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 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 6: :
It lasted one hour on Friday, April 10, 2026, but the impact may last much longer.
In a tightly focused, one-hour virtual meeting moderated by this journalist, tenants from across San Francisco delivered direct testimony to Special Assistant Attorney General Alex Fisch of the California Department of Justice. What unfolded was not a scattered series of complaints—it was a cohesive, citywide record of harm, built in real time by residents who have spent years trying to be heard.
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.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 11:
A Tale of Two Standards
Lurie’s Cleanliness Crackdown on Nonprofits — While Publicly Subsidized Housing Tenants Keep Living With Sewage, Garbage, Mold, Broken Elevators, and Rats!!
SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco is preparing to hold hundreds of City-funded service providers to a new neighborhood-cleanliness standard
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 12:
THE DAY THE CITY ANSWERED
Mayor Lurie and City Attorney Chiu Deliver a First-of-Its-Kind Reckoning for Alice Griffith — and the Community That Refused to Be Silenced Made It Happen
SAN FRANCISCO — Some days, the story you have spent a year writing turns a corner you did not know was coming. Today is one of those days.
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 13:
Two Buildings, One Blueprint
Plaza East warned us. Alice Griffith confirmed it. Now the man who has lived inside both stories — as tenant, as plaintiff, and as developer — is asking the question City Hall has avoided for two decades: while billions flow into Black San Francisco's neighborhoods, who gets to own what gets built — and who pays when it fails?
THE PRICE OF BEING POOR — PART 14
When a Few Dollars Can Cost You a Home
Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s proposal would set a minimum rent debt before a tenant can be evicted for nonpayment. After months of reporting on San Francisco’s housing crisis, the question is no longer simply what housing costs — but how easily a family can lose it.
SAN FRANCISCO — For months, I have walked into apartments where tenants showed me ceilings that leaked, elevators that did not work, sewage that backed up, rats that would not leave and repairs that never seemed to come.
