San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/noah-arroyo/page/2/)
Noah Arroyo is a local enterprise and accountability journalist based in San Francisco. He worked as a staff reporter and editor here at the San Francisco Public Press for six years. He was then a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext project, which examined the city's biggest problems and their potential solutions. Noah returned to our newsroom in March 2024 as managing editor.
California could see widespread evictions next month because of government delays in getting federal funds to renters, tenant groups warn.
Tenants throughout the state will still be waiting for rent assistance by April, when their pending applications will cease to protect them from eviction for those debts, the groups said in a report Tuesday.
If you’re a tenant facing a COVID-19 hardship, it can be difficult to understand how you are — and are not — protected from eviction. Here’s what you need to know.
Tenants across San Francisco will gain new collective bargaining powers to affect conditions in their buildings, thanks to a move by lawmakers Tuesday.
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved protections for tenants to form associations, akin to labor unions, that can negotiate with landlords over a wide range of concerns, including issues like construction schedules and even helping tenants pay off debts taken on to cover rents, often called “shadow debt.”
Groundbreaking tenant protections just got closer to becoming a reality in San Francisco.
City supervisors Monday gave the initial thumbs-up to legislation to protect the formation of tenant associations that, like unions, could collectively bargain with landlords. The three-person Rules Committee voted unanimously to approve the protections, which now move to the full Board of Supervisors.
This interview is part of our February 2022 election guide. The Public Press and “Civic” are only publishing highlights from interviews with candidates on our audio platforms, but we are making extended transcripts available to add context. These transcripts have been edited for clarity.
Sylvie Sturm
Can you recap for me? How has your experience been in your very first election campaign that you’ve been going through?
Joaquín Torres
It’s been it’s been pretty amazing to be a first-time citywide candidate and being able to reconnect with so many communities, so many neighborhoods, so many old friends who I’ve been serving in one role or another throughout my time since I started public service back in December of 2009.
Sylvie Sturm
Why are you running for this office in particular?
Joaquín Torres
Well, I I’ve been looking for another way to serve. I started my career in public service and neighborhood services and really tried to learn the foundation of local government city service work from that perspective of: What is the front desk like of constituent services?
As much as two-thirds of the rent assistance requested in San Francisco because of COVID-19 hardships will fail to reach tenants in time to protect them from eviction this spring if current trends continue, Public Press projections show.
The company generally recognized as San Francisco’s largest landlord has rejected demands by more than 1,200 tenants to help all the company’s renters recover from COVID-19 hardships.
A new audit found that few retrofitted buildings have a suspected gas line hazard that caused an uproar earlier this year. But it’s not all good news. Hundreds of buildings overshot the retrofit program’s deadline for seismic work.
Residents of San Francisco’s Treasure Island suffered half a dozen power outages in the three months after electrical upgrades were completed this July. That’s just the latest episode in what’s been an ongoing problem for the island.
Renters throughout San Francisco could gain power to lessen COVID-19 financial hardships and improve conditions in their buildings with political-organizing tools that have a history of success in subsidized housing.
