A one-alarm fire erupted at 74 Dakota Street at approximately 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, July 27. No injuries occurred; the blaze took place in a vacant unit. The San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) is investigating the cause of the conflagration, but this reporter witnessed an individual intentionally set the fire and rush out of the apartment.
Intentional burnings set by squatters regularly occur at the 38-acre Potrero Terrace-Annex housing complex. Trespassers also verbally assault residents, which happened to Turner Terrace resident Stella Scott, who was yelled at by someone holed up in the building’s utility room.
BRIDGE Housing, the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), and Eugene Burger Management Corporation (EBMC), which is under contract to oversee the site, assert that they’re taking steps to remove squatters. SFHA has overall responsibility for safeguarding the City’s public housing stock.
At a July Government, Audit, and Oversight Committee Hearing called by District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, SFHA said it’s walking the property with San Francisco Police Department officers, providing squatters with public housing vouchers to live elsewhere. The Authority admitted at the hearing that it hasn’t been going as well, or as quickly, as hoped, but offered few details. SFHA did not respond to multiple requests for an interview with the View.
“We’re still not where we would like to be and where we are going to be,” SFHA Chief Executive Officer Tonia Letiju admitted during the hearing. “And I take it to heart. Each and every day I wake up with this on my mind and I go to bed with this on my mind.”
As reported in the View, EBMC failed SFHA’s January and February evaluations of the Potrero Terrace-Annex and the Sunnydale public housing complexes. The sites were beset with excessive trash, abandoned vehicles, and unfulfilled work orders. According to multiple residents, Terrace-Annex conditions have improved since EMBC fielded Lance Whittenberg to manage the complex several months ago. EMBC did not respond to repeated View requests for interviews.
By any measure the Terrace-Annex and Sunnydale buildings are worn out, having hastily been constructed in 1941 and 1955. Launched in 2011, HOPE SF, a public-private partnership to improve public housing, is the City’s answer to the problem. BRIDGE, which owns 24 properties in San Francisco, has made slow progress reconstructing Terrace-Annex. To date it’s completed 1101 Connecticut Street, with 53 of 72 units occupied by long-term Terrace-Annex residents. “Potrero Block B,” 1801 25th Street, is scheduled to be finished next year, with 117 of the 157 units reserved for existing Terrace-Annex residents.
According to Uzuri Pease-Greene, who is a BRIDGE employee, and executive director of Community Awareness Resource Entity, Terrace-Annex and Sunnydale residents are contending with issues that were problems long before EBMC came onto the scene.
“It’s not a Eugene Burger only problem,” she said. “It’s an inherited mess.” For instance, mice and rats have been a consistent problem for years at the sites, and due to construction, the problem is only getting worse. She added, “We’ve had mice for years, even before COVID. We’ve been dealing with it.”
Other consistent complaints at Terrace-Annex and Sunnydale center around landscaping and trash, according to Walton. At the July oversight meeting, EBMC said it has daily waste pickup. After determining that there was an insufficient number of garbage bins, the company worked with Recology to deliver 141 extra containers the same month the hearing was held.
Walton asked SFHA to give his office quarterly reports on the conditions of the public housing sites.
“I definitely want to make sure [EBMC has] the opportunity to fix their mistakes and to make sure the Housing Authority holds them accountable,” he said in an interview with the View. “We’ll look at the quarterly reports to see if things change or get better.”
What scorecards and reports don’t reveal, however, is the way Terrace-Annex residents look out for one another. When the Dakota Street fire broke out, neighbors rushed to grab a hose to douse the flames even before SFFD arrived. They made sure kids and pets were safe by encouraging them to stay on the other side of the street or by holding on to leashes.
Pictured, top: Smoke billows out from 74 Dakota St. while firefighters rush to the scene. Photo: Courtesy of Rebekah Moan
