Following Mission Local reporting about under-the-table rent payments purportedly solicited by a rogue middle manager at a Potrero Hill public-housing complex, Supervisor Shamann Walton today blasted both the management company overseeing the site and the San Francisco Housing Authority.
“It has come to our attention that Eugene Burger staff illegally leased vacant units to members of community and charged them rent,” said Walton at a Board of Supervisors hearing today. The District 10 supervisor called today’s hearing about the “disturbing” allegations in his district last month. “As we know, this is completely unacceptable.”
The Eugene Burger Management Corporation oversees the Potrero Terrace and Potrero Annex sites on Potrero Hill, which are slated to be demolished and rebuilt into some 1,700 units of mixed-income housing. The company employed a senior site manager, Lance Whittenberg, who allegedly collected rent from squatters in the ever-growing number of vacant units on the property.
The Terrace-Annex site is a hillside complex filled with more than 500 units of ’40s- and ’50s-era row houses on the south side of Potrero Hill, overlooking Bayview. Its residents earned a median annual income of $14,600 in 2015, and it is one of the last public-housing sites in the city yet to be turned into mixed-income housing.
Mission Local spoke to two residents in February who said they had paid Whittenberg directly in cash, and another who had paid a fellow resident, in 2023, to stay in vacant units in the sprawling complex. Whittenberg was fired in December, according to fellow employees, and the company has been conducting an internal investigation into the alleged misconduct.
Beyond the rent allegations, Walton also drew attention to ongoing issues on the site, including slow work order response times, inconsistent trash pickups, unsafe and unstable conditions, and even retaliation against residents by management companies.
Supervisor Ahsha Safaí asked to review Eugene Burger’s contract, suggesting that the purported illegal rent collection could be grounds for terminating it.
Did it happen or not?
But, questioned about the illicit rent-gathering on Monday morning before the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee, the company’s Affordable Management Division president, Teresa Pegler, refused to even acknowledge any wrongdoing within the company.
“Because it’s an ongoing investigation, we’re precluded to share anything at this time, until that investigation is concluded,” Pegler said. “We are working cooperatively and openly with both the Housing Authority and the City Attorney’s Office on that investigation.”
Walton asked directly: “Did it happen or not?”
Pegler, in a lengthy response, did not confirm any employee’s involvement. Instead, she noted that calls to Eugene Burger’s hotline, which was set up to receive tips about trespassers on the site, had also received various claims of rent being illegally collected, including by fellow residents.
This practice, too, was reported by Mission Local, as well as Eugene Burger Management Corporation’s history of mismanagement and substandard services. A December scorecard obtained by Mission Local found that Eugene Burger “did not comply” with four of its six performance metrics.
And it’s not the only one: Bridge Housing, which oversees the newly constructed 72-unit building at 1101 Connecticut St., where some Potrero Terrace and Potrero Annex residents have already moved, has also been failing to meet basic demands, according to Walton.
Walton said Bridge Housing staff visited the site on a recent Saturday and observed water damage, but chose to ignore it. By Sunday, a major leak had flooded the building’s lobby.
“That was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard; where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Walton said. He personally went out to the site after residents called him about the leak, and only then did Bridge Housing employees arrive.
Smitha Seshadri, Bridge Housing’s Northern California development head, who spoke at Monday’s hearing, said the site supervisor “showed up immediately on Saturday, and was doing everything in his capacity to address the situation.”
“Except for call a plumber,” Walton retorted.
Bridge Housing is approaching completion of another housing project, at 4840 Mission St. in the Excelsior, which Safaí said also raised concerns for him in his district.
“Part of the reason why the Housing Authority no longer manages the properties themselves was because of a history of mismanagement of properties all over the city,” Safaí said. Now, despite contracting with private firms, he said, “it seems like a lot of those same problems are existing, or have been exacerbated.”
Taking responsibility
Walton also fingered the Housing Authority as responsible for the conditions on Potrero Hill and any fallout.
“When Eugene Burger illegally rented those units, those residents now became your responsibility, whether you want to accept that or not,” Walton said to Housing Authority CEO, Tonia Lediju.
Although Lediju said she was also “very concerned about what’s going on on those sites,” she did appear to defend Eugene Burger as a collaborative partner making “great progress.”
Pegler, Eugene Burger’s affordable housing president, acknowledged today that the company did not respond to Mission Local’s repeated requests for comment earlier this year regarding residents’ issues, or squatters’ claims of being charged rent. She claimed she did not address the reported allegations with the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners so “as not to ‘highlight false truths.’”
But Walton said he was independently familiar with goings-on at Potrero Hill, and called it “insulting” to insinuate that the reporting was inaccurate.
“You’re not taking any responsibility … basically, you’re skirting around the conversation — that’s unacceptable,” Walton said. “At the end of the day, our residents are suffering under your property management, and that needs to change.”
But what will change is unclear. In July 2023, supervisors similarly came down on Eugene Burger for poorly managing its sites.
Today, Pegler and Lediju said that a new “Vacant Unit Monitoring Plan” is in place, involving rotating staff inspecting vacant, boarded-up units to prevent any employee from getting regular or exclusive access to particular tenants. Surprise audits, conducted by staff not stationed on the property, would also ensure vacant units were regularly inspected.
The Housing Authority is also considering a proposal to bring in armed security guards to the housing complex, Lediju confirmed today.
For now, Walton called for 24-hour staff on all of the public housing sites in question, and for a quarterly report to the Rules Committee about Eugene Burger and Bridge Housing.
This situation seems normal in the corruption flooded SF government. Ultimately Breed is responsible for everything.
Did you read the article?
The real scandal here, are the 200 vacant units as was reported in the earlier expose. The “City-Family” goes on and on about the affordable housing crises, and yet fiddles while it’s housing stock is left to rot.
Yes, I know the SFHA is an independent body, but all roads lead back to City Hall and its continued ethical lapses and horrific dysfunction.
Smitha Seshadri at bridge housing made $371,530 in 2022 (public record via the 990 on propublica as they’re a nonprofit and must disclose this information). Her salary today is likely higher than what it was two years ago. That is an enormous sum of money for someone overseeing complete negligence on bridge’s part.
This sounds very similar to the problems at that we hear about at Parkmerced. Properties falling into disrepair due to the lack of maintenance turning into empty units that are then filling up with “squatters”. Though in this case the squatters are not really squatting because they are paying. The funds are just not going through the system, and one assume they are not on the lottery system so they are accepting the low quality housing.
San Francisco cannot be so badly managed that whatever agency is in charge cannot manage these properties better than this. There seems to be another similarity between Parkmerced and this Potrero Hill public-housing complex. Both are slated to be demolished and rebuilt. One wonders if any of these units are going into the latest RHNA counts.
Perhaps the problem lies in the size of the projects. It is much more work and harder to keep track of large numbers of units. A better solution may be to set up smaller projects with a more manageable number of people and units to maintain. 50 or 70 is more manageable 500. One may actually know 50 people by name and have a more personal relationship with the community.
Outright theft – outrageous but no consequences? It just continues?
Prior the housing authority had inspectors walk the sites weekly looking for any issues and documenting the problems and submitting packages and proposals to fix issues that went to employees of the housing authority that were tenants on some properties to fix the problems and deterioration. Seems this has not continued post the hope SF approvals and the MOH needs to ensure that the prior SFHA HD&MOD has people trained at the appropriate levels and qualifications to review these issues on a consistent basis. The lack of proper training and review of ongoing issues is appalling. These are sites with seniors, children and long term residents that deserve better daily.
I was told by a former City Bldg Inspector that HUD was responsible. Can you share what you know about the responsibility of HUD vs SF Housing Authority. I see dilapidated public housing and would like to know who is in charge of what. Maybe more investigations are needed. Thank you for great reporting!
It’s the Mayor !
But, it could be lots worse.
I can recall when one SFHA director took 900 of his tenants to French Guina and killed them.
When real camping tents started to be handed out under the freeway one guy got uh holt of half dozen of them and rented them out.
Ever seen, ‘King Rat’ ?
I used to go up to those projects lots when I taught on Potrero Hill and, like Laguna Honda, the view from way up high there is what we used to call a ‘Million Dollar View’ and that’s why these people are being evicted.
h.
“one guy got uh holt of half dozen of them and rented them out.
You were a teacher?
Yeah,
I taught Behavior which required you to be able to communicate with your student in speech they can understand.
I sometimes toss in a phrase like that as insider humor but it went right over your head.
I always say that if you have to take the clown apart to see what makes him funny that he isn’t funny anymore.
Sorry, I’m from a different generation twice removed.
h.
the construction of the Bridge project at 4840 mission street has been a pain in the ass for anyone having to walk that stretch of mission street. debris blew over the ‘sidewalk’ in the street and the rain flooded the path repeatedly. even when the real sidewalk was finished, they delayed removing fencing for 4 month past the permit expiration in december. i don’t expect them to be good neighbors but the murals look nice.
i don’t believe wanna be mayor Asha has any concern about allowing Bridge to manage another project unless it benefits his polling numbers. my complaints about daylighting violations at an important intersection hasn’t made any difference.
d mwedes,
Sometimes (often, actually) scaffolding people will leave their rigs on a property after the job is done just to store them for free.
Crew that did roof at Kink.com (Now, AJ Partners) did that for 4 years until I got my Complaint validated and the thousand bucks a day was ready to kick in.
Planning Commission under Breed made that happen.
h.