Attorneys for residents who have faced a slew of evictions from the Potrero Hill public housing complex in recent months today called on the San Francisco Housing Authority’s board of commissioners to fire the company that manages the site.
The company, Eugene Burger Management, oversees the aging Potrero Terrace-Annex public housing site and has been evicting alleged squatters from their homes — even those who say they paid rent to an employee of the firm. That employee, who has since been fired, allegedly pocketed their money under the table but acted as a representative of the company.
“They are still managing the complex today. How is that possible?” asked Eviction Defense Collaborative attorney Jessica Santillo, who represents some of about 40 households being evicted. “Rather than offering new housing or even transitional housing, the city is forcibly removing residents from their homes every week. This is wrong and must stop.”
Mission Local first reported on the evictions being executed by Eugene Burger Management last month, as well as the alleged under-the-table rent collection scam by now-fired site manager Lance Whittenberg in April.
The Potrero Terrace-Annex has been routinely mismanaged by Eugene Burger since 2022, according to city scorecards showing that the firm routinely failed to meet performance standards. Mission Local has been reporting on the housing complex since a fire in January 2023 killed 40-year-old Richard “Wolf” Gescat, and has documented tenants’ frustrations with deteriorating conditions at the sprawling hillside complex.
The evictions began in May, soon after Mission Local’s investigation into the alleged rent scheme.
The Housing Authority denies that any of the evicted residents were targets of Whittenberg’s purported scam, and maintains that those residents being evicted are squatting illegally, according to a spokesperson.
But in recent weeks, the Housing Authority has begun offering at least some residents paid settlements to leave the property, Mission Local has learned.
So far, 29 households have been successfully evicted, the Housing Authority confirmed this week. In those cases, a spokesperson said there was “zero evidence of rent payments to any party associated with the property.”
But residents have told Mission Local that they did indeed pay rent to stay on Potrero Hill. The Eviction Defense Collaborative said it has received about 40 eviction cases, some of which are being challenged in court.
On Friday, the Housing Authority commission’s president, Joaquin Torres, did not name Whittenberg but acknowledged the scam on Potrero Hill and Whittenberg’s subsequent firing, calling it “shameful.” But he also praised Eugene Burger’s efforts to address the issue and called its action against Whittenberg “laudatory.”
In May, at a hearing held on the allegations, the president of Eugene Burger Management’s Affordable Management Division, Teresa Pegler, refused to acknowledge the scam or any wrongdoing within the company, citing an “ongoing investigation.”
“There are other items that are pending right now … to ensure that that individual is subject to punishment to the fullest extent of the law,” said Torres, who is also the city’s assessor-recorder.
In the meantime, however, residents, including several who say they paid Whittenberg up to $700 per month, are still being pushed out of their homes after years living on the premises. The buildings are slated for demolition as the city rebuilds the entire 619-unit project, but it is unclear when that will take place.
“It’s very counterproductive and undermines all the city’s efforts to address homelessness right now,” said Sara Shortt of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, during Friday’s commission meeting.
One resident, Steven Williams, also said in public comment that he was offered a $2,000 settlement with the Housing Authority to leave his home, where he lives with his two sons, but doesn’t know how that will be enough to get by.
“And where will .. me and my boys go with $2,000?” Williams said. “I can’t even go to a hotel with that.”
He attended Friday’s meeting and handed out a letter from Eviction Defense Collaborative lawyers to commissioners, demanding a halt to the ongoing evictions.
The letter listed a number of demands, including placing the residents into new homes and onto housing waitlists. It blamed the Housing Authority for its “inaction” and turning a “blind eye,” and allowing the “property management company’s criminal ring to flourish unabated for years.”
“When [the Housing Authority] could no longer deny the problem, you sued our clients to evict them rather than rehouse them,” the letter read.
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