HUD goes after a tenant-owned co-op – and ignores the real mess

By A.C. Thompson

The federal government's sense of priorities can be a little perplexing. An example: In recent months the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has gotten all kinds of bent about property conditions at a place called Unity Homes, a strip of 94 apartments on Cashmere Street in Bayview.

HUD, which partially subsidizes the development, is even threatening to seize the 30-year-old co-op from its tenant-owners.

Thing is, Unity, a collection of two- and three-story, wood-paneled apartment blocs surrounded by tall, fragrant pines, is only mildly run-down. In fact, it's in pretty decent shape given its age, and compared to any number of other properties funded by HUD – notably the horrendously decrepit Potrero Hill, Sunnydale, Hunters View, and Oakdale public housing tracts – the place is downright palatial.

Residents at Unity, who fear they're about to become dispossessed, are heated about the situation. "They can do whatever they want to do – I'm not leaving my apartment," LaVonne Morgan says. "They're going to have to physically remove me."

At HUD, spokesperson Larry Bush says the agency is considering foreclosure proceedings against Unity because the complex has twice failed housing-code inspections. "The property has to be improved to minimum standards for health and safety," he says. "I know there are significant issues."

But in the eyes of Unity dwellers, many of those "significant issues" are actually fairly petty. Sitting in the development's tidy little office, Phyllis Freeman, the property manager and a Unity resident, runs through the flaws cited by inspectors, pointing to a snapshot. "They cited us 'cause this lady's tree was over her fence," she says with a certain amount of disbelief. "They cited us for an inoperable light, and I still haven't found that."

Other defects caught by the inspectors were more substantial, including a busted security gate and a lack of curb cuts for wheelchairs in the sidewalks. Still, from a stroll through the development, the problems really don't seem too serious.

So let's get this straight: HUD is considering taking control of Unity because supposedly it's a derelict mess. Meanwhile HUD isn't doing a thing about the many, many completely fucked-up public housing complexes across the city – places like Hunters View and Oakdale, where raw sewage often runs through the streets, thanks to crummy plumbing. (See "A Place Called Despair," 10/19/05) Isn't this a bit bizarre?

Bush has an explanation, albeit a somewhat bureaucratic one. He says HUD does two kinds of inspections: one for properties like Unity Homes, which is directly overseen by the agency, and another for developments like Hunters View and Oakdale, which are run by the San Francisco Housing Authority with money from HUD. Bottom line: Unity gets strict scrutiny, while the Housing Authority's 6,400 units do not.

Bush is quick to add that Unity residents aren't in imminent danger of being booted, noting that HUD has asked them to submit an emergency repair plan which may stave off foreclosure.

According to Freeman and other residents, HUD has also urged Unity to consider turning over the property – which is governed, co-op style, by a council of residents who collectively hold the deed – to private investors.

The claim is entirely plausible: Since the mid-1990s, for-profit corporations have played a growing role in public housing, an area that previously held little allure for entrepreneurs. In the Western Addition, plans are already underway to sell a HUD-subsidized complex – this one seriously trashed and permeated with asbestos – to a consortium of developers, who would bulldoze the apartments and replace them with a blend of low-income and market-rate abodes.

The whole mess is somewhat confounding to folks from Unity, who, as we go to press, are facing a Nov. 8 deadline for getting their repair plan to HUD. Most are deeply suspicious of HUD. And some, like Charlene Smythe, fear the property will end up on the auction block. In her view, "This place is perfect for conversion to market-rate."

E-mail A.C. Thompson at acthompson@hushmail.com.