S.F. nonprofit saves 16 units for low-income tenants in Mission

So here’s a good-news San Francisco story. Luis Zeron, who works at a bakery, and his wife Sandra Martinez, who works at McDonalds, paid $2,100 last month for a one-bedroom unit on 14th Street across from the Armory. Going forward, their rent will drop by 21 percent to $1,650. 

That is thanks to the Community Land Trust’s recent purchase of the two-story, 16-unit building unit at 320 14th St. where the couple lives. 

“We feel safer,” said Zeron, beaming and noting that the broken windows in the living room they have called home since 2018 have, since the Community Land Trust came in, been replaced.

Yes, there is more work to do — there is still mold on their bathroom towel rack and the bathroom needs new light bulbs — but Zeron sees the recent purchase as a “big win” for his family and the mostly low-income Latinx households who live in the building. About a third of the building’s 36 tenants have been living in their units for over 20 years, and are expected to stay. 

Not everyone will see their rent decrease, and some may see an increase depending on their income. But Kyle Smeallie, the Community Land Trust’s policy director, said the nonprofit promises to do everything in its power to avoid upping the rent. “We do everything we can to meet residents where they are at,” Smeallie said. 

The trust has 15 other properties across the city, including three in the Mission — at 151 Duboce Ave., the Merry Go Round Shared Housing Cooperative at 2976 23rd St., and a building at 2840-2848 Folsom St. known as The Pigeon Palace. 

Only one unit at the 14th Street site is unoccupied, and that will be rented to a tenant who makes up to 80 percent of the area median income — which translates to $83,900 for one person and $107,900 for a family of three, said Smeallie, the policy director.

Otherwise, current residents will be kept in their units. Residents will only be temporarily relocated if their units need considerable renovation.

For years, tenants said, they endured poor living conditions like mold, cockroaches, and broken windows and floors that were ignored by their former landlord, Veritas Investments — a massive real estate company that owns more than 200 properties across the city. It eventually led to a rent strike in 2022, which was also part of a bigger citywide strike at different Veritas properties against the landlord.

“It’s a powerful display of residents’ solidarity,” Smeallie said. 

The building at 320 14th St. went into default late 2022, and fell into the hands of the Prado Group, a private real estate company, in November 2023. Prado addressed some of the urgent maintenance issues and then sought to sell it to the Community Land Trust and Smeallie said the deal closed last week without using any city money. 

Instead, the nonprofit used state funds granted by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, an agency that helps to preserve affordable housing, and a low-interest-rate loan from the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, a nonprofits that lends money to affordable housing projects. The loan will be repaid with the rent roll.

The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the Community Land Trust’s purchase.