the financial collapse, and they accounted for much of Veritas’ holdings at the time, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In a 2017 profile of Au, he told the San Francisco Business Times that he had maintained a friendship with the elder Lembi — then, 99 — and that they had dinner once a year. Au’s company faces many accusations reminiscent of those leveled at the Lembis. But while the plaintiffs against Veritas have claimed harassment, the lawsuit does not mention any of the physically threatening tactics that Herrera cited. The Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, a nonprofit tenant-advocacy group, has asked the city attorney about taking action against Veritas. In February, Coté said he could not comment “on the existence of any potential investigation.”

LEAD DISCOVERED

RECRUITING PLAINTIFFS? For Veritas, the motivation behind the lawsuit is suspect. “The San Francisco Rent Ordinance provides that plaintiffs’ lawyers recover attorney’s fees on such claims, providing a strong incentive to contrive such cases,” Heckmann said. He sent the Public Press a photo of a flier he said was posted at one of the properties named in the lawsuit, though he did not say which one. The notice said, in part: “There is now a lawsuit being filed against Greentree/ Veritas! “You can now be compensated for the ‘Non-pest control’ that Greentree has inflicted upon you. ... Every time Greentree made an error in your rent or late fees [and there were never any mistakes made in your favor and against them!] you can now be compensated [with interest!] for the money taken from your pocket.” The flier listed nine ways to “fight for your rights,” the first being to call Michael Schreiber, one of the attorneys. Tenants could also complain to various city departments, picket Au’s home or “Get the Media to do a story about the Bedbug situation not being fixed here.” Vlasak denied that the attorneys had created the fliers. “Most probably an aggrieved tenant mistreated by Veritas took the initiative,” Vlasak said via email. “Clients come to us for help. Veritas will do all it can to spin its malfeasance as an attorney invention in defense of this colossal lawsuit. There is an organic movement in this City against Veritas’ illegal business practices. We believe Veritas knows this but cares more about money than the residents.”

Photo by Sharon Wickham // Public Press

Veritas’ San Francisco properties are all rent-controlled. Many, such as this one at 665 Pine St., evoke the city’s iconic style and architecture. adjusted in response to claims of illegal increases, or reduced services, such as heating, parking or elevator access, he said. Likewise, the Rent Board can discover that Greentree Property Management is responsible for a building only when either that company or one of its buildings’ tenants files a petition of some kind, forcing identities into the open. The Rent Board makes individual records available either on computer terminals at its downtown office or through written requests to staff. By comparison, the Department of Building Inspection makes daily updates to an internet-accessible database

containing all complaints citywide, making the data set useful for spotting trends. In recent years, the Department of Building Inspection has received complaints similar to those described in the lawsuit. Several, upon visits by inspectors, were elevated to the official status of code violations. The lawsuit claims that Veritas has neglected to resolve “habitability defects” like bed bugs and other infestations, water intrusions, mold, exposed wiring, inoperable elevators and accumulations of garbage. The company also exacerbated some of these conditions through “the poor

performance of their construction work,” plaintiffs allege. The lawsuit identifies 14 building code violations in the 39 buildings, adding that the total could be higher. Heckmann called that “a low rate.” In January, he said that 12 of the 14 had been abated, and that the other two would be resolved as soon as the company obtained a permit and fixed a stuck window — “hardly the stuff of uninhabitability.” Across its portfolio, “Veritas has an exemplary record of property management and upkeep,” Heckmann said. Violation Radar, a company that spots

RENTAL DATA LACKING In countering the broad assertion that the company is trying to systematically eject long-term tenants and replace them with those who can be charged higher rents, Heckmann said the average tenancy across all Veritas’ apartments is 10 years. The city does not independently collect records about the length of tenancies in all rent-controlled buildings, so it is practically impossible to assess Veritas’ statements or compare the circumstances of its tenants with those in other buildings. The Rent Board collects this information only in carrying out its complaint-driven petition process, said the board’s executive director, Robert Collins. “If a landlord didn’t file to increase the rent, or if a tenant didn’t file because they thought they were being evicted illegally, then there would be no interaction between us and that tenant or that landlord during that period of time,” Collins said. Tenants commonly file petitions to have their rents

Photo by Yesica Prado // Public Press

Sofia Uc lives in a studio apartment at 57 Taylor St. with her children, two of whom have been diagnosed with elevated lead levels in their blood, the lawsuit alleges. Uc said recent renovation work may have loosened lead-paint residue that her daughter consumed.

Vlasak said that Veritas and Greentree “are not following proper protocol” for their construction work, and that is especially dangerous when jobs include lead-paint removal. “They’re disturbing it without properly containing it,” he said. Plaintiff Sofia Uc and her six children, who live at 57 Taylor St. in the Tenderloin, were exposed to lead as a result of construction, Vlasak said. The lawsuit states that her two minor children “both suffered lead poisoning during her tenancy.” Records from the San Francisco Department of Public Health show three cases of lead hazards at the building since 2015. Two occurred in Uc’s studio apartment. Heckmann questioned Uc’s claim. “Have you reviewed any medical records?” he asked the Public Press. Uc agreed to share her children’s medical records with the Public Press, but had not provided them by the time this article was published. Uc (pronounced “oose”) migrated to the United States in 2002 from Yucatán state in Mexico, in search of better opportunities. “There’s not a lot of jobs back there,” she said in Spanish, through an interpreter. She works at a restaurant in San Francisco and makes ends meet with the help of food stamps. She and her children moved into the building in 2012, and their monthly rent is about $900, court records show. The 116-unit building was constructed in 1906, when paint contained lead. It would be seven decades before the federal government banned it in residential properties and public buildings for being a major health hazard, particularly to children. In 2015, two years before Veritas bought the building, the health department found lead-contaminated dust in her unit. Uc said a visit to the doctor revealed that her son’s blood had elevated levels of lead, known to cause brain damage, likely caused by eating paint chips. The owner abated the paint, and her son’s blood began to normalize. But a routine medical checkup in November revealed that her infant daughter had elevated lead levels, she said in an interview after joining the lawsuit in December. In a separate investigation that month, the health department again found paint dust with dangerous lead levels in Uc’s apartment. The dust was “readily accessible to children,” the investigator’s report said. Uc said Greentree’s recent remodel of her bathroom, kitchen and floor could have loosened the paint. Heckmann said Uc’s suspicion was unfounded. The work did not include paint removal, “which is typically how such chips could be dislodged,” he said. “Therefore, the assertion does not make sense on its face.” The investigator ordered Greentree to eliminate the hazards. Heckmann said the company would have done this work anyway, if it had known before Uc reported it to the city. “But that would have meant that plaintiffs’ counsel would not have a story to pitch,” he said, suggesting that the lawyers were playing up the dangers to get media coverage. “The issuance of an NOV does not mean that the property manager did anything wrong, it just means that there is an issue to fix,” Heckmann said, referring to the notice of violation that the health investigator issued. The city’s health investigator also found lead in the faucet water at levels below 15 parts per billion, the threshold at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Public Health mandate treatment. But the water could “still be hazardous,” the investigator wrote in her report. “The San Francisco Childhood Lead Prevention Program highly recommends that the measures be taken to reduce the lead level.” The Public Press asked Veritas how it would respond to this recommendation. “As the water testing showed the water to be EPA-compliant, DPH required no further action in regard to water,” Heckmann said, referring to the city’s Department of Public Health. Greentree temporarily relocated Uc and her family to another apartment while workers addressed the lead-paint hazard. She said she returned to her unit in February when the work was completed. Uc said that, regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, she planned to move to another home where her children would be safer. But in San Francisco — where the average monthly rent for a studio apartment was $2,567 in January, according to rental-listing site Zumper — she might end up paying triple for a similar apartment. Whenever she leaves, it’s almost certain that her old unit will rent for much more than the $900 she paid. Yesica Prado contributed to this article.

8 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019

Two photos at left by by Cesar Rubio Photography, www.cesarrubio.com; two photos at right by Bruce Damonte Photography, www.brucedamonte.com

Among the affordable housing projects Bob Herman has worked on are the Bishop Swing Community Center south of Market, left and second from left; and the 1100 Ocean Ave. apartments, right and second from right.

By Dyan Ruiz and Joseph Smooke // People. Power. Media

Bob Herman is a principal at Herman Coliver Locus Architecture, which has developed affordable housing throughout San Francisco, the Bay Area and California.

DYAN RUIZ: Tell us a little bit about all of the affordable-housing developments that you’ve been able to do over the years. BOB HERMAN: It dates back maybe 40 years to the beginning of the affordablehousing movement. Which followed public housing, so lots of it was done by community-based clients who wind up owning the buildings and treat everybody as if it’s not public housing. It’s just good housing. And over those years, I’d say, we designed somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 units of affordable housing. And then there was about 20 years of teaching affordable housing at UC Berkeley. RUIZ: It’s my understanding that developing affordable housing and developing market-rate housing is really quite similar as far as the steps that Bob Herman you take, even though the source and the timing of when the finances come in might be different. Maybe you can expand on that as far as development and your experience in development? HERMAN: A building permit is a building permit. As it should be. So, if there’s a permit for affordable housing, it employs all of the regulations, all of the endless steps it takes to be approved for construction. It includes meetings with the Planning Commission. It includes meetings with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and the Mayor’s Office of Disability, with bankers, with the nonprofit, community-based clients who are very savvy about business and economics, because it has to be real. As far as space planning is concerned, when laying out site plans I would say it is the same as a market-rate developer. RUIZ: You know about the market, but you’re saying the market is just not going to fix itself. Can you elaborate more on that? HERMAN: We’ve given the market a good chance over the last 15 years or so to build, baby, build. And we’ve seen dozens and dozens of construction cranes growing up over the city. We’ve seen buildings rising overnight, it feels. And so the opportunity for the free marketplace and the supplydemand balance to work has not worked, because affordability has become reduced. Even though so many new units are being built. So, it was a nice idea, but it didn’t work. So, when the free market doesn’t work well, as well as it should, or as well as it can, it comes time for the community to step in and say, “Wait a minute, there must be something else we can do.” And the development community often says, “Let’s reduce the cost of housing by prefabrication. That’ll solve the whole Renters thing.” It won’t. vs. We’re doing a massive Landlords prefabrication development now for affordable housing. It shortens the time of construction, but it’s not the answer. It still costs a tremendous amount of money to build a roof over people’s heads. So, you have to contemplate, what else can we do? Well, we could increase the number of inclusionary housing units in the private realm. That’s a nice idea but it’s not going to happen. The pressure’s been put on to do that, and in fact it has improved. But it’s not enough in itself to do it, and the development community, I can’t believe, is willing to create a higher percentage of inclusionary housing. RUIZ: Inclusionary being within a market-rate development. Let’s say it’s a range of, I think, 12 percent to 20 percent of the units in a building are allocated for belowmarket rent, which in San Francisco is problematic also because market rent is so high that below-market, a lot of the times, doesn’t translate into something that’s affordable for a working-class person. That’s what you’re talking about with inclusionary, and there was sort of like... HERMAN: And there’s some nice features of inclusionary, because it mixes classes, it encourages more diversity and so on. But I have the sense we’ve reached the limit of the percentage of affordable apartments that would be included in a marketrate housing development. RUIZ: Still even if you’re going on the higher end of 20 percent, 30 percent, you’re still talking about a majority of that building being luxury. HERMAN: That’s right. The other is to build more affordable housing — to raise taxes or find sources of money with which you build 100 percent affordable and I’m not sure that that increase is available. If it is, fine. But that’s led me to believe in

HOUSING

SOLUTIONS

AN ARCHITECT’S ANSWER

Rent freeze could allow wages to start to catch up to costs, housing designer says

Photos (above and below) by Timothy Griffith Photography, www.timgriffith.com

The Salvation Army’s Railton Place in the Tenderloin features 113 units of affordable housing for youths. It also has a gymnasium, below. the possibility of discussing a rent freeze. I don’t know how long, but it’s got to be long enough for people’s wages to begin to catch up to the cost of housing. I’m concerned that the knee-jerk reaction to a housing freeze will be so strong that I don’t know whether it’s possible. On the other hand, if stepping in to throw the monkey wrench into the spiral were considered seriously, it might reduce the speculation on the part of the development community, because they could not count on ever-increasing rents. So they can’t justify, “Oh, I’ll overpay for the land. I’ll overpay for the building. Because I will never get my money back.” RUIZ: So, that brings us to, one of the concerns that people bring up is that if you do have a rent freeze, or any kind of cap on the free market for housing, then that means developers will stop building. And you’ll end up in a situation that’s worse than now, because there isn’t enough on the supply side. Even though you’ve talked about, it’s demand that’s really driving the crisis, the imbalance. Can you address . . . that argument about development all of a sudden stopping? HERMAN: I don’t think that will happen. I think it will slow down. That’s what you want. Slow down so that the shortage of contractors and the shortage of land do not play such a key role. As soon as the escalation cycle of ever-rising rents can be tempered, that means that the economy will slow down and people will have to pay less for land, less for construction, and be able to charge less for rent. RUIZ: You talk a lot about the demand coming from the huge influx of high-wage earners mostly from the tech industry but other associated industries as well. So you have this huge market now of newcomers who have average salaries, like at Facebook, for example, ... over $200,000, and there’s thousands of employees at Facebook, so you have all those people that make tons of money that can theoretically afford a lot of the new luxury housing that’s coming. But there’s also many other ways that the condos can be used that aren’t necessarily even associated with people living in them. Which is helping to also drive speculation. Can you talk about those other factors? HERMAN: There’s a tremendous influx of people who park money in real estate in San Francisco. Because it’s a reliable asset. As I understand it, there are thousands of empty apartments, expensive empty apartments here in San Francisco, because the owners simply have parked, like putting it into a bank account. But the fact that they are building apartments and have lots of money to do it only aggravates the spiraling, or increases the spiral, effect. So it’s not just the techies.

There may be many population categories who are investing or willing to pay the price and as long as that continues. If I were an investor and wanted to make a nice profit, I’d be tempted to come to San Francisco and get into the development business and pay whatever it costs to buy a piece of land or to build a building, because I’m quite assured that I’m going to recover my investment and more. So, the market’s not working, and having some sort of cap on the market would be one way to go about it. But of course you have

been working towards getting affordable housing built for folks, and, just starting with 100 percent affordable, how might we accomplish that on a larger scale than has been accomplished so far? The idea behind the rent freeze is that if it’s frozen for, I’ll just arbitrarily say, 10 years, and people who now, or developers or people who are renting or buying, have mortgages and presumably they continue paying their mortgage while a rent freeze is in place, so they’re stable. As the price of land and the price of construction levels off, the cost of building affordable housing during that period goes down, because the contractors are fewer, are less busy and more willing to do their work for less money. And so it opens up an opportunity to build affordable housing at a better price because right now, the price we pay, we, the affordable-housing people, for construction, is darn close to the same price basically as market rate. And so it’s very difficult for us to put affordable housing in place as long as this spiral continues going up. So, it cools the cost of housing down, which benefits the affordable-housing needs. After the 10 years, I don’t know what

Photo by Nancy Wong // Wikimedia Commons

happens. Let’s say you managed to bring down the temperature of the patient to normal, then you take off the freeze, what happens? I don’t know. Maybe the same old thing happens all over again, but I think that’s better than saying, “Build, baby, build, build, build, build, forever and ever and ever.” And forever and ever, the problem doesn’t go away. I’m afraid the problem won’t go away even if the minimum wage were doubled or greatly increased. This is a crisis. And some wild solution has to be tried in order to make it possible for this city to live with diversity and to live with the pride that it used to have when I came here 40 years ago and paid $120 a month for an apartment. Fifteen years ago, you were able to reasonably afford an apartment here. But obviously it’s not happening now with somebody in your similar wage bracket and other folks that are working minimum wage or just being city workers or teachers. So, what happens if we just continue with the current system as far as allowing the existing regulations or lack thereof to keep building and building and building in San Francisco? It’ll become an elitist city. It’ll become a city of gated communities. It’ll become a city where community benefit districts will be very popular, because everybody living in the district will have enough discretionary money to pay their private taxes to clean the streets. They’ll be parking their own private ambulances in each quadrant. They’ll have their own fire department. The whole thing will become privatized. The sense of community will disappear. And San Francisco as a beacon of progressive thought will disappear, because the people who spend their time thinking up terrific ideas that are progressive won’t be able to live here. So they’ll go someplace else. RUIZ: That’s interesting, because that’s basically why people want to move here. We just saw this promo video for this advocacy group called “Yes In My Backyard,” and it’s interesting, because they have painted themselves as people that are pro-diversity, want more neighbors and are flocking to San Francisco presumably because of all the things that other people have basically built, this environment of innovation, of community, of diversity. So, you’re saying that basically it’ll come to a point where it’ll look a lot more like the Silicon Valley communities that they are shying away from living in right now. HERMAN: I admire their openness of Yes In My Backyard very much. But it’s one thing to say yes, it’s another thing to pay for it. … Great, let’s say that there’s no community objection to a new affordable-housing development. Then what? How do you pay for the new affordable-housing development? Do the Yes In My Backyard neighbors pitch in a couple million dollars apiece to pay for the building? No. Will people approve tax increases to subsidize housing? Probably not. We’ll all feel it’s enough. Will the political administration in Washington get HUD [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] back on its feet to provide money some other way? Not in the immediate future. Will there be Robin Hood schemes of tax credits increased so that people with lots of discretionary money can invest in tax credit funding for affordable housing? I hope so. But it’s not enough just to say yes. But it’s very important to say yes. RUIZ: One other thing that strikes me about the pro-development argument is, a lot of the time, people say that tenant-advocacy groups or people that advocate for rent control just don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re advocating for things that will actually in the long run or even in the short term make things more difficult for working-class people to be able to live in and afford this city. Can you talk about how they manipulate the … HERMAN: Yeah. They don’t like regulations. They don’t like anything but a free, free, free, free market. As if anything in the whole universe is all free, doesn’t have a flip side. If it’s all free, it doesn’t work, because it ignores, in this case, the needs of an enormous proportion of the population. That’s why we have income inequality to such a God-awful, weird degree. It’s outrageous. It’s because the marketplace needs counterbalancing. And the folks who are seeking rent control or rent freeze or putting a damper on this escalation are providing a counterbalance. The people who don’t abide by their goals just want complete freedom. They don’t want to be restrained. At all. And they don’t see a benefit in restraint. That’s what’s missing. This interview has been shortened for brevity and clarity. Watch the complete interview at https://sfpr.es/i27-herman-qa.

Photos above and left by Herman Coliver Locus Architecture

Above left, demonstrators protest a mass eviction at the residential International Hotel in 1977. Three decades later, the hotel on Kearny Street in Chinatown was rebuilt to include 105 units of housing for displaced seniors.

The work of People. Power. Media includes participating in the community-based, grassroots efforts that we report on. Joseph Smooke was the housing director, then executive director at Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, where he hired Bob Herman as the architect for three affordable-housing developments.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 9

State Legislature Behind the Times in Diversity Makeup of Assembly, Senate doesn’t reflect general population By Matt Levin, Elizabeth Castillo and John Osborn D’Agostino // CALmatters

here are (still) more white men named James or Jim in the California Legislature than African-American and Asian-American women combined. Throw in some white Robs, Bobs and Roberts, and you have a sizable “JimBob” caucus with a membership larger than the number of Republican women, openly gay or lesbian legislators, or women from any party under the age of 40. Although California prides itself on diversity, in many ways the state government looks more like the California of 30 years ago than the California of today.

African-American population, male and female. But only 1 in 118 California legislators (two Senate seats are vacant) is an AsianAmerican woman. Ling Ling Chang, a Taiwan-born Republican senator from Diamond Bar, in eastern Los Angeles County, won her seat in the June recall of a Democratic legislator. She’ll likely face a tough re-election battle in 2020. Asian-American is obviously a broad term. The majority of Asian-Americans in the California Legislature are of Chinese or Taiwanese descent. Notably underrepresented are Vietnamese-Americans and Filipino-Americans, which are among California’s largest Asian-American groups. There is only one Filipino lawmaker, Democrat Rob Bonta of Alameda, and one Vietnamese lawmaker, Republican Tyler Diep of

Huntington Beach. Chang is also one of only five nonwhite Republicans in the Legislature, all of whom are AsianAmerican or Pacific Islander. What’s left of the shrinking Republican presence in Sacramento reflects the party’s struggle to expand its demographic tent. Of the near-record-low 29 Republicans in the Legislature, 21 are white males. There are no Latino, African-American or openly gay or lesbian GOP legislators.

LATINOS STILL UNDERREPRESENTED Latinos may represent the largest ethnic group in all of California, but they are far

from a plurality in the Legislature. Even with six new Latino lawmakers elected in November, Latinos account for just over 20 percent of the 2019 legislative class. As of 2017, nearly 40 percent of all Californians identified as Latino. Those awaiting a more visible presence of the “sleeping giant” of California politics can take partial solace in the state’s demographic future. Non-Hispanic whites still make up a larger proportion of Californians over 18 than do Latinos. But Latinos in their 20s, 30s and 40s outnumber whites in the same age groups, as do Latinos under the age of 18. Younger and low-income Californians are Republican Ling Ling Chang is the only AsianAmerican woman in the Legislature.

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures Graphic by Matt Levin // CALmatters

LAGGING ON GENDER PARITY After a year in which sexual misconduct allegations led to calls for both parties to run more female candidates, women made significant gains in the Legislature in November’s election. California opened 2019 with 36 women in the Legislature — a near record. (The high is 37, reached in 2006.) Nearly 60 percent of all newly elected California lawmakers are women, mirroring a surge in successful candidacies by females across the country. But California’s statehouse still falls far short of equal gender representation. Even after this election’s gains, women account for just 31 percent of California legislators. (Women make up a little more than half of voting-age Californians.) Male-dominated politics is hardly a uniquely California phenomenon. More than 75 percent of the members of the new U.S. Congress are male. But California still trails many other states, including some of its more conservative neighbors. Both Oregon and Arizona have a higher proportion of women in their legislatures than California, whereas Nevada recently made history as the first state to elect a Legislature with a female majority.

typically less likely to vote than their older, wealthier neighbors. Since Latinos tend to skew both younger and lower-income in California, it’s perhaps unsurprising that their share of political representation in Sacramento mirrors their share of “frequent” voters.

AGE AND CLASS Roughly 40 percent of California’s votingage population is under 40. But state lawmakers tend to skew significantly older than the people they represent. Only 14 percent of state lawmakers are in their 30s, and none is under 30. That’s not shocking if you believe that candidates and those who vote for them tend to look like one another: Despite constituting a huge share of the electorate, only 18 percent of likely California voters are under age 34, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Another noticeably absent block of Californians from state office: people who make less than six figures. California has the highest compensation for state legislators of any state in the country, at $107,000 per year. The 2017 median income of a California household? $70,000.

FEW ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN Nearly 1 in 10 voting-age Californians is a woman with Asian-American or Pacific Islander heritage. That’s a bigger proportion than the state’s entire voting-age

Photo by Max Whittaker// CALmatters

Men account for nearly 70 percent of the representatives in the Legislature, although women make up more than half of the adult population.

Want to see if there are legislators like you? See the CALmatters interactive at https:// sfpr.es/i27-cm-like-you. CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Environmentalists Say They Were Left Out of Housing Talks solve environmental lawsuits in 175 days for “leadership” projects, such as sports complexes, worth more than $100 million. (CEQA), which for nearly 50 years has The compromise plan has not been required developers to file extensive reports detailed in any bills, and other ideas could and empowered neighbors to appeal local come into the discussions. In his address, building project plans. Newsom tossed out the idea of waiving “I continue to know nothing about this environmental rules for the construction of whole process,” said David Pettit, a senior emergency homeless shelters. attorney at the Natural Resources Defense “If you could create CEQA waivers to Council. “The issue that concerns me a lot expedite stadium projects — and we do all right now is how we can build more affordthe time — we sure as hell should be able to able housing in a way that respects Califordo that for 130,000 souls that are out in the nia’s fight against climate change. We need damn streets and sidewalks in this state,” more urban densification. We need more Newsom said. “I’m happy to have that transit-oriented development — as opposed debate. And forgive me, I know it leaves to, you know, big single-family developpeople uncomfortable, but so be it. Literally ments out in the foothills somewhere.” people’s lives are at stake.” A coalition of local and Ashley Werner, a statewide environmental Fresno senior attorney for activist groups said they Leadership Counsel for were not involved in the Justice and Accountabilconversations and had ity, a public-interest law serious concerns about defirm, said environmentalregulation proposals that ists and community activcould roll out in coming ists worry that developmonths. They will press State Sen. Scott Wiener and ers are exploiting the their policy agenda this S.F. Mayor London Breed housing crisis to achieve legislative session despite have both moved to ease their long-term goal of their exclusion. regulation on the construction weakening environmental Dan C. Dunmoyer, of affordable housing. rules in pursuit of higher president and CEO of the and more reliable profit California Building Indusmargins. try Association, the state’s largest developer “CEQA is one of the most important tools trade group, declined to elaborate on the that we have in California to ensure that negotiations or the involvement of Newsom disadvantaged communities have a voice and his staff, saying “sensitivity” of the isin decision-making processes and landsues at stake demanded discretion. use processes,” she said. “If it weren’t for But in late January, Dunmoyer told the CEQA, at the local level, there is often no Los Angeles Times that developers and public process for significant projects of labor were edging closer to consensus: “Inall types that impact communities. CEQA stead of us being at odds like we were and functions like civil rights legislation.” going to our respective corners, now we’re Environmentalists have expressed growon a path to not only make it easier to build ing concern that a deal between industry but also to grow labor.” and construction unions could lead to more On Feb. 12 in his State of the State adsuburban sprawl, which is out of step with dress, Newsom blamed strict state environthe state’s goal of reducing carbon emismental rules as one reason for the shortfall sions from passenger cars. in affordable housing construction, which In recent years, builders have cast CEQA he said has reached crisis proportions. “I as the biggest barrier to affordable houswant to applaud the efforts by homebuilders ing, arguing that community review opens and labor leaders, who together are working the process to abuse, empowering anyone to forge a compromise to accelerate producto block a project for trivial reasons, such tion,” Newsom said. as changes in wind patterns, shadows on The framework Newsom endorsed conparks and auto exhaust from idling cars. tained a mix of labor and environmental Newsom echoed industry talking points reforms: in a recent interview with Politico: “We are ••Workers on single-family and multifampast the point of absurdity with some of the ily homes will have a minimum level of abuses we are seeing.” training to avoid manufacturing defects. ••They would be guaranteed a “living DEBATING THE COSTS wage,” which depends on the local cost of living and would involve no public Others in the capital question the premsubsidies. ise that CEQA is a major impediment to ••Developers of multifamily homes in dense solving the affordable housing crisis, or to high-transit areas would get expedited future economic growth. judicial review of disputes about CEQA. CEQA, enacted in 1970, regulates polluA similar 2011 law required judges to reCEQA from Page 1

tion, carbon emissions, traffic congestion, flood control and other issues. It requires local agencies across California to study and identify how a development could affect the environment and detail how it could mitigate any problems. CEQA also requires a public process of hearings and appeals. In 2017, the state Senate’s Environmental Quality Committee surveyed an array of agencies about the effect of CEQA on government-led development projects they supervise. It concluded that the law had little negative economic effect. Of 15,783 development projects between mid-2011 and mid-2016 in the study, only 201 required full environmental impact reports because of their size, scope and nature. In an older study, the attorney general’s office focused on San Francisco environmental lawsuits. It found that less than 1 percent of developments involved any CEQA litigation over an 18-month period ending in 2011. Public-interest lawyers often challenge developers’ environmental reports on behalf of community groups, questioning inconsistencies in data about pollution, energy efficiency and other concerns, and suggest ways for developers to reduce those effects. When environmentalist do challenge projects, they do it to ensure the protection of communities, said Howard Penn, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, a Sacramento advocacy organization: “We focus on getting the applicant in the lead agency to deal with mitigation efforts in the environmental impact reports, and we make sure that they’re done correctly.”

AFFORDABLE HOUSING FAST-TRACK In December, state Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, introduced SB 50, renewing a push to scale back local zoning and environmental control in highdensity transit corridors, and to encourage construction of taller apartment buildings and pedestrian-friendly commercial districts. Wiener said Newsom and the Legislature should favor affordable housing whenever it considers loosening environmental laws: “CEQA should not be making it harder and more expensive to do environmentally sustainable things like infill housing near transit and jobs.” He pointed to recent lawsuits around a plan to refashion a portion of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, the largest such project there in decades. The city’s Board of Supervisors considered several community appeals to the plan, which calls for more than 8,000 new apartments. Some neighbors appealed because of concerns about shadows and views. Others complained about gentrification and the lack of

child care. One group said the plan did not include enough tall buildings to increase residential density. In her first State of the City address in January, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a charter amendment proposal to designate affordable housing “as-of-right,” meaning it would not be subject to discretionary review. It would eliminate the possibility of appeals for projects setting aside 100 percent of apartments for low- and moderate-income residents. “If an affordable housing or teacher housing project is proposed within zoning, then build it, and build it now,” she said. “No more bureaucracy. No more costly appeals. No more ‘not in my neighborhood.’” But critics say politicians are wrong to equate environmental review with NIMBYism. One study commissioned by the Oakland-based Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, a nonprofit advocacy group, examined five case studies representing a variety of building plans. The report, by BAE Urban Economics, an economic advisory firm, found that environmental review never exceeded 6 percent of development costs. In one project, a city transit-oriented development proposal surrounding the Millbrae rail station, estimated to cost $1.2 billion, required environmental reviews costing $300,000, or just 0.025 percent of the total.

CIVIL RIGHTS TOOL Backers of CEQA describe it as a tool to drive civil rights policy. In January, environmental and social justice advocates sent a joint letter to the Legislature asking leaders to protect the law. “Gutting CEQA will not impact the housing crisis,” said the statement from the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment; Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability; Communities for a Better Environment; Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice; and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, among others. They said stronger renter protection, rather than regulatory exemptions for developers, was the best way to preserve and expand affordable housing stock. “When I hear the term ‘streamlining CEQA’ for affordable housing it sends up a lot of red flags,” said Allen Hernandez, an attorney in Riverside who coauthored the letter. “When it comes to affordable housing, I don’t think the root of the problem lies with environmental regulations. If we’re really talking about housing, I think we need to be talking about housing restrictions and legal barriers that benefit landlords and hurt people in communities.” In the Bay Area, community groups have used state environmental rules to pressure developers to offer protection from rising

seas. As the Public Press has reported in ongoing investigations since 2015, Bay Area cities are slowly awakening to the growing scientific consensus that sea levels could rise by as much as 10 feet by the end of the century. For community groups concerned about regional flooding and disruption that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars that future generations will have to fix, environmental impact reports under CEQA provide leverage to cities and neighbors questioning the wisdom of waterfront construction. “In San Francisco, you may be able to build a sea wall, but you do need to do an environmental impact report to figure out what are the impacts of the seawall,” said Caroline Farrell, executive director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. “Where does that water go? Does it impact another community downstream? What are other impacts, and how do you mitigate them? It allows for a conversation.” In Riverside County and in Central Valley cities such as Fresno, environmental attorneys are questioning the growth of warehouses used as distribution points for e-commerce and big-box store companies, including Amazon, Home Depot and Target. Forty percent of U.S. consumer goods pass through these centers before shipping. Residents, largely low-income people of color, say the punishing smog produced by the trucks is getting worse. The Inland Empire has some of the worst air in the country, according to the American Lung Association. It is so bad that the South Coast Air Quality Management District last year began to study ways to regulate emissions from the ground shipping industry. “We’re dealing with immense air pollution from the thousands and thousands of diesel trucks that come into our region,” Hernandez said. “I say CEQA actually needs to be strengthened.”

CROSSWORD PUZZLE SOLUTION FROM PAGE 2

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Three young black men from Richmond join city agency to reduce gun violence in their crime-ridden neighborhood An excerpt from “Twenty Years of Life: Why the Poor Die Earlier, and How to Challenge Inequity.” (Copyright 2018. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.), https://islandpress.org/books/twentyyears-life). By Suzanne Bohan

“I

’m Rohnell Robinson, and I do rebar construction in San Francisco,” said the 31-year-old, introducing himself to an audience of about 60 inside a City Hall auditorium in Richmond, Calif. Next to him on stage was LaVon Carter, 29, wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, who holds a union job as a heavy equipment operator. Both men are new fathers, each proudly told the crowd. Eric Welch, 27, joined the panel via Skype because he was in Florida, studying for finals and about to earn a four-year degree in political science. Several years back, these three young black men were considered among the most dangerous people in Richmond, a city of 108,000 about 17 miles northeast of San Francisco. In the Bay Area and beyond, the city is notorious for its gun homicides, many attributed to rivalries in three neighborhoods: the Iron Triangle, North Richmond and South Richmond. Between 1986 and 2005, nearly 700 people were killed by firearms in Richmond, DeVone Boggan, founding director of the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, told the crowd. Robinson, Carter and Welch once helped stoke the fear that kept so many Richmond residents isolated inside their homes, unable to enjoy normal neighborhood activities, like walking, biking or playing with their children in the front yard. That changed when each was approached by streetwise, formerly incarcerated men who worked for a new city agency tasked with stopping the bloodshed. These men persuaded the younger men to join a fellowship that would support them while they turned away from gun violence and almost certainly early death or incarceration. The fellows were the last speakers at an all-day event held in April 2017, called Preventing Violence and Fostering Hope. It drew leaders of nonprofit organizations, government managers, activists and others from around the state and nation to learn the inside story of this revolutionary Richmond city agency. The agency, often just called the ONS, is also a participant in Building Healthy Communities, a $1 billion initiative from the California Endowment that helps 14 communities harmed by health inequalities. ONS staff single-mindedly pursue one goal: reduce gun violence in besieged neighborhoods. They do that by eschewing judgment and instead building caring, unconditional relationships with those pulling the trigger, gently but persistently drawing them in a new direction. Although this approach recognizes the humanity of people who have perpetrated violence, helping them become ambassadors for peace, the ultimate aim is to create safer, healthier communities where all residents can feel the same security wealthier areas enjoy every day. Richmond city leaders took a gamble and opened the maverick agency in October 2007, in the midst of one of the worst homicide spikes in the city’s history — 47 that year, making Richmond one of the 10 most dangerous cities in the United States. It was a better gamble than the drastic step some city leaders and community members had demanded the previous year: declare a state of emergency and call in the National Guard to quell the violence. Ten years later, nearly 90 young men had completed the program, and death and injury from gun violence in Richmond had plummeted 71 percent. Although it’s difficult to say with certainty what is behind the decline, after factoring in other antiviolence efforts like more community policing and a pioneering reentry program in Richmond for the formerly incarcerated called Safe Return Project (which the ONS helped launch), many give substantial credit to the Office of Neighborhood Safety. City coffers cover operating expenses for the agency, roughly $1.3 million in 2016. Each fellow costs approximately $20,000 per year, which compares with the nearly $400,000 in taxpayer costs alone on average for each gun homicide, including hospital costs and law enforcement investigations as well as court and prison costs.

he ONS evolved rapidly during its first three years and with mixed results. Then, in 2010, Boggan fortuitously dropped in on a meeting of law enforce-

ment officers discussing the root cause of violence. They concluded that a small number of individuals were responsible for 70 percent of the homicides in Richmond in 2009, and before long, Boggan had a list with 28 names. Suddenly, he had an identifiable and finite group to focus on. “So I made an executive decision,” he said. He would spend his entire 2010 budget, about $1 million, focused exclusively on those 28 people. He and his staff gave themselves three months to persuade the young men on the list of active shooters in Richmond to come to City Hall for a meeting and to consider joining a program designed with them in mind. Three of them were killed before that meeting, but 21 out of the remaining 25 showed up. ONS staff divided the 21 recruits into three groups and staggered their arrival times to avoid rivals encountering one another. Boggan said they were treated the same as others deemed important to the economic development and health of the city because in fact they were. The violence scared away businesses, depressed housing prices, and harmed residents’ health on multiple levels. If the health of these young men could be improved, Boggan believed, so could the health of the city. This perspective treats gun violence as a public health issue, deploying trained “violence interrupters” to hinder the transmission of violence, because it typically spreads within a small circle, like an infectious agent. Then men who complete the ONS fellowship and renounce violence can serve as credible ambassadors in their communities, “inoculating” younger residents against entering a violent lifestyle, to use Sam Vaughn’s metaphor from a TED Talk on the ONS program. Vaughn also described growing up in Richmond and his 10 years’ incarceration, including seven in San Quentin State Prison (during which he earned a degree).

uring the time Boggan shifted the ONS focus to this small group of potent individuals, he picked up an in-flight magazine and read about postgraduate school fellowships and how much participants earned. It was another “aha” moment for him, and Boggan decided to do the same for active firearm offenders who agreed to join the new program. Meeting certain milestones would earn the fellow a monthly stipend of up to $1,000. Young people in other social strata routinely earn money in fellowships for advancing their skills, Boggan reasoned, so why not Richmond’s young people for doing the same, particularly because developing those skills will quell their desire to turn to gun violence to resolve conflicts and the community as a whole benefits enormously? Thus was born the most innovative, misunderstood, lauded and derided dimension of ONS’s gun violence cessation program. ONS officially launched the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship program in 2010. When young men — and they’ve all been men, typically between age 14 and 25 — sign an agreement to join the fellowship, Boggan and his staff first work with each one to develop a “life map” after undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the new fellow’s circumstances. The life map sets out personal, educational and professional goals he wants to achieve during the fellowship, with short-term goals such as individual counseling, attending substance abuse or parenting classes, or paying off outstanding fines. Longer-term goals include completing a GED or rebuilding family relationships. ONS staff contacts each fellow multiple times daily to check on him and provide a consistent, positive presence in his life. In another crucial support, the staff works with the fellows to sign up for additional classes and services from other agencies and nonprofit organizations, as navigating the bureaucratic maze would frustrate many. Six months into the 18-month fellowship, if fellows have shown a “true desire” to change their lives as evidenced by participation levels, life map goal achievements and “peace-building contributions,” they’re eligible to start receiving a monthly stipend of up to $1,000 for the next nine months. Most receive $300 to $700 monthly. The stipend actually reinforces a therapeutic approach practiced in the fellowship, which entails a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. Among other dimensions of the therapy, it helps participants challenge dysfunctional thought patterns and replace them with healthier, pro-social ways of

DeVone Boggan, founding director of the Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety, has been the driving force behind the fellowship program.

Illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook

A NEW PRESCRIPTION

THE BOLD EXPERIMENT TO HEAL AN AILING COMMUNITY thinking. The 18-month fellowship also includes regular meetings with a “council of elders,” accomplished men of color who serve as positive role models and mentors. Boggan wasn’t done yet, however, adding another innovation that raised a few eyebrows: excursions around the country and internationally, up to several times a year after the fellows met certain criteria. The fellows have traveled to Washington, D.C., New York City, South Africa, London, Paris, Dubai, Mexico City and other destinations. The trips include service activities, such as feeding the homeless. In South Africa, they visited Robben Island, where former South Africa President Nelson Mandela was once imprisoned. Their tour guide was also imprisoned on the island, but now lives there among the same people who once jailed and beat him, impressing on the fellows the power of forgiveness. They also visit colleges and meet with VIPs such as politicians in Washington. The travel comes with a catch, though. Boggan said, “The only caveat is that they have to be willing to travel with someone they’re trying to kill. You’ve got to say yes to traveling with the cat that’s on your radar, and you’re on his.” “TSA has been a good friend,” Boggan added, given the airport security line weapons screening. ONS staff “strategically” place these putative rivals in the

same row on airplanes. Most of these young men have never flown, and once they get to a 30,000-foot elevation, both see the mutual fear in each other’s eyes, he said. “A few things happen. They realize that they’re the same guy,” said Boggan. Then they learn they have the same interests, in sports, women, music, movies. “On more than a few occasions, we’ve heard them come back to this city and say to us, ‘I actually like him better than I like the cats that I’ve been trying to kill him with.’ “Now are we friends and kumbaya?” Boggan continued. “No, but we have a healthy respect and appreciation for each other.”

ince the opening of ONS in 2007, 84 fellows in four cohorts have completed the fellowship. In statistics especially meaningful to that at-risk population of young men, 94 percent are alive, 83 percent have not been injured by a firearm and 77 percent are not a suspect in new firearm activity. “I know we’ve kept a lot of murders from happening because of goodwill,” said Sam Vaughn, the longtime ONS staffer. In May 2006, Robinson was in a car that rolled up alongside the vehicle of one of his rivals, who was leaving a shopping mall in Richmond. A volley of bullets from Robinson’s car missed the intended target, but a 17-year-old girl in the other car was

Photos courtesy of the Office of Neighborhood Safety

Above, ONS staff and fellows meet with Congresswoman Barbara Lee while visiting Washington, D.C. At right, fellows help feed the homeless while on a trip.

seriously injured. The attack launched a retaliatory cycle over the next three months that resulted in as many as a dozen murders. The following year, the feud between rivals in Central Richmond and North Richmond led to more than 20 killings. Robinson was arrested and charged in connection with the shopping mall shooting, but an attempted murder charge was dropped due to lack of evidence. He was, however, convicted on a gun possession charge and sentenced to five years in prison. He was out in two years, in 2009. Before Robinson left prison, ONS staff had been contacting his mother, urging her to get the word to Robinson about their unique program. He was leery about joining, but they were persistent. Guardedly, he showed up to a meeting in City Hall, suspicious it might be a police setup. “First of all, I thought it was ‘Officer’ of Neighborhood Safety,” he said to some laughter in the auditorium at the event. He did sign on, however. Still, Robinson hit a crisis point. He had lost his apartment, someone shot at his car, and he was gambling. “Money was gone. No job. And I called Sam, it was like 1 o’clock in the morning,” Robinson told the audience. “And he was like ‘Man, come down, we’re going to get you some food and then we’re going to talk, and we’re going to make sure everything is all right.’” When

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 11

“I’m only 29 years old, and half of my class is dead. Or they gone (to prison), and I ain’t going to ever see them again.” — LaVon Carter, Vaughn showed up in the small hours of the night, “that was like a big relief,” Robinson said, “because it was close to that point where I was like, you know what, I just need to do what I need to do.” But that commitment by Vaughn kept Robinson from returning to his old lifestyle and cemented his gratitude for the ONS program. “Like, you can’t get that from nobody really. I never got that. So that was like a real moment where I was like, ‘You know what, all the stuff you been doing, like you got people that really care about you, man. How you think they’ll feel if you end up back in jail or gone?’” Robinson said. “Like, I really hurt people, so I wouldn’t want to hurt nobody who loves me as much as they could. So that keeps me motivated and keeps me going. I’m going to do it so I can make them happy.” Later in the talk, he added, “I recently had a daughter, so that just extramotivated me.” Even with the intense support provided by ONS staff, it took Robinson seven years to fully break from the old ways and land a good-paying job. “Seven years?” asked Vaughn, to underscore it to the crowd. “Seven years,” said Robinson. He’s now a Peacemaker Ambassador.

aVon Carter got out of prison in 2012 after serving a five-year sentence. “When I first got out, you can only imagine, sitting in prison for five years, what you’re thinking about. Thinking about how you got caught, and what I can do to not get caught next time. You learn how to be a better criminal, basically. And I had that mind-set when I first got out,” Carter told the audience. “I was straddling the fence, and ONS helped push me in the right direction.” ONS’s street outreach workers persuaded him to join the fellowship. The money was an incentive at first, but then the rest of the program began to draw him in. He wearied of his dismal prospects of a short violent life or incarceration and shifted his

perspective. “I’m only 29 years old, and half of my class is dead. Or they gone [to prison], and I ain’t going to ever see them again.” Soon after Carter got out of jail, he followed up on a job lead from ONS. “I went and saw the union guy, and I got right to work. Once I started making money, I was like, ‘Hold on, this is a nice little chunk of change.’ It’s not illegal, and they can’t take it from you,” Carter said, although noting with some annoyance, “I still gotta pay the taxes,” to which the audience erupted in laughter. “Without this program, ain’t no telling where I would be,” he continued. He said a powerful influence of the fellowship was spending time with “successful black men,” which gave him “hope that I can be that one day.” Carter, now a heavy equipment operator, said he’ll be earning $40 an hour soon. He was in the process of getting a loan to buy a home, and he said that one of his chief worries was improving his already solid credit score to get even better terms, to more laughter from the audience. He’s also an ambassador to young people and friends, urging them to go down to the union to get a job and to lead healthier, more productive lives. And when he leaves his house early in the morning wearing his work clothes, he’s glad to know he’s setting a good example for his son. “You going to work, but they paying good money for hard work,” Carter said. With more fellows graduating from the ONS program, Carter said, “It’s like a branch now, a generation of people who don’t want to see the community like this no more. We want our kids to play outside, just like when our parents grew up. “My outlook on life is totally different than when I was 24. All the stuff I wanted, everything I thought was important, really ain’t nothing,” Carter said. “I’ve got a 4-year-old. It makes me want to give him something that I didn’t have. Not only do I feel this way about my son, I feel this way about his son, and his son, and his son.”

Operation Peacemaker Fellow

DRAMATIC DECREASE IN VIOLENT CRIMES

National Council on Crime & Delinquency

hen Vaughn introduced Eric Welch, 27, he said Welch was first shot at age 14. Welch was “hanging” with a friend a few blocks from his apartment when a car glided around the corner and AK-47s emerged through the window, spraying him and his friend. Welch remembers fiery pain as a slug struck underneath his left arm, collapsing a lung and breaking his clavicle. His friend was hit in the hip. Welch, bleeding from his mouth and out of his chest, thought he was going to die, but doctors kept him alive. He still has a large

scar where the slug exited. After that he felt angry and vengeful, and he bounced around schools. Before he reached 22, he sustained three more bullet wounds, one of them after he joined the ONS fellowship. Vaughn said he was “for sure” headed for prison or a violent death without the fellowship. ONS staff helped him get through the ordeal of the last bullet wound, Vaughn said, and helped him “not feel like he had to respond.” Welch, speaking on the video monitor,

said, “I never had like a father figure, or a grandfather,” helping him realize “that I’m going down the wrong road. [ONS is] for me like family.” The Skype connection began faltering, so Vaughn finished for him, saying that after graduating from college, Welch is planning to earn a master’s degree and then work in public policy “to be involved in the decision-making process, so other folks don’t be victims to a policy that doesn’t have them in mind. So we applaud Eric,” Vaughn said. “I can’t wait to get to Tallahassee for his graduation. “I can look to LaVon, I can look to Rohnell, I can look to Eric, I can look to 20 or 30 other young folks who really got it,” Vaughn added. “And it gives me the energy not to fade away. Because it can be difficult. But I get rejuvenated because I see young brothers glad that they got a daughter. We want to acknowledge the hard work that these young men do within themselves, on themselves,” he wrapped up, to applause from the crowd. DeVone Boggan, through a nonprofit organization he founded in 2016 called Advance Peace, now consults with numerous cities interested in adopting the Richmond model, called the Peacemaker Fellowship. In January 2018, Sacramento and Stockton signed four-year contracts with Advance Peace to replicate the Richmond work. In a Feb. 1 email, Boggan said that 28 cities outside of California and three international cities have expressed interest in adopting the Peacemaker Fellowship. He said Advance Peace in 2019 will select only two non-California and one international city. “We are being very intentional about maintaining fidelity to our work/model and ensuring that cities share that commitment,” he wrote.

“On more than a few occasions, we’ve heard them come back to this city and say to us, ‘I actually like him better than I like the cats that I’ve been trying to kill him with.’” — DeVone Boggan, Sam Vaughn of the ONS helps Eric Welch celebrate his graduation from Florida A&M.

Photos courtesy of the Office of Neighborhood Safety

Above, Boggan and a fellow at Robben Island, where former South Africa President Nelson Mandela was once imprisoned. At left, fellows visit the ancient city of Teotihuacan near Mexico City.

Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety

12 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SPRING 2019

SOLVING HOMELESSNESS

Cruising the Bayview as city scrambles to count its homeless residents in one night By Yesica Prado // Public Press

Photo by Yesica Prado // Public Press

A man bundles up under his sleeping bag to read a magazine outside a store on Barneveld Avenue in the Bayview days after the city homeless count.

THE TALLY ON THE STREETS Photo by Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing

Christian Torres (left), Yesica Prado and Deirdre Donovan formed a threeperson team that scoured part of the Bayview district to count homeless residents. The team identified four individuals and 19 dwellings — 18 vehicles and a tent.

Volunteers were tasked with counting people sleeping outdoors, noting all tents, recording vehicles that might be lived in and noting it on a paper tally sheet.

MEET OUR TEAM! For 2019, we have some exciting events lined up that we can’t wait to share with you, so stay tuned.

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people, just 40 fewer than in 2015. Though the number hardly changed, the city received $5 million more in federal funds, boosting its grant to $32 million. The 2017 count also revealed San Francisco had 882 homeless individuals per 100,000 residents, 25 percent higher than the national average of 664. That January night, 58 percent were found sleeping on the streets, unsheltered. Supervisorial District 10, which covers the Bayview, had the second-highest concentration, with 1,275 homeless people. District Six, in the heart of downtown and including the Tenderloin, recorded 3,680 people. More than two thirds of the homeless population (69 percent) had been San Francisco residents when they became homeless, and 21 percent had come from other California cities. Only 10 percent had moved here from out of state. Across the United States, 553,742 people experienced homelessness in 2017, the first increase in seven years. As the most populous state, with more than 39 million people, California is also first in the nation with its homeless population of 134,278 individuals, followed by New York, with 89,503, and Florida, with 32,190 people who live precariously. With eyes fixed on the road, Donovan offered her insights on who to look for on the sidewalks. “OK, so where I’ve seen people in public areas … like at the library near my house,” she said. “There’s two people that stay there on a regular basis. They curl up in the doorway because I think there’s heat near the door.” But at 9 p.m., businesses were still open, and no one was seeking warmth in doorways along Mission Street. After we left the commercial streets, our hunt did

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a vehicle. Although the street tally has evolved from the original methodology, which asked seemingly irrelevant questions about whether someone had a shopping cart or a pet, the data collection remains insufficient. To gather more accurate information, the count is followed with 1,000 in-person surveys over two weeks. The PIT contractor, Applied Survey Research, has found that “homeless respondents are more likely to be honest about their lives with homeless survey researchers.” The research team recruits and trains homeless people to work as enumerators and interviewers. The results are compiled during the next six months and become the recorded profile of the city’s homeless population. Counting individuals in hiding is an undercount at best. But it’s necessary and better than not counting. In 2017, the San Francisco PIT count was 7,499

We are also launching Civic Social, a series of after-work gatherings at local bars and cafes.

Photo by Yesica Prado // Public Press

Vehicle dwellers find a safe parking area next to a grassy slope along South Hill Boulevard in San Francisco’s Crocker Amazon neighborhood.

not get any easier. The panorama changed to a carcongested residential neighborhood, and on a wrong turn, we ended up lost. Many streets on our map were narrow cul-de-sacs. It’s a side of San Francisco none of us had seen. We drove along South Hill Boulevard, in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood on the edge of our map, peeking at the vehicles parked along a curve next to a grassy slope. “Possibly that van?” said Torres, pointing across the street. “You see something on that van?” Donovan asked, gazing to her left. “There was a rack on there, and it looked like it had a solar panel,” said Torres. “One van,” I repeat, filling a single bubble on the sheet under “dwelling or vehicle type.” Gender and age were left blank, as no inhabitants were visible. The guidelines assume two people were inside, even if there was a whole family or one person. We cannot doublecheck, because no one is allowed to get close. When counting vehicles, the final data have room for a lot of error. After three hours of driving up and down hills, diligently zigzagging through the street maze, we returned to the Carver Elementary deployment center a few minutes before midnight. The last team back. I gazed down at an almost-full tally sheet. Our team had identified four individuals and 19 “dwellings” — 18 vehicles and one tent. Exiting the school grounds, Donovan looked across the empty basketball court and questioned whether Torres’ van had been counted by another team. It had been parked on the school grounds all along, just screaming that someone lived in there; blankets covered the windows. He and I just shrugged. No one knew. As everyone else returned to their homes, we drove past midnight to the Portola neighborhood — our safe parking spot in San Francisco, along the University Mound Reservoir. Staring through the foggy passenger window of Torres’ van, passing a line of cars and RVs, I wondered if the teams had counted all of our neighbors, camouflaged inside their SUVs, commercial vehicles, or even sleeping inside a small car. Ultimately, the count is not certain. But we have a starting point.

44 page st., suite 504 • san francisco, ca 94102

n a chilly night in late January, more than 80 volunteers departed the basketball court outside Carver Elementary School in the Bayview carrying clipboards and maps. Our mission was to help tally the people living on the streets in southeast San Francisco for the biennial homelessness Point-in-Time Count. The city had been carved up into four districts — Bayview, Civic Center, Mission and Sunset — with 160 routes. Most had to be covered by driving, but there were 30 walkable areas in the Mission and Civic Center, where most of the city’s homeless live, either in shelters or outdoors. All routes had to be covered between 8 p.m. and midnight. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires that cities count their homeless populations every two years to receive annual federal The Point-infunding for services. These numbers determine and Time counts are shape almost everything “snapshots” of a dealing with homelessness. city’s homeless Before hitting the road, we underwent a 45-minute population, training on how to comrelying on plete our paper “street tally volunteers’ sheet.” The task was clear and simple: Count people perceptions. As sleeping outdoors, note all such, the surveys tents and record vehicles are prone to error. that are or appear to be inhabited. The instructions were strict: Keep a safe distance. Do not interact with anyone on the street. Do not flash lights into cars and tents. Do not spread information on social media. No pictures. If you spot a homeless family, call the city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Be prepared to tell a special team the location, license plate number and details on how to find the family. Someone would come and offer them shelter space reserved for families. Individuals would have to wait. On any given night, the shelter wait list tops 1,000 people. And last, try to return before 11:30 p.m. Do not stay out past midnight. The Bayview district had been divided into 28 numbered tracts for teams to scout. Besides Bayview, neighborhoods included Excelsior, Crocker Amazon, Visitacion Valley and Sunnydale. Our team of three was the last to leave Carver Elementary. Deirdre Donovan was the designated driver, Christian Torres was the navigator and I recorded the tally. Donovan is senior information technology analyst for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. She provides tech support for the central database, the Online Navigation and Entry System, known as ONE, which is shared with the city’s homeless services and nonprofit providers receiving federal or local funding. Torres is a photographer from the Central Valley and has been living in a Ford E-150 cargo van for almost two years. He moved to the Bay Area from the small town of Sanger, near Fresno. Torres came searching for creative job opportunities — scarce in the valley. He is my partner in work and life. I met Torres a year ago on the street — a small twist of fate. I was living in my 23-foot Tioga RV at the Berkeley Marina, shuffling parking spots along with other vehicle dwellers, while attending UC Berkeley. One night, we parked next to each other. We were both 25 years old. We loved photography and took a leap of faith to live humbly inside our vehicles for the sake of our dreams. Tonight, I’m in the back seat of a 2005 silver Toyota Prius, tally sheets in hand. The survey lists five categories: gender, age, family, dwelling or vehicle type, and location (park or beach). Cruising slowly down Mission Street, we peered out our windows. Gazing to our right, we spotted our first individuals: a black man holding overflowing plastic bags and a backpack as he walked out of a liquor store, and, nearby, another man, bent over, gathering belongings. Sitting in the darkness, I filled in the bubbles on the form: “male,” “age 25+,” and “street.” I leave the “family” bubble empty; each man appeared to be alone. I repeated the answers to my teammates. Neither disagreed. Begun in 2005, the Point-in-Time counts are “snapshots” of a city’s homeless population, relying on volunteers’ perceptions of homelessness. As such, the surveys are prone to error. But volunteers guess about who “looks the part” of being homeless or in other distress, and count as best they can. The survey also fails to ask for more detailed and useful information, such as specific age groups or ethnicities. It does not provide a full picture of the most vulnerable growing populations: infants and the elderly. The categories noted are “under 18,” “18-24,” “25+” and “U,” for unsure — when a person is unidentifiable, such as when bundled up in a blanket or under