Are people really “squatters” if they paid rent, but the units were illegal and a rogue property manager was secretly pocketing the money? The City of SF says yes, and they're offering Potrero Hill tenants $5,000 Airbnb gift cards to move out.
The City of San Francisco has been trying for years to demolish much of a bedraggled 54-building Potrero Hill public housing complex called Potrero Terrace and Annex, and replace it with sparkling new buildings. And they have good reason to do this — the complex has seen fires caused by squatters, and many of its dilapidated buildings were failing inspections time after time.
But Mission Local had a bombshell revelation in April 2024, when they found that a rogue property manager at those buildings was simply collecting tenants’ rent in cash and pocketing it for himself. But the city was not sympathetic to those tenants’ plight, and started sending them eviction notices last August.
Still, the tenants are making legal cases that they did pay rent, and their eviction cases might drag on in court for months, if not years. So the city is trying a new tactic, as the Chronicle reports the city is offering those tenants $5,000 Airbnb gift cards to please leave their units as soon as possible.
The city needs those tenants out so their demolition can proceed. But the Chron says the $5,000 gift card offer was sent to a “seemingly random” selection of tenants. And one resident says that she was offered the $5,000 Airbnb gift card in July, and then a few weeks later, the city lowered the deal to just $4,500 in straight cash.
“They said the amount would become lower every day,” that tenant Tania Guevara told the Chronicle, noting that she refused both offers. “It is not enough to find a place to move into in San Francisco.”
The Chronicle estimates that “roughly 40 households” fall into the category of their units having been illegally leased to them. Those who have legal leases are getting offers of new housing in the rebuilt units, or public housing elsewhere in the city.
But those facing the boot received a letter from the city saying that their building’s demolition was “originally scheduled to begin on July 25,” and told them “that your continued occupancy has delayed its demolition and has therefore caused a construction delay requiring rescheduling that will impact the redevelopment of modern affordable housing.”
If a $5,000 Airbnb gift card sounds generous to you, ask yourself if you would leave your current home for a $5,000 Airbnb gift card. People generally get substantially larger offers to leave their apartments in this town. And looking at third-party sites that monitor Airbnb, the average nightly cost of a San Francisco Airbnb room is $279. So that $5,000 gift card buys you all of 17 days of stable housing.
The director of counseling at the eviction protection clinic Housing Rights Committee, Sara Shortt, told the Chronicle that the city “should understand that they have to bring something to the table more meaningful than a $5,000 Airbnb gift card.”
“You don’t have to have lived in this city long to be cognizant that without a meaningful offer of alternative affordable housing people are not going to leave where they are living,” Shortt told the Chronicle. “It’s been proven again and again that people will hold out because they understand how precious decent affordable housing is in this city and how virtually impossible it is to find housing once you have lost it.”
The evictions, and the shady property manager collecting rent, do not apply to all 54 buildings at Potrero Terrace and Annex. Some have already been torn down, and two new replacement buildings have already been completed, including the Eve Community Village that opened last month. And those apartments look pretty nice for city-owned housing.
But two buildings does not amount to much in a complex that large. And unless the city can offer something better than a $5,000 Airbnb gift card, the completion of more buildings is going to be held up for the foreseeable future.
Image: Google Street View
