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Housing Authority looks to 311 to flush out backlog
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SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Public-housing tenants with mold-ravaged walls, broken locks and leaky roofs are facing a backlog of 3,200 work orders as all maintenance requests run through a single person before an order is issued.
Nearly 32,000 individuals live in the 6,200 units managed by the San Francisco Housing Authority, and with aging and rundown buildings, the maintenance requests became too numerous to do in a day’s work, said interim Housing Authority Director Mirian Saez, noting that the backlog used to be as high as 8,000 work orders.
Maintenance at Housing Authority sites is a long-standing issue with families living in apartments rife with mold, chipping paint, no heat and leaking pipes.
Some residents face eviction because they have simply stopped paying rent as a form of protest.
In an effort to rebuild the community’s trust in the maintenance system, the agency will switch from its current “broken” maintenance request system to using the 311 Customer Service Center to provide more accountability to residents, Saez said.
The 311 Call Center, launched in March 2007, is a 24-hour service delivered in 176 languages, according to the staff report. Currently, the single maintenance manager works Monday through Friday with an answering service taking after-hours calls, according to the report.
The 311 Call Center will begin taking maintenance calls from public housing tenants April 21, and Saez said she expected the number of work orders to jump because some residents just stopped making requests because they felt they would not be heard with the previous system.
Callers will be given a tracking number to keep tabs on work orders and they will receive a time estimate. Sara Shortt, director of the San Francisco Housing Rights Committee, a tenants advocacy group, called the switch “a step in the right direction” but cautioned that requesting the work was just half of the battle.
“There’s a whole other piece of it, which is getting the work order out there and getting the maintenance to do the work,” Shortt said.
Pauline, a disabled woman in her forties, has lived in Alice Griffith for two years and said that after she moved in her unit flooded and her place now has mold and heating problems, not to mention the sewage flowing in the area behind her house. She questioned whether switching to 311 would lead to more work being done.
“It will get more work orders there, but it doesn’t make any of the work done,” she said.
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Examiner Reader/Nadia said:
I have NO idea if you can help But Im going to take a shot at it - Last FRI there was Gun fire exchanged at my apartmnt complex right infront of my door. I have a month to month lease and have put in my 30 day notice to move out since i feel extremely unsafe. How can I move before the 30 days are up without being charged?
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Wai Yip Tung said:
By adding 60,000 units over 20 years, this housing 'boom' represent an annual growth rate of 0.77%.
3 agree | 4 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
No matter Mr. Metcalf's take on the real estate market, i have lived in SF since 1979 and, to the best of my knowledge, not a single-building boom has significantly effected the price of housing one way or the other, however, clearly (and arguably, unfortunately) real estate "bubbles" have. Even today's Chronicle states the Assessor's office in SF is overhwelmed with homeowners seeking a re-assessemnent of property values because of falling prices. My guess is that has more to do with the real estate "bubble" bursting than available housing on the market.
3 agree | 2 disagree
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Robin Ficker Broker Robin Realty said:
The county this year increased property tax revenues 14% with another huge increase expected next year. Reduce spending, and hence the next for more tax increases, by $500,000.
7 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner reader said:
Knapp might run against Leggett for County Executive? If that happened, Knapp would surely win. Given the choice of a fiscally irresponsible, clueless, pandering politition or a tool for the developers, the voters will probably choose the tool for the developers.
7 agree | 4 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Wow! It is unbelievable the amount of selfishness that I see in people who do live in these establishments. I suppose they have the mentality of give back to the community...but not on my block. Let me tell you...I ended up in this type of housing for a year. Thank GOD it was there! I relocated from LA to MD for a $120k/yr. job which I ended up being wrongfully terminated from when I caught pneumonia. As a single mother, an educated professional, worked in my field for 17 years...I was humbled. Don't let your fill yourself with so much gusto, God has a way of humbling those on their high horse.
2 agree | 2 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
hello my name is korena i live in jhonson homes which is pha/lowincome i am looking to get a transfer out of philly how can i do that
2 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Yeah, that's exactly what we need, project thugs in nice new developments. I don't think so!
3 agree | 6 disagree
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Reader said:
Get a fix it man and stop whining!
5 agree | 10 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
"Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation" Run by Thomas Perez, ex chairman of the board of Casa de Md. I wonder if he allowed illegal aliens to fix or certify the roof.
5 agree | 7 disagree
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Norwood Apts Reader said:
As a tenant at the Norwood I take issue with your characterization of tenants as welfare seekers. These tenants are working class low income people who work service jobs in DC. Some tenants work in the mail room at the White House, waiters at Old Ebbitt Grill, or cleaning offices. These people are the ones who help our city run and we deserve to have a decent place to live. By decent I mean demanding a proper working elevator that does not take 31 days to repair.
371 agree | 258 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Columbia doesn't need anymore housing.....Most of the individuals at the meeting, are those seeking welfare and goverment funded housing........
296 agree | 277 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
When will this new policy take place?
639 agree | 286 disagree
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Silver Springer said:
This is a remarkably important story and the Examiner deserves a lot of credit for digging it out. while bigger papers in Baltimore and Washington failed to do so. Mortgage regulators should have stopped the current binge of looney loans years ago. They failed to do so and now large numbers of homeowners are facing foreclosure -- and more will in the future. That's a terrible price to pay to sell more loans and to inflate short-term lender profits.
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