For more than a year, the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) has tried to evict upwards of two dozen families that the agency claims are living illegally at Potrero Annex, which was supposed to be demolished this month. Some inhabitants have been residing at the complex for a long time; others are considered trespassers. Many of the eviction cases will likely be tied up in litigation for months.
The redevelopment project has suffered from chronic delays. “Rebuild Potrero” was initially launched in 2008. Between 2016 and 2024, just one 72-unit building was completed. Earlier this year a second building, the 157-unit Eve Community Village, housing 117 families, opened. The third development phase will be constructed on the steep hillside parcels occupied by the structures scheduled to be demolished.
While Annex residents with leases have the choice of moving into Eve Community Village or an apartment in a different low-income housing development, the offer doesn’t extend to roughly 40 households occupying units without agreements. Some of those occupants assert that they thought they were living there legally because they paid rent to an employee of a former management company, an allegation that the San Francisco City Attorney couldn’t substantiate.
The Housing Authority initially offered residents a $5,000 Airbnb gift card to evacuate. When that wasn’t accepted the offer morphed to $4,500 in cash.
“Arguably from the tenant’s perspective, $4,500 in cash is worth more, but they are bargaining backwards which is not a way to settle anything,” said Ora Prochovnick, Director of Litigation and Policy at the San Francisco’s Tenant Right to Counsel (TRC) program, which is representing many of the inhabitants. “They told tenants that every day they wait to accept their offer, the amount is going to be less. That’s not conducive to moving the case forward… We would love it to be a win-win settlement for all involved, but that type of threatened stressful negotiation tactic is not going to resolve anything.”
There are nine organizations within TRC, with Eviction Defense Collaborative (EDC) the lead agency. EDC represents roughly 10 households and is monitoring another five or so represented by other agencies. Some residents are representing themselves, though they can receive TRC assistance. According to Prochovnick, trial dates haven’t been set for any of the situations.
“It is not legally possible for them to get these folks out in October unless they settle with them,” said Prochovnick. “So, unless they want significant cost overruns on their demolition project… their only recourse is to give reasonable settlement offers…Nobody wants them to relocate to the streets. The Housing Authority’s mission is contrary to that, so they should be giving them a reasonable settlement so that they can leave… If they were forced to relocate tomorrow, the way these offers have been treading, they would be forced to relocate under a bridge.”
According to Prochovnick, the inhabitants have varying backgrounds. Some have been at Annex for a long time; a few would be considered trespassers.
“There are definitely people out there who are what one would consider true squatters… I don’t necessarily judge them for that. They were in a desperate situation, but they moved aside some plywood and moved in,” said Prochovnick. “Even for those folks, Housing Authority has liability because their property management company was negligent and allowed squatters to occupy… There was a period of time when not only was property management so negligent that they were not truly boarding up and securing the vacant properties but they also had onsite personnel who were committing fraud and although Housing Authority denies this and claims that the City Attorney has thoroughly investigated, we have heard this story repeated by too many people who don’t know each other… There were indeed people who paid rent who are still living there… That rent perhaps was not properly channeled through Housing Authority systems but the occupants who paid that money didn’t know that… Housing Authority insists it never happened, and the tenants allege that it did. I don’t have a court decision that said it happened, but I’m certainly prepared to argue it in court.”
“Procedurally, everybody has a right to their due process moment in court to present their defenses, and the attorneys for Housing Authority have been not moving their cases forward in the correct manner,” Prochovnick continued. “There’s a tool called discovery… where people involved in litigation get information from the other side. We’ve attempted to do discovery in our pending cases and Housing Authority has either been uncooperative or delaying… In a lot of these cases they had trial dates and the trials get taken off calendar because of their failure to participate in discovery.”
The Housing Authority’s legal action relies on “forcible detainer,” which, according to Prochovnick, is inappropriate.
“The very statute that they are relying on that allows them to use this process says right on its face, you cannot use this for people who have been living in the property for more than a year,” said Prochovnick. “And at the time they first filed their cases, many of our clients had been there for more than a year and we can easily prove that. We’ve already won one case on this issue… We will win others, proving that the clients were there more than a year. Most of these cases were filed December of 2024 so anybody who was living there before November of ‘23 can’t be thrown out through the process they’re trying to use and if they keep trying to use this process without settling and go to trial, we will win the cases.”
“Anybody who lived there who had valid leases either has been relocated on site, either permanently or temporarily, and then they will get moved into the replacement properties, or they are given the option to take a Section 8 voucher and go out in the market and find a place with Section 8,” said Prochovnick. “Our clients…are not given those resources, so they can’t get a Section 8 voucher, they aren’t being relocated on the property, and they will not have a right to move into the replacement properties… There are some of our clients that are third generation Potrero Hill. Their grandmother lived in the Annex and now they’re there, and we believe they should qualify for this relocation. Housing Authority is adamant that they do not, and that’s why at the very least, they need a soft landing.”
Danny Pham 
Jessica Zimmer 
Chaitanya Tondepu