Article:Hunters View - not Sunnydale - ranks as S.F.'s worst co:/c/a/2007/08/29/BAQ9RRNDA.DTL
Article:Hunters View - not Sunnydale - ranks as S.F.'s worst co:/c/a/2007/08/29/BAQ9RRNDA.DTL
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Hunters View - not Sunnydale - ranks as S.F.'s worst complex
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The burned plastic play structure at the Sunnydale public housing development that infuriated San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom over the weekend is nothing compared with living conditions in other public housing developments in the city - most notably Hunters View.
The most recent annual inspection conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the 265-unit housing complex in Hunters Point a score of 26 out of 100; 90 is considered good, and 60 is considered satisfactory. The score makes it the worst public housing development in San Francisco - and one of the worst in the country.
"It's among the lowest scores I have ever seen," said Larry Bush, spokesman for the regional office of HUD, which funds local housing authorities. "It represents a housing standard that's unacceptable for the residents and for the taxpayers."
The HUD inspection, conducted in March, found 30 percent of the units at Hunters View vacant and boarded up, despite a waiting list to get into public housing in the city. It found shattered glass on the ground, missing sewer and drain covers, roaches in apartments, malfunctioning appliances, and mold and mildew.
Perhaps most remarkably, the inspection found 64 percent of the units had missing or inoperable smoke detectors. Hunters View was the site of the 1997 fire that killed a grandmother and five children - due, a judge ruled, to the San Francisco Housing Authority not having installed a smoke detector.
In February 2004, soon after taking office, Newsom famously took a vanload of city department heads to tour Hunters View and expressed his frustration with the bullet-ridden basketball backboards, giant potholes and burned-out trash bins.
The city repaired many of the problems - and Newsom held a basketball tournament there called March Gladness.
On Wednesday, the mayor said he wasn't surprised by the dismal score for Hunters View, despite the city's efforts. The development is the first in line to be rebuilt under Newsom's Hope SF initiative, and city officials say it should be finished in five or six years.
"No one is defending it, and no one is surprised by it," Newsom said of the score. "It has long been one of the principal sources of concern in the Housing Authority. ... We did everything we could, but it wasn't good enough, and it became the inspiration and example for (Hope SF)."
Inspection scores have fallen sharply at Hunters View in the past few years, from 75 in 2004 to 47 in 2005 to the current 26. (Inspections are done, under HUD rules, for the previous fiscal year.)
Another public housing complex, Sunnydale in Visitacion Valley, got a 46 in its most recent inspection. That was the site on Saturday of Newsom's verbal tirade against the Housing Authority and HUD after finding that a plastic playground set built by the city with donated money from the Dave Matthews Band had been burned not once, but twice.
Gregg Fortner, the Housing Authority director, said HUD inspection scores are known to fluctuate wildly, sometimes jumping up and down and up again on any particular property.
"It takes into account a snapshot of what the development looks like on that day," he said. "It could be subject to the interpretation of one inspector versus another. It's a complicated system, and we just try to do the best we can within it."
A member of his staff accompanies inspectors and ensures that serious problems, such as missing smoke detectors, are fixed right away, Fortner said. In the case of smoke detectors, residents often rip them off the walls or take the batteries out, he said. Due to decreased funding from the federal government, Fortner has 370 staff members - down from 535 five years ago.
Newsom's Hope SF program hopes to revitalize Hunters View and seven other decrepit public housing developments in the city. The program is to start with $5 million in city general fund money as a down payment on $95 million in bonds that the city would float to rebuild Hunters View and another, undetermined housing complex.
The city expects to break ground on Hunters View in the spring of 2009 and finish the reconstruction in 2012 or 2013, according to Matt Franklin, director of the Mayor's Office of Housing.
That day can't come soon enough for Tessie Esther, head of the Hunters View Tenants' Association.
"These places are ratty and falling apart - I think it's ridiculous," she said Wednesday. "The maintenance is lousy, and you can't get anybody to come fix your housing. Some people have to wait almost three months just to get a light fixed in the hallway. You call the housing authority, and if they don't come, you're just in the dark."
A task force commissioned by Newsom in the spring found that Hunters View needs $18 million in capital work, and that all the developments in the city need a total of $268 million in capital work. Meanwhile, Franklin pointed out, HUD gives the San Francisco Housing Authority $14 million annually in capital funds.
"The housing authority has suffered from appalling disinvestment from the federal level for years," Franklin said. "We're very aware of the challenges of the physical conditions, and they are real and they are severe."
San Francisco Housing Authority applications for special federal Hope VI reconstruction grants have been rejected the last three times the agency sought the funding, from 1998 to 2002. The applications were for work on Hunters View.
Instead, Newsom is trying to raise money locally - including taking philanthropists on tours of public housing in the hopes of persuading them to donate.
"What's next - bake sales?" quipped former Mayor Art Agnos, a frequent critic of Newsom who has been appointed by a judge to become receiver of the Housing Authority.
The authority owes $15 million in legal judgments stemming from the 1997 house fire and two sexual harassment cases in the late 1990s. The agency maintains it hasn't gotten the required permission from HUD to pay the judgments.
The appointment of Agnos, former regional director of HUD, is being appealed by the Housing Authority, and a decision on the appeal is expected in the next month. Agnos on Wednesday called Hope SF "a palliative effort to distract attention from the real problems facing this housing authority."
He said Newsom's 31/2 years in office is enough time to do real work on the developments - not just come up with an initiative that won't amount to anything for years.
"Where's the sense of outrage about smoke detectors not working in apartments that have a history of killing children? Where's the sense of outrage about units that are boarded up when we have a burgeoning homeless problem?" he asked. "It's just incomprehensible."
E-mail Heather Knight at [email protected].
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/30/BAQ9RRNDA.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Article:Hunters View - not Sunnydale - ranks as S.F.'s worst co:/c/a/2007/08/29/BAQ9RRNDA.DTL
Back to Article
Hunters View - not Sunnydale - ranks as S.F.'s worst complex
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The burned plastic play structure at the Sunnydale public housing development that infuriated San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom over the weekend is nothing compared with living conditions in other public housing developments in the city - most notably Hunters View.
The most recent annual inspection conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the 265-unit housing complex in Hunters Point a score of 26 out of 100; 90 is considered good, and 60 is considered satisfactory. The score makes it the worst public housing development in San Francisco - and one of the worst in the country.
"It's among the lowest scores I have ever seen," said Larry Bush, spokesman for the regional office of HUD, which funds local housing authorities. "It represents a housing standard that's unacceptable for the residents and for the taxpayers."
The HUD inspection, conducted in March, found 30 percent of the units at Hunters View vacant and boarded up, despite a waiting list to get into public housing in the city. It found shattered glass on the ground, missing sewer and drain covers, roaches in apartments, malfunctioning appliances, and mold and mildew.
Perhaps most remarkably, the inspection found 64 percent of the units had missing or inoperable smoke detectors. Hunters View was the site of the 1997 fire that killed a grandmother and five children - due, a judge ruled, to the San Francisco Housing Authority not having installed a smoke detector.
In February 2004, soon after taking office, Newsom famously took a vanload of city department heads to tour Hunters View and expressed his frustration with the bullet-ridden basketball backboards, giant potholes and burned-out trash bins.
The city repaired many of the problems - and Newsom held a basketball tournament there called March Gladness.
On Wednesday, the mayor said he wasn't surprised by the dismal score for Hunters View, despite the city's efforts. The development is the first in line to be rebuilt under Newsom's Hope SF initiative, and city officials say it should be finished in five or six years.
"No one is defending it, and no one is surprised by it," Newsom said of the score. "It has long been one of the principal sources of concern in the Housing Authority. ... We did everything we could, but it wasn't good enough, and it became the inspiration and example for (Hope SF)."
Inspection scores have fallen sharply at Hunters View in the past few years, from 75 in 2004 to 47 in 2005 to the current 26. (Inspections are done, under HUD rules, for the previous fiscal year.)
Another public housing complex, Sunnydale in Visitacion Valley, got a 46 in its most recent inspection. That was the site on Saturday of Newsom's verbal tirade against the Housing Authority and HUD after finding that a plastic playground set built by the city with donated money from the Dave Matthews Band had been burned not once, but twice.
Gregg Fortner, the Housing Authority director, said HUD inspection scores are known to fluctuate wildly, sometimes jumping up and down and up again on any particular property.
"It takes into account a snapshot of what the development looks like on that day," he said. "It could be subject to the interpretation of one inspector versus another. It's a complicated system, and we just try to do the best we can within it."
A member of his staff accompanies inspectors and ensures that serious problems, such as missing smoke detectors, are fixed right away, Fortner said. In the case of smoke detectors, residents often rip them off the walls or take the batteries out, he said. Due to decreased funding from the federal government, Fortner has 370 staff members - down from 535 five years ago.
Newsom's Hope SF program hopes to revitalize Hunters View and seven other decrepit public housing developments in the city. The program is to start with $5 million in city general fund money as a down payment on $95 million in bonds that the city would float to rebuild Hunters View and another, undetermined housing complex.
The city expects to break ground on Hunters View in the spring of 2009 and finish the reconstruction in 2012 or 2013, according to Matt Franklin, director of the Mayor's Office of Housing.
That day can't come soon enough for Tessie Esther, head of the Hunters View Tenants' Association.
"These places are ratty and falling apart - I think it's ridiculous," she said Wednesday. "The maintenance is lousy, and you can't get anybody to come fix your housing. Some people have to wait almost three months just to get a light fixed in the hallway. You call the housing authority, and if they don't come, you're just in the dark."
A task force commissioned by Newsom in the spring found that Hunters View needs $18 million in capital work, and that all the developments in the city need a total of $268 million in capital work. Meanwhile, Franklin pointed out, HUD gives the San Francisco Housing Authority $14 million annually in capital funds.
"The housing authority has suffered from appalling disinvestment from the federal level for years," Franklin said. "We're very aware of the challenges of the physical conditions, and they are real and they are severe."
San Francisco Housing Authority applications for special federal Hope VI reconstruction grants have been rejected the last three times the agency sought the funding, from 1998 to 2002. The applications were for work on Hunters View.
Instead, Newsom is trying to raise money locally - including taking philanthropists on tours of public housing in the hopes of persuading them to donate.
"What's next - bake sales?" quipped former Mayor Art Agnos, a frequent critic of Newsom who has been appointed by a judge to become receiver of the Housing Authority.
The authority owes $15 million in legal judgments stemming from the 1997 house fire and two sexual harassment cases in the late 1990s. The agency maintains it hasn't gotten the required permission from HUD to pay the judgments.
The appointment of Agnos, former regional director of HUD, is being appealed by the Housing Authority, and a decision on the appeal is expected in the next month. Agnos on Wednesday called Hope SF "a palliative effort to distract attention from the real problems facing this housing authority."
He said Newsom's 31/2 years in office is enough time to do real work on the developments - not just come up with an initiative that won't amount to anything for years.
"Where's the sense of outrage about smoke detectors not working in apartments that have a history of killing children? Where's the sense of outrage about units that are boarded up when we have a burgeoning homeless problem?" he asked. "It's just incomprehensible."
E-mail Heather Knight at [email protected].
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/30/BAQ9RRNDA.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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