Homes Archives - Los Gatos News And Events

Khosla Ventures, Pear VC triple down on Honey Houses, a sensible strategy to rent a handyman

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:45:52 +0000

Apparently there is a great demand for on-call craftsmen.

Khosla Ventures and Pear VC just tripled their investment in Honey Homes, which provides a dedicated handyman to take care of all the tasks on a homeowner's to-do list. The company raised $9 million in a Series A funding round last June.

Era Ventures led the startup's most recent capital raise, an additional $9.25 million in funding that CEO and co-founder Vishwas Prabhakara called “an upside round.” (PitchBook estimated the startup's value at $39 million last June, though the company itself said that was “not accurate.”) In total, Honey Homes has raised $21.35 million in venture capital since its inception.

So what was the reason for the latest capital injection? A surge in member adoption. The company announced last fall that it had doubled its membership to “well over 1,000 members” in three months. It also grew annual recurring revenue by 3.6x by 2023. While the company declined to provide specific revenue numbers, Prabhakara said the company expects to “do the same and hit eight-digit ARR in 2024.” (Eight-digits is $10 million, of course.)

“Our team visits over 150 homes every day,” he added.

Husband and wife team Vishwas Prabhakara (Yelp's first CEO) and Avantika Prabhakara (former marketing director at Opendoor, Trulia, and Zillow) co-founded Honey Homes in 2021 with Katie Pham and Rory O'Connell. The startup, which launched with its first 10 beta customers in August of that year, hires the handyman as part of its staff. The handyman works as an employee to ensure that work is done consistently in a person's home.

Homeowners pay Honey Homes a flat fee for the convenience of an “end-to-end” membership-based service through the app. This fee ranges from $250 to $395 per month depending on location, although there are discounted annual plans available.

The way it works is that members are assigned a dedicated tradesman who comes by at least once a month to take care of renovations and preventative maintenance. Because employees are permanent, they also receive benefits like parental leave and paid vacation, a rarity in an industry that has traditionally relied on contract workers. However, if someone wants to try out different contract workers for variety, they have that option too.

Honey Homes is currently available to single-family homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area (including the city itself) as well as much of the Dallas-Fort Worth region. It recently launched in Los Angeles and is currently expanding there as well, with plans to expand further in Texas as well.

“We cover about five times more households in our service area than we did a year ago,” said Vishwas Prabhakara.

Honey Homes only launched in San Francisco earlier this year, but according to Vishwas Prabhakara, this market is currently the fastest growing.

“The city is a different caliber [than the suburbs],” he said. “There are parking issues, there are crime issues, there's a lot to think about. But now it's actually kind of our crown jewel, our fastest growing market.”

The startup is also adding new features, such as AI, to streamline workflow for its team of tradesmen and provide more “maintenance requests on autopilot.”

Interestingly, DoorDash co-founder Evan Moore sits on Honey Homes' board of directors, and another DoorDash veteran, Andrew Ladd, was hired last year to spearhead Honey Homes' product development.

Moore told TechCrunch last year that he believes Honey Homes is different from many other consumer startups in the home services space that simply connect homeowners with potential providers or “act as a concierge.” Competitors include Angi, TaskRabbit and Thumbtack, among others.

According to Vishwas Prabhakara, the company decided to pursue an extension instead of a Series B after concluding that it needed less capital to become profitable than previously expected. (The company aims to be profitable in the next few years.) In addition to membership revenue, the average homeowner spends over $750 per year on additional services provided by the service, such as purchasing replacement parts.

Honey Homes currently employs 75 people and has doubled its team of craftsmen from 25 to over 50.

Clelia Peters of Era Ventures said she chose to invest in Honey Homes because “high-quality home maintenance services from a dedicated handyman were typically reserved for only the wealthiest homeowners or those who owned condos and apartments with on-site caretakers.”

She believes the need for Honey Homes' offering will be even greater in a world where homeowners are required to stay in and maintain their homes for longer periods of time (due to the lock-in effect caused by skyrocketing interest rates).”

“In addition, we expect the trend towards home electrification to lead to greater demand for reliable advice and installation services. Honey Homes is well positioned to provide these services,” she added.

The post Khosla Ventures, Pear VC triple down on Honey Houses, a sensible strategy to rent a handyman appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Why do many San Francisco houses have working bogs in the course of their garages?

Wed, 15 May 2024 21:21:41 +0000

9:40 a.m. Tue, February 20, 2024

If you're driving through San Francisco, you might pass a house with the garage door open and be surprised by a toilet in the middle of the garage. What gives?

One theory is that these are examples of the “Pittsburgh toilet,” which originated in the Pennsylvania city in the early 20th century. (Video above.) Back then, steelworkers and miners used these individual toilets and accompanying sinks to relieve themselves and wash off the day's dirt before entering the house. But that may not be the case in San Francisco.

From SFGate:

San Francisco real estate agent Ciara Piron has a different theory for these toilets, at least the ones prevalent in the Sunset District. She has seen many of these standalone toilets while selling homes in the area and took it upon herself to do some research. She found that in 1928, 26 houses were built on just one block. This is a quick construction method, and it assumes that the workers building these houses would need somewhere else to “go” while the houses were being completed – portable toilets had yet to be invented.

Instead of removing the additional toilets after construction was completed, workers left the new homeowner to decide their fate[…]

Another popular theory for the existence of these toilets in San Francisco attributes them to some sort of plumbing protection. If there is a sewage backup in the home's system, it would likely erupt in that system at a lower level, where less damage is likely to occur and cleanup is easier.

The post Why do many San Francisco houses have working bogs in the course of their garages? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Research reveals over 1.1 million city folks in US stay in houses with out correct indoor plumbing

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 11:37:20 +0000

This article was reviewed in accordance with Science X's editorial process and guidelines. The editors highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the credibility of the content:

OK! Map of households without piped water access in the United States, 2013-2017. Note: Lighter areas indicate areas with a higher number of households without piped water. There are clusters of sanitation facilities in major cities and certain regions across the country. Photo credit: Katie Meehan.

× close

Map of households without piped water access in the United States, 2013-2017. Note: Lighter areas indicate areas with a higher number of households without piped water. There are clusters of sanitation facilities in major cities and certain regions across the country. Photo credit: Katie Meehan.

A team of researchers from King's College London, the University of Arizona and ECONorthwest has found that an estimated 1.1 million urban residents in the United States live in homes without proper indoor plumbing. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their analysis of census data for 50 of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. and what they learned about people living without standard indoor plumbing and related amenities.

In advanced countries such as the United States, most people are assumed to have basic amenities such as access to clean water and related facilities. In this new effort, researchers have found that this is not the case for many people living in some of the country's largest cities. In reality, many people, especially minorities, live indoors without proper plumbing.

The work involved analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the federal agency that conducts nationwide surveys every ten years. To learn more about access to running water, researchers focused on data from whether people had access to “full sanitation,” meaning a bath or shower. They found that for about 500,000 households in large urban areas, the answer was no.

Analyzing the data further, the researchers found that about 1.1 million people lived in such households. They also found a connection between a given city's wealth gap and the number of people living without running water. For example, they found that percent-wealthy cities like San Francisco, Portland and Austin had some of the highest rates of what they call plumbing poverty. Using raw numbers, they found that New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco had the most people living in plumbing poverty. They also found that race played a role. On average, blacks were 35 percent more likely to live in plumbing poverty than whites. They also found that sanitation poverty was most commonly found in rented facilities, particularly mobile homes.

More information:
Meehan et al., Geographies of insecure water access and housing-water connectivity in US cities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007361117

Magazine information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The post Research reveals over 1.1 million city folks in US stay in houses with out correct indoor plumbing appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“Ms. Daisy” lives lifetime of service serving to San Francisco aged, disabled stay of their houses

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 08:33:31 +0000

A San Francisco woman has spent more than a quarter century helping older adults and people with disabilities stay safely in their homes.

Daisy McArthur lives a life of service because she loves people.

“I say, 'Whatever you do, be patient, be kind and listen to them,'” she said.

At age 76, McArthur has worked for the city's Department of Home Support Services for more than 25 years. It helps low-income seniors and people with disabilities so they can stay in their own homes instead of moving into a facility.

She also serves as secretary to the board of directors. Her service is rooted in her Southern upbringing. As a child, she accompanied her mother and her neighbors during emergencies.

“We watched them take care of the elderly. People who got sick or were bitten by snakes broke a leg or an arm,” she described.

McArthur helps her clients with daily tasks such as bathing, dressing, cooking and laundry. She cared for a client for more than 30 years until he recently passed away at the age of 101. Before that, she looked after his 102-year-old mother.

The job isn't easy and can be lonely, but McArthur knows she's making a difference.

“I want to treat myself the way I would treat you, and that is kindness. The golden rule,” McArthur said.

Executive Director Eileen Norman says McArthur is the perfect role model, mentor and trainer for 22,000 home support service providers in San Francisco.

“Ms. Daisy is warm, loving, sensitive and matter-of-fact,” Norman said. “Above all, Ms. Daisy fights for what she believes in.”

When a fire destroyed her Bush Street apartment building 25 years ago, she fought for emergency relief and housing for three dozen other homeless tenants, earning her the nickname “Mayor of Bush Street.”

At the start of the COVID pandemic, McArthur and one of her clients became advocates for vaccinating older adults when many were skeptical of the vaccine.

She also organized memorial services and funerals for several homeless people she met.

Ultimately, McArthur just wants to help people succeed.

“I hope they remember the kindness, the goodness and the work I did,” she said. “There’s an old song: ‘May the work I do speak for me.”

This week's Bay Area Jefferson Award goes to Daisy McArthur for going above and beyond in providing home care and training.

More from CBS News

Sharon Chin

Sharon Chin is a general assignment reporter who also profiles Jefferson Award winners for KPIX 5 Eyewitness News. Since joining KPIX 5 in 1997, Chin has covered everything from fires to features, from politics to perspectives, but she is especially proud of bringing viewers the stories of Jefferson Award winners. She feels inspired when she tells the stories of our community's heroes.

The post “Ms. Daisy” lives lifetime of service serving to San Francisco aged, disabled stay of their houses appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Homeowners Of New San Jose Houses Fed Up With Falling Tiles, Plumbing Points

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:53:20 +0000

SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – Residents of a brand new San Jose neighborhood are fed up with home builder KB Home because of numerous issues that surfaced after they moved in.

Two weeks after KPIX 5 first reported on dangerous falling tiles and other construction problems at KB Home's new Communications Hill community, neighbors are still wondering whether their homes are safe and whether the builder will fix them.

“I've heard from other homeowners that they're going to take care of it individually,” said Joe Ponte, owner of one of the homes.

On October 6, KB sent an unusual warning to all new homeowners not to stand under their homes because heavy porcelain tiles could come loose and fall up to two stories high.

Falling tiles found in a new KB Home project on Communications Hill in San Jose. (CBS)

The tiles, which are as thick as floor tiles, are used as decorative cladding in most houses in the settlement. But several of them broke away and fell to the ground.

“I think, oh my God. “What did I get myself into when I bought this house?” Ponte said.

A spokesperson for KB Home declined an interview request but sent a statement to KPIX 5 saying, “We have replaced all exterior tiles that required replacement and provide warranty customer service in response to warranty claims from our customers. We look forward to continuing to work with our homeowners until they are completely satisfied with their KB Home purchase.

KB housing project on Communications Hill in San Jose. (CBS)

Tile isn't the only construction problem homeowners have encountered.

Ponte said he spent months haggling with KB over his bathroom floor, which wasn't level when he moved in.

Additionally, poor waterproofing in the bathroom led to leaks and water damage to the ceiling and walls on the first floor. He said KB paid for the damage and they only agreed to repair the floor.

“This should never have happened in the first place,” Ponte told KPIX 5.

His neighbor's house has exterior gaps and unpainted surfaces.

Another neighbor, Stephanie Silcott, said she has had problems with the plumbing.

“I just don’t think there’s enough manpower to provide the service that was promised,” Silcott told KPIX 5.

Ponte said he expects KB to provide an action plan and timeline for resolving the issues.

A construction worker told KPIX 5 that crews were under pressure to complete the work as quickly as possible and that may explain the problems. KB Home has flatly rejected this accusation.

More from CBS News

The post Homeowners Of New San Jose Houses Fed Up With Falling Tiles, Plumbing Points appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The three costliest properties on the San Francisco market now

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 15:53:29 +0000

2022 has been a tough year for luxury homes on the public market. The situation is a dramatic reversal from 2021, when luxury homes enjoyed an unprecedented demand both nationally and locally in San Francisco.

Starting in 2020 and rising to a crescendo in 2021, the pandemic changed homebuyer priorities. The desire for sanctuary put a premium on large homes on large lots, properties that could offer work-from-home offices, gyms and outdoor amenities.

This graph from Compass shows the fire that was San Francisco’s luxury market in 2021.

compass

Last year, the median sale price of US luxury homes jumped 26.5% to a record-breaking price of $990,000 in the second quarter of 2021.

This graph shows what a difference a year made for the San Francisco luxury market.

compass

According to these numbers, luxury home sales are down over 50% year over year.

“2022 saw the end of a very long, very dramatic upcycle in Bay Area luxury real estate, which peaked in spring 2022, and then moved into the significant market correction still in process,” Patrick Carlisle, Compass’ chief market analyst, told SFGATE .

By mid-2022, economic conditions such as rising inflation and interest rates coupled with falling stock values “started to let the air out of overpressurized markets,” Carlisle said. But, he hastened to add that this past year was not “a crash on the highway at high-speed; nothing like the 2008 meltdown, but a significant slowing nonetheless, a decline in confidence and an increase in uncertainty.”

As to what’s coming in 2023, Carlisle reasoned that San Francisco’s luxury market will remain in a holding pattern: “Affluent homebuyers — daily readers of stock markets and financial news — tend to hold back during such times to see how things are going to settle out .”

Here are the three most expensive listings of 2022, all three of which, it appears, will have to wait until the new year for a new owner.

3450 Washington St. is still San Francisco’s most expensive listing.

Christopher Sturman

1. 3450 Washington St.

When this 9,578-square-foot Albert Farr mansion in Presidio Heights came to market, the asking price was $45 million, which made it the most expensive single-family listing in the city. And even after a price cut of $5.5 million, this opulently remodeled 1930s home was still SF’s priciest. After more than 80 days on the market, the $39.5 million home is the priciest unsold as well.

The penthouse at 2006 Washington is still unsold in San Francisco.

SFARMLS

2. 2006 Washington St.

This three-bedroom, five-bathroom penthouse abode offers stunning panoramic views from its wrap-around terrace. It’s a stock cooperative crowning a trophy tower in Pacific Heights. When this home came to market, it too had grander ideas about its price, originally asking $45 million in October of 2021. Now, more than a year later, that price has been trimmed to $35 million. This home was also second on our list last year.

9 25th Ave. has history, views and one of the few private pools in the city all for sale for $32 million.

Brian Kitts, Brian Kitts

3. 9 25th Ave.

Our third most expensive unsold home not only overlooks the sea, but also offers direct access to the beach. This 7,540-square-foot mansion was the home and studio of famous interior designer Michael Taylor, whose signature “California Look” is at its best in this home. Despite its beauty, Sea Cliff location, and even a private pool, the $32 million abode has yet to sell.

The post The three costliest properties on the San Francisco market now appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

‘It is Been a Combat for Our Houses’: The Ongoing Saga to Repair San Francisco’s Sewers

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 22:44:21 +0000

Sanchez walked her street with an album full of photographs and news clippings as she retold stories of the floods.

Pointing to one house, she recalled the death of her neighbor’s dog in 2004 when six feet of water poured into their garage shorting the electrical outlets. That family has since left the neighborhood.

The same 2004 flood devastated Sanchez’s home.

“I lost everything that was down in the basement,” Sanchez said. “My pictures, memories, things that I had from my kids, a sewing machine, everything that I had.”

The loss of irreplaceable items was only the start. The flooding damaged her home’s foundation, warped her garage door, left her drywall contaminated with mold, and flooded her backyard garden with residential, commercial and industrial waste.

Maria (left) and her mother, Victoria Sanchez, stand in front of their home on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

“We didn’t have flood insurance because we couldn’t afford it,” said Sanchez’s daughter Maria. “The house’s foundation is still damaged to this day.”

Neighbors recounted similar experiences of a 2014 flood that once again inundated Mission Terrace homes and businesses with sewage.

“We are always on edge for the next rain,” Sanchez said. “Until this is fixed, the flooding will likely happen again.”

Mission Terrace isn’t the only San Francisco neighborhood to suffer problems with destructive flooding that both residents and government agencies trace to the city’s failure to upgrade sections of its sewer system.

A home along Cayuga with permanent sandbags. (Courtesy of Casey Michie)

Frustrated with the inaction by the San Francisco government, neighbors from several neighborhoods, including parts of the Mission and West Portal areas, have banded together in a campaign called Solutions Not Sandbags to demand action from the city.

Problems with the sewer system have also drawn the attention of state and federal regulators.

In 2021, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a cleanup and abatement order, and the flooding prompted an order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the city to begin monitoring and reporting sewage overflows like the ones on Cayuga Avenue.

A house is surrounded by sandbags on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

A review of hundreds of pages of court documents and studies, interviews with a dozen residents, experts and officials from multiple government agencies shows San Francisco has delayed upgrading sections of sewers that continue to cause damage to residents’ property.

“This flooding isn’t just rainwater,” said David Hooper, an advocate with Solutions Not Sandbags. “This is water mixed with sewage waste, this is contamination.”

Why it floods on Cayuga Avenue

Apart from some older sections of downtown Sacramento, San Francisco is the only California city served by a sewer system that collects both wastewater and stormwater in a single set of pipes.

According to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, each day the system handles roughly 80 million gallons of residential, commercial and industrial wastewater that is treated before being discharged into the bay or ocean.

When it rains, stormwater increases that flow dramatically, and city facilities collect and treat up to 500 million gallons a day.

Heavy rains can overwhelm the system, requiring excess flows of mixed sewage and stormwater to be discharged into nearby waters — something the SFPUC says happens about 10 times a year on average.

But sometimes those heavy flows hit bottlenecks in the system, forcing sewage up onto neighborhood streets before it can reach the discharge points.

One of the bottlenecks lies downstream of Cayuga Avenue, where a sewer main beneath Alemany Boulevard can’t handle the volume of water that arrives during prolonged heavy rain.

A map from the 2010 Sewer System Master Plan by the San Francisco Public Works showing where flood complaints are located on Cayuga Avenue and predictions of where floods will take place next over 5 years. (Courtesy of San Francisco Public Works)

Models created by the city’s Public Works department show that a five-year storm — a storm with a 20% chance of occurring in any given year — will trigger flows that exceed the capacity of the pipe beneath the boulevard and lead to flooding of Lower Alemany and along Cayuga Avenue.

Cayuga’s geographic setting is also a problem. The street runs downhill along the course of a natural stream. The lower, eastern end of the street butts up against Interstate 280 — which essentially acts as a dam to water flowing down the street. When the Alemany sewer main backs up, the lack of drainage further complicates the flooding in the area.

“Initially the Public Utilities Commission’s argument was that it’s the watershed causing the flooding, claiming that more green infrastructure will solve the problem,” said Lisa Dunseth, an advocate of Solutions Not Sandbags. “The problem is actually a structural engineering issue where the sewers are too small. And they knew it. And it’s been that way for over 50 years.”

In fact, problems with sewer capacity downstream of the Mission Terrace neighborhood were known more than 50 years ago.

In 1964, a project to enlarge a section of the sewer along lower Alemany Boulevard was listed as one of dozens of projects that might benefit from a bond issue on the city’s June ballot. The bond passed, but the sewer improvements never materialized.

Throughout the 1970s, improvements in the area were sidelined as the city invested in higher-priority projects to comply with new requirements enacted by the federal Clean Water Act.

In 2009 — five years after the flooding that beset Cayuga Avenue and destroyed Victoria Sanchez’s belongings — the SFPUC commissioned a new analysis of the sewer system and suggested needed improvements.

The resulting 2010 Sewer System Master Plan acknowledged the sewer bottleneck problem in the neighborhood and proposed two possible solutions costing roughly $250 million according to documents. A less costly “eastward solution” proposed building a 6,000-foot auxiliary sewer under Alemany Boulevard to aid in handling high flows during rain events, while the preferred “westward” solution recommended constructing a relief sewer that would route flow from the Cayuga area to terminate at Ocean Beach.

The 2010 Sewer System Master Plan evolved into the 2012 Sewer System Improvement Project in which the Lower Alemany solutions were not included due to “budget constraints and a desire to evaluate an integrated approach to Lower Alemany including gray and green infrastructure,” according to a statement from the SFPUC.

The continued inaction has led to further flooding and subsequent damage of residents’ homes in recent years. Nancy Huff and Bob Popko, who bought their house on Cotter Street in the Mission Terrace neighborhood in 2012, recounted a flood that occurred in 2014.

“We lost boxes and boxes of old childhood photographs. Things that were irreplaceable were just totally gone,” Huff said. “We had to replace the downstairs bathroom that had just been put in within less than a year. We had to cut out the damaged drywall, the tiling was ruined. It all had to be replaced because it just wouldn’t dry.”

After the 2014 flood, some Mission Terrace residents filed suit against the city and began demanding answers from officials at public meetings.

“The city was not responsive,” said Huff. “That is why there have been two lawsuits from this neighborhood against the city, both of which the city lost. We had the SFPUC and [former SFPUC Director] Harlan Kelly on our street over and over and over again, and they were just very hand-wavy and noncommittal on the issue.”

In 2018, eight years after the publication of the Sewer System Master Plan that identified needed improvements, the SFPUC included the Lower Alemany area into the Sewer System Improvement Plan.

“It’s kind of sad to me that San Francisco is not helping its residents, because we do pay property taxes like everyone else,” said Maria Sanchez.

State and federal regulators step in

The Clean Water Act requires cities to maintain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, which outlines the conditions under which pollutants can be released into waters under federal jurisdiction.

NPDES permits must be renewed every five years, and in 2019 San Francisco challenged new requirements added to its Oceanside Treatment Plant permit.

According to a requirement in the new permit, San Francisco would have to report discharges at any point of the sewer system, not just from outfalls along the coast.

In 2020, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board denied San Francisco’s challenges to the new permit. In a decision denying review, the board said the new reporting requirement is “an appropriate mechanism … to determine whether the permitted combined sewer system is operating in compliance with the permit, including the requirement to maximize storage without increasing upstream flooding into basements and streets, which can negatively impact human health and the environment.”

The new permit is currently on hold pending a city appeal to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Amid the city’s wrangling with the EPA, the regional branch of the state’s water quality agency also got involved in the issue of overflowing sewers. Under an agreement hammered out last year, the city will comply with an order from the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board to address flooding issues in three neighborhoods.

A scanned picture from Victoria Sanchez’s photo album of the aftermath of flooding along Cayuga Avenue on Feb. 25, 2004. (Photo courtesy of Victoria Sanchez)

The order requires the city to invest up to $600 million to fix the chronic overflow problems near 15th Avenue and Wawona Street in the city’s West Portal neighborhood, 17th and Folsom in the Mission and Lower Alemany downstream of Cayuga Avenue.

The project to address flooding in West Portal broke ground last year, with an estimated completion date of spring 2024.

The projects to remedy flooding at 17th and Folsom and Lower Alemany are still in the planning phases.

“The settlement will also allow the city one year to assess alternative designs for the projects that will benefit the Folsom and Lower Alemany neighborhoods,” said Joseph Sweiss, SFPUC press secretary. “Potential approaches involve both traditional capacity improvements and surface improvements, such as green infrastructure.”

During the SFPUC commission meeting on April 12, documents were presented outlining the potential solutions to address the flooding in the Lower Alemany and Cayuga areas.

The Alemany auxiliary solution, which was first proposed in the 1964 bond measure and then again in the 2010 Sewer System Master Plan, would install 6,000 feet of a 10-foot diameter pipe to alleviate pressure on the Alemany sewer.

Documents show that design completion for the Lower Alemany project is forecast for July 2024. The project is forecast to be complete in March 2028.

Still, residents of Mission Terrace are skeptical given the city’s track record with large capital improvement projects.

“If you look at Van Ness [rapid bus project], if you look at the Central Subway, construction on both projects were way over budget and years out of date,” Hooper said.

The SFPUC acknowledges that the sewer improvements will take time.

“Since these complex and large-scale capital projects take years, the SFPUC provides support and resources tailored to these neighborhoods, including but not limited to flood insurance resources, free sandbags coordinated and delivered to these residents, and expanded stormwater grants up to $100,000 to upgrade properties for stronger resilience and flood prevention measures,” said Sweiss.

And while this is good news for many residents, it is also frustrating that it has taken this long.

A house is surrounded by sandbags on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

“Sandbags aren’t the answer. The Public Utilities Commission has given us the runaround time and time again, it took the State to step in to solve an issue that has been ongoing for decades,” said Dunseth of Solutions Not Sandbags.

For residents in Mission Terrace who sit in homes fortified by rows of sandbags anxiously anticipating the next rain, it’s now become a waiting game. Will the Alemany sewer, which the city has delayed upgrading for decades, be fixed in time to prevent yet another flood?

“It’s a hard issue of waiting until things settle down with the court system and planning and everything that goes on with that,” said Maria Sanchez. “While in the meantime, we have to sit here in a house that’s pretty much falling down because they can’t get their s— together.”

KQED’s Dan Brekke contributed to this story.

The City College of San Francisco Journalism Department produced this article. This project was supported by California Humanities Emerging Journalist Fellowship Program. For more information, visit www.calhum.org.

Any views or findings expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The post ‘It is Been a Combat for Our Houses’: The Ongoing Saga to Repair San Francisco’s Sewers appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

61,000 houses are empty in San Francisco: report

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 04:50:24 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Every night in San Francisco, more than 4,000 people sleep on the streets without any form of shelter. In the same city, tens of thousands of homes are vacant without a single person sleeping inside.

“It is devastating to realize that for every person sleeping on the streets tonight, there are 14 vacant homes in our city,” county supervisor Dean Preston said.

KRON On is streaming news live now

A new report released Thursday by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst Office revealed that a staggering 61,473 homes were vacant in San Francisco in 2021. The number of vacant homes skyrocketed from 40,000 in 2019 to over 60,000 in 2021 — a 52 percent increase in just two years, according to the report.

That means that an estimated 15 percent of all homes in San Francisco are empty, by far the highest rate among major cities in the country, the report found.

“In a city where the cost of housing is out of reach for most working people, and with thousands of homeless people living on our streets, it is immoral and inhumane to have tens of thousands of homes sitting empty,” said Preston. “The dramatic increase in just two years shows the dire need for policy intervention to turn these empty units into places where people can live.”

(Data courtesy the SF Budget and Legislative Analyst Office)

In addition to having the highest overall residential vacancy rate, San Francisco also has the highest share of units that are vacant for seasonal, recreational or occasional use — more than 10,000 homes – such as vacation homes.

Homes that are “For Rent” but still remain vacant increased by 142% in just two years. “This data tells us that landlords are holding out on renting their units, waiting for a market rebound so they can charge more in rent,” Preston said. “We need to incentivize them to get their units back on the market and provide housing to San Franciscans in need.”

Meanwhile, 7,754 people can’t afford rent. The city’s most recent homeless census found 4,397 San Franciscans are living on the streets and 3,357 are sleeping in shelters.

The report noted policy interventions that could help reduce the number of vacant units in San Francisco, such as a tax on vacant units.

This November, San Francisco voters will decide whether to adopt an Empty Homes Tax. The proposed law will tax owners of buildings of three units or more, where a residential unit has been vacant for more than six months in a given year. The tax rate is higher for larger units, and it increases the longer a home is kept vacant.

This decaying, 122-year-old Victorian marketed as “the worst house on the best block” of San Francisco sold in 2022 for nearly $2 million — an eye-catching price that the realtor said was the outcome of overbidding in an auction. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

The report’s authors wrote, “While new housing supply can be a primary contributor to
affordability … large numbers of vacant units in cities with existing housing shortages can also impact affordability by further restricting supply. Some units may be vacant due to owner preferences and actions that are inconsistent with policy goals of maximizing the City’s housing stock for residents.”

The post 61,000 houses are empty in San Francisco: report appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

These San Francisco houses bought for lower than $1M in November

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 12:38:28 +0000

Six-figure homes in San Francisco are an ultra-rare commodity, as our monthly perusal through Zillow listings has repeatedly proved. In November 2022, at least 11 properties sold for less than $1 million; as far as the world’s eighth-most expensive city is concerned, that’s actually (sadly) a solid number.

What does a home in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars actually get you, though? Usually, a few bedrooms, one bath (sometimes two) and, if you’re lucky, some refurbished interior space.

Below, check out our November Zillow findings, including a Potrero Hill steal, and some deeply depressing reality checks about how much these same properties went for in recent decades.

2034 19th Ave.

Neighborhood: Sunset District

Sold for: $905,000

The listing describes this two-bedroom, two-bathroom home as “livable but ready for a makeover.” If that doesn’t quite entice you, the bay windows on both floors and the fairly ample kitchen counter space might.