SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: THE PRICE OF BEING POOR
How San Francisco Rewards Corporate Landlords Who Neglect Its Most Vulnerable Residents with Multi-Million Dollar Contracts
They called it affordable housing. Tenants describe something closer to abandonment: sewage backups, boarded windows, unsafe buildings, and a system that punishes those who complain.
After months of reporting, this investigation asks why City Hall continues rewarding the very companies accused of failing San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents.
CLOSED DOOR LEGAL
How San Francisco Gives Millions to a Nonprofit That Refuses to Serve the Black Community It Claims to Represent
Part 2
SAN FRANCISCO — Virginia Jones walked into that courtroom believing someone had her back.
She is a senior citizen; a longtime resident of Bayview-Hunters Point. A woman who has lived through decades of broken promises to Black San Franciscans. And when a contractor sought payment for flooring work she says was faulty and improperly performed, she turned to Open Door Legal—the nonprofit that promised access to justice for people with nowhere else to turn.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 3:
Silence Is a Choice
The Case Against City Attorney David Chiu and Mayor Daniel Lurie
This is not a matter of policy disagreement. This is a matter of enforceable law, documented violations, and the deliberate non-use of government authority in the face of ongoing harm.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 4:
The People Fight Back
SAN FRANCISCO — There is a point where silence stops being endured and starts being challenged.
That point has been reached.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 4:
The People Fight Back
STATEMENT OF CORRECTION
This is not a matter of policy disagreement. This is a matter of enforceable law, documented violations, and the deliberate non-use of government authority in the face of ongoing harm.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR – PART 5:
THE EDGE – ERRIS EDGERLY
I ask our followers to take the time to watch this video (link below), and if you have a friend or family member that lives in Public Housing and they have a story of ignored habitability issues….Please let me know.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 7:
“Built on Promises, Standing on Questions: What Is Really Happening Inside Alice Griffith Apartments?”
The land was studied. The risks were known. The mitigation was required. So why are residents now asking whether the system designed to protect them is failing in real time?
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR – PART 8:
“The Moment the Room Saw It: Evidence, Exposure, and the Question the City Can No Longer Avoid”
The room changed the moment the video was shown. It wasn’t loud. There was no chaos. No one needed to shout. Because once it appeared—once the image settled into view—there was no longer anything to debate.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 9:
“Built on Promises, Managed by Contradictions”
SAN FRANCISCO – The letters did not arrive by mail. They were taped to the doors.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR REACHES PINOLE – PART 10:
A Single Mother Beat the John Stewart Company. Then, the Same Day She Settled, They Moved to Evict Her Again.
For nearly a year, this reporter has documented what tenants inside San Francisco’s Alice Griffith Apartments have described as a system of neglect, retaliation, and institutional indifference operating under the management of the John Stewart Company. Across nine installments of “The Price of Being Poor,” residents have described mold, rodents, sewage failures, structural deterioration, broken elevators, unsafe living conditions, and a reported cluster of deaths that they insist demands independent scrutiny.