Fires, squatting, scandal: S.F.’s last public housing complexes get new management

Smiling person with curly blonde and black hair, wearing a black sleeveless top, standing outdoors with trees and a clear sky in the background. by ELENI BALAKRISHNAN FEBRUARY 14, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)

A multi-story building with boarded-up windows behind a chain-link fence with graffiti on a wall that reads "the kids. — Multiple units in a Potrero Annex building are boarded up. Photo by Eleni Balakrishnan

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After years of scandals over management of San Francisco’s last two public housing projects, the company paid to manage both properties has been replaced.

The Eugene Burger Management Corporation, which has held the city contract to manage some 1,400 units of public housing in Potrero Hill and Sunnydale since 2022, is on its way out in coming weeks. Bell Properties, a Los Angeles-based management firm, began Feb. 3.

The Housing Authority did not say why it chose not to renew its contract with Eugene Burger. But District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose district includes both complexes, was direct: “It’s because EBMC was a horrible property management company.”

Reports of mismanagement by Eugene Burger began not long after the company began managing both complexes. In 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the San Francisco Housing Authority to contract property management to a third party — EBMC took over in early 2022, after pandemic-related delays.

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Residents began reporting that EBMC wasn’t doing much to keep squatters out of empty units, and failed to do repairs. Fires broke out repeatedly, resulting in the death of one resident. The company flunked the city’s own performance metrics. People living in the complex told Mission Local about an alleged under-the-table rent collection scheme run by Lance Whittenberg, a site manager employed by EBMC (Whittenberg was later fired).

The City Attorney’s Office said it interviewed residents who described paying rent off the books to Whittenberg, and some who claimed they were extorted under threat of violence, but found no corroborating evidence. Facing ongoing scrutiny and hearings from city leaders, the company and the Housing Authority began mass-evicting squatters from the plentiful vacant units at both sites.

Still, the contract could have been extended. Instead, the Housing Authority moved to replace Eugene Burger last fall. To ease the transition, the Housing Authority extended Eugene Burger’s contract, originally ending Jan. 31, by two months.

Bell Properties manages commercial and residential properties primarily in Southern California, including affordable housing and mobilehome parks, according to its website, which lists 48 cities and neighborhoods.

There weren’t any other takers to oversee Potrero and Sunnydale. Linda Mason, general counsel for the Housing Authority, said at a public meeting last month that the Housing Authority extended its request for proposals “over and over and over” before Bell submitted the sole bid in mid-January.

A three-member panel evaluated Bell and scored the company at 74.3, presumably out of 100. At a special meeting on Jan. 31, the Housing Authority’s board of commissioners approved Bell’s new two-year contract for $1,050,000 per year.

The Housing Authority did not answer Mission Local’s questions about the scoring or selection process, but in a statement about the transition said Bell Properties has “extensive experience managing government and municipal properties.” It will be responsible for rent collection, maintenance, security, and inspections.

A statement from Bell, meanwhile, called the new partnership “an exciting new era” and said the company is “fostering stronger communities and addressing the housing needs of San Francisco residents.”

Walton said he was “excited” for Eugene Burger’s departure, but did not yet know much about its replacement.

“I truly hope that Bell Properties is responsible and treats residents with the dignity that they deserve,” Walton said. “I hope they maintain a presence on site 24 hours, respond swiftly to maintenance concerns and treat residents as if it was a place where they and their families would want to live.”

Eugene Burger’s Affordable Management Division President Teresa Pegler expressed at the board of commissioners meeting the company’s “great appreciation for the opportunity” to serve residents at both housing sites. “It truly has been an honor to be a part of this transition,” she said.

Advocates for Potrero and its residents did not have a good sense of the new company. Uzuri Pease-Greene, who runs the Community Awareness Resource Entity, a nonprofit focused on building community and safety at the Potrero Terrace and Annex, said that she has not yet met anyone from Bell. Their representatives have not attended the past two weekly meetings of community-based organizations. (Eugene Burger, meanwhile, stopped attending those meetings after January.)

Potrero Annex resident Lorena Lopez said she and her family are still living the consequences of EBMC’s mismanagement.

A burnt building on Turner Terrace — the site of several fires — is once again occupied by squatters, despite EBMC representatives insisting they do regular checks and board up vacant units. Theft is an ongoing problem. The company replaced a window in her apartment with one that doesn’t fit.

“I can’t close it,” she said in Spanish. “In other words, if they remove the grates and open the window, they will break into my house and steal everything.”

The Potrero Hill and Sunnydale sites are part of the national HOPE rebuild project, a massive effort to renew aging public housing and develop mixed affordable and market-rate housing under nonprofit management. Potrero Annex is approved to be demolished next.

Lopez is awaiting placement at 1101 Connecticut, the first completed building in the Potrero Hill rebuild, or another existing building away from the Annex. This summer, residents of 1101 Connecticut, many of them former Potrero Terrace-Annex residents, accused BRIDGE Housing — the affordable housing developer managing the site — of neglecting the building to the point where it was already beginning to show problems, despite only being completed five years ago.

“I hope they are better,” Lopez said of Bell Properties. “I hope those who come are better than those who were already there.”