While many Silicon Valley companies are taking tough measures to return their employees to the office, the U.S. Department of Health is urging workers in San Francisco to stay home indefinitely.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the stay-at-home recommendation was issued on August 4 because of concerns about the safety of workers at the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building downtown, an area that has become a popular hangout for drug dealers and users.

“Given the conditions at [federal building]we recommend that employees … maximize the use of telework to the extent possible for the foreseeable future,” Cheryl R. Campbell, HHS deputy secretary for administration, wrote in a memo.

It's unclear whether other federal departments in the building have given their employees similar instructions. The memo was issued the same day the White House called for more employees to return to their desks in the coming weeks.

Around the same time the memo was sent, Rep. Nancy Pelosi herself met with the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California to express her concerns about the safety of workers in the building. (Pelosi's staff has not been advised to work from home, the Chronicle reported.)

The federal building is guarded by the Federal Protective Service, which works with the San Francisco Police Department. Still, the area is teeming with dealers, and drug users congregate on the concrete benches lining the property (and consume the product they buy).

San Francisco's downtown/central business district is more depressed than almost any other post-pandemic area — and some economists fear it's at the beginning of a “vicious spiral” in which empty office buildings and crime lead to more absenteeism and higher crime rates. Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie have all closed their branches, and many local stores have shuttered. And crime is up. Shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries are locked away at downtown pharmacies. And armed robbers recently raided a Gucci store in broad daylight.

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A Northern California man and woman are accused of luring a repairman into a home, beating him and holding him against his will for about six hours while they forced him, at risk to his life, to repair a dishwasher and other appliances.

Jason DeJesus, 36, and Chanelle Troedson, 33, were charged with false imprisonment and other crimes Thursday, three days after they were arrested in the attack on the 50-year-old handyman, Santa Clara County authorities said.

Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza told The Associated Press the attack stemmed from a dispute between the handyman and a relative of DeJesus over payment for work he did at the relative's home about two months ago.

The suspects lured the handyman to the home in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Morgan Hill on Monday morning with the promise of receiving money owed to him and completing other work. Instead, the craftsman was immediately attacked, Cardoza said.

“He was scared, just seconds after he entered the house he was scared,” the sheriff's sergeant said.

According to Cardoza, the suspects repeatedly threatened and beat the repairman and forced him to repair equipment over the next approximately six hours. They then forced him into his truck and told him that they would take him to the relative's house to complete the work done there.

The repairman managed to escape and call authorities when the suspects stopped in San Jose to get gas.

He had visible injuries but refused to be taken to a hospital, Cardoza said. The man's name has not been released.

DeJesus and Troedson were also charged with kidnapping during a carjacking, kidnapping for the purpose of robbery, assault and battery.

They were expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon. It was not immediately clear whether any of the suspects had an attorney.

—

Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, https://www.sfgate.com

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Nancy Pelosi's namesake building is not safe for federal workers. Ever Countess – Getty Images for TIME

While many Silicon Valley companies are working hard to bring workers back to the office, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is urging San Francisco workers to stay home indefinitely.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the stay-at-home advisory was issued on August 4 due to safety concerns for workers at the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building downtown. The area is now regularly visited by drug dealers and users.

“Given the conditions on [federal building]“We recommend that our employees maximize their use of telework for the foreseeable future,” HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl R. Campbell wrote in a memo.

It is unclear whether other federal departments in the building have issued similar guidance to their employees. The memo was issued the same day the White House called for more staff to return to their desks in the coming weeks.

Around the same time the memo was sent, Rep. Nancy Pelosi herself met with the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California to express her concerns about the safety of workers in the building. (Pelosi's employees were not advised to work remotely, the Chronicle reported.)

The federal building is protected by the Federal Protective Service, which coordinates with the San Francisco Police Department. Still, the area is littered with dealers, and drug users congregate (and consume the product they buy) on the concrete benches along the property.

San Francisco's downtown/central business district is more depressed than almost any other in the wake of the pandemic – and some economists fear it is at the beginning of a “doom loop” in which empty office buildings and crime lead to further absenteeism and higher levels of crime. Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie have all closed their locations and many local businesses have closed. And crime is increasing. Shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries are locked in downtown pharmacies. And armed robbers recently held up a Gucci store in broad daylight.

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Hundreds of San Francisco Department of Health and Human Services employees have been ordered to work from home due to high crime rates in the office's area, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The department recommended employees work remotely “for the foreseeable future,” the report said, citing an Aug. 4 memo sent to employees, a copy of which the Chronicle said it obtained.

The advice was given to workers “in light of conditions at the (Federal Building),” said Cheryl R. Campbell, the department's assistant secretary for administration, according to the report.

The Federal Building is located at 90 7th Street in San Francisco, a known drug hotspot where drug dealers often hawk near or across the street from the building, the Chronicle reported.

Two men were indicted in May on suspicion of conducting drug deals in front of federal building surveillance cameras, according to a June news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

San Francisco has struggled with a drug epidemic and a homelessness crisis in recent years.

The California governor's office said in June that the California Highway Patrol had seized more than four kilos of fentanyl in the Tenderloin and the “immediate area” of San Francisco in just six weeks.

It was claimed that this was “enough to kill the entire population of the city almost three times over.”

Elon Musk has also spoken out about crime in the city where his company X, formerly known as Twitter, is headquartered.

“Violent crime in SF is terrible,” Musk said in a tweet in April.

After the fatal knife attack on Cash App inventor Bob Lee, many described San Francisco as a “lawless” place to live.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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South San Francisco home owners will now need to bring their sewer lateral lines up to code before selling their homes, following a City Council vote establishing the new rule.

Sewer laterals are the pipes that connect toilets and drains from private properties to the city’s main sewer lines. The city estimated more than a third of houses in the city had such pipes that were at risk of failure and would likely be affected.

Mark Addiego

“These provisions help to ensure that the new property owner is not stuck with an unanticipated costly repair,” said Public Works Director Eunejune Kim. “We estimate that 35% of residents have orangeburg sewer laterals in our city, and those are the ones that have that material that is basically paper and tar that are beyond their useful life.”

Kim said the city had worked with the San Mateo County Association of Realtors to draft the ordinance such that it “exports expedient real estate transactions while protecting our environment and our community.”

The rule puts the city in compliance with a regional water board requirement for cities that discharge into the San Francisco Bay, according to City Manager Mike Futrell.

Council member Mark Addiego estimated replacing the pipe can cost upwards of $15,000. He requested the city also look at ways to connect multiple nearby property owners who need the pipes replaced as a means of reducing individual costs as well as mitigating disruptions to road paving. He pointed out the task usually entails tearing up a portion of the street.

“I have always thought this was the least we could do at the point of sale,” he said. “We probably know from permits where these are failing, and anything that was built in the ’50s and ’60s and expected to last 50 years is decades beyond that currently.”

Kim said most homes that have undergone major renovations or rebuilds have been brought up to code, but “those homes that haven’t done any major triggering events, a lot of them haven’t been inspected for a very long time. This is hoping to capture those that are going through the sale process.”

San Mateo, San Bruno, Millbrae and Burlingame are among other cities in the county that have passed similar ordinances in recent years. Some cities have rebate programs to help offset costs.

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A few months ago, I came across a curious listing for a restaurant experience where you pay to spend a day in the life of a chef.

The chef is David Yoshimura of Nisei, the fine dining Japanese restaurant in Russian Hill. I’ll admit, at first I thought the idea was pretty hilarious, charging customers $775, or $1,012 with tax and gratuity, for what seemed like a chef influencer event, glamorizing and overcharging for a peek at how the restaurant sausage is made. The experience, available to just one customer each Saturday, consists of going to the farmers’ market, then going back to the kitchen to prep and cook, and ends with an 11-course dinner.

Essentially, you’re paying more than $1,000 to work a shift at a restaurant. Is this how rich people like to spend their money? I couldn’t believe it.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked. In recent years, we’ve seen luxury dining experiences proliferate in San Francisco and the Bay Area, with “farm experiences” from restaurants like Quince and Avery as well as services like Ritual, an opulent supper club that flies in chefs from around the world for dinners that cost nearly $1,000 per person. Restaurants are tapping into their wealthiest clients with tiered experiences and high-end extras. Was the Nisei experience just that, some kind of savvy side hustle from an up-and-coming chef? A wild new wealth tax perhaps?

To my surprise, my editors thought it would be a good story if I reviewed the experience and tried to find out. I agree. Delighted by the oddness of it all, I booked it, excited to peek behind the curtain, to see how the complicated machinery of a restaurant works — and determine whether paying for the privilege of making my own dinner could possibly be worth the price tag.

But then it got complicated.

As I do at any other restaurant, I booked the reservation under an alias. Everything was set for my anonymous visit. I had my trusty Groucho Marx glasses ready, then I got an email from the restaurant.

They asked me to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

The ruse was over, my plans for writing about the experience were compromised. A review would be a clear violation of any nondisclosure agreement, and besides, I wasn’t about to sign a fake name on a legal contract. I felt like I was in “Scooby Doo” and my mask was yanked off by those meddling kids.

Top: Chef David Yoshimura leads the kitchen at Nisei. Above: The San Francisco restaurant was bustling on a recent evening.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

I was prepared to abandon the story altogether. But after some deliberation, I outed myself as a critic and came to an agreement with the restaurant: I’d pay to live a day in the life of a chef and be allowed to write about it, as long as I didn’t divulge any recipes, secret techniques or other sensitive information.

But now, the story I had in mind had changed, because everyone would know my identity. It was like the chef and I were locked in a game of four-dimensional chess: not only would I spend a day in his shoes, but he would, essentially, spend a day in mine. The whole thing made my head spin.

On a rainy morning in December, I met Yoshimura at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Earlier that week (long after I’d booked my visit), his restaurant, which opened in 2021, had been awarded a Michelin star and he’d received the restaurant guide’s Young Chef Award. When vendors, chefs and other restaurant folks congratulated him, he smiled graciously and said thank you. I got the sense that the praise made him a little uncomfortable.

We talked about his bringing up in Houston, where he started cooking at a steakhouse before working in New York kitchens and then eventually the Bay Area. He cut his teeth here at fine dining Mexican restaurant Californios — he was the chef de cuisine there when that restaurant was awarded Michelin stars. “It feels more personal when it’s my food,” he said, about winning a star of his own.

We proceeded to buy turnips, persimmons and decorative pine branches. Then we packed up his car and headed to the restaurant. He gathered the staff of 10 or so for a meeting; some were wearing beanies, others bandanas. Yoshimura said there’d be a packed house that night — the Michelin buzz had already translated to more reservations.

Grilled unagi and fried unagi bone at Nisei in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022.
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

The suppon at Nisei in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022.
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Grilled unagi over rice (left) was the best dish during a recent meal at Nisei, while suppon (right), a turtle soup, was the only miss. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

The staff all greeted me warmly, but I really didn’t know what to expect. I like they were observing me, too.

I wondered: How much of this experience would be real? It didn’t feel unlike the theatrics of hospitality, where everything is calculated to give customers the best possible experience. This so-called day-in-the-life felt like an extension of that service, the idea of ​​an open kitchen taken to its logical extreme.

No longer shielded by anonymity, I also felt more exposed than I ever had as a critic. I was keenly aware of that remove between chef and restaurant critic, an inherent binary often caricatured as adversarial. Did these chiefs think of me as a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

That all melted away once I stepped in the kitchen. Yoshimura gave me a choice: follow him around while he did administrative tasks and planning, which he described as “boring,” or bounce around for a more complete picture. I chose the latter — I, after all, was performing too. I felt like I had to show them I was down to get my hands dirty, even as I worried they might make fun of my poor knife skills. (Yoshimura told me one past guest was appalled she had to work.)

From noon until 5 pm, the beginning of service, the kitchen focused on prep. I started with weighing flour and sugar for blinis, flambéing bananas on a stovetop and chopping pickles. Then I assisted with descaling anchovies with a knife. At the pastry station, I molded nerikiri (a semi-sweet white bean dessert) with my fingers and pressed them with a wood block to make them look like a sakura flower. I sliced ​​miso-marinated garlic, doing my best impression of Paulie from “Goodfellas.” I squeezed out dots of sauces, gingerly added leaf garnishes and portioned pickles on ceramic plates — ensuring each received the same amounts.

While we worked, I got to know the staff: where they’re from, what kind of music they like, their histories. It’s hard not to be endedared to a cast of characters when you share laughs and conversation, the same way you build rapport with any work family. We even shared a family meal: Yoshimura and sous chef Nicholas Razatos made excellent fried chicken.

The Dungeness crab course is served inside a crab shell at Nisei in San Francisco.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

By then, my concern about gauging the authenticity of my experience had evaporated. I came away with the belief that enough of it was real — or at least felt real. It’s the same way a theater production requires real people to put on a show. I suspended my disbelief and became a part of the Nisei show. That was especially true once service started. It was as if a switch had flipped. It was go time.

I tried my best to stay out of everyone’s way. The change in the room was palpable, the staff acutely focused on the task at hand. Watching the kitchen spring into action, living and breathing in unison, gave me clarity about fine dining restaurants that I simply did not have before. The team communicated briskly, their focus sharpened. The imperative of providing exceptional hospitality was much clearer.

At 6:30 p.m. sharp, general manager Ian Cobb, a staunchly serious man, informed me that my seat at Bar Iris, the sister bar to the restaurant, was ready. I went upstairs, shed my kitchen costume and got ready for dinner.

After tasting a few cocktails at the bar, it was showtime: I got a prime seat right in front of the kitchen window.

The first four bites arrived in a flash. I quickly spotted a dish with the anchovies I had aided in descaling: a crisp burst of aquatic umami inside dehydrated nori. It was followed by tangy, nukazuke-fermented persimmons. Shortly thereafter, chef Yoshimura, armed with a pointed smile, dropped off a blini with creamy, flambéed banana puree and a tiny quenelle of caviar. The morsel of sweetness and saltiness effortlessly lilted across my tastebuds — one of the most memorable bites of the night.

Dishes that followed included a toasted milk bread spread with gamey, creamy milkfish pate; the pucker of a garnish of cranberries scaled back the richness. A stew-like Dungeness crab dish thickened with stock admirably preserved the lightness of the crustacean. Crispy, juicy squab katsu rested in an oil spill of black curry. The only real disappointment: a turtle soup with distractingly tough meat and muscular mochi.

Throughout the meal, the staff would check on me. Some nodded knowingly, as if we shared a secret.

All other dishes folded to the might of the main event: the unagi over rice. The portion is smaller than a traditional donburi but just as sharp, smoky and flavorful. The fillet had been slowly charcoal-grilled, rendering the fat out of the skin until it was airy and crisp. It came with a piece of edible, dehydrated and fried unagi spine, spicy grated daikon, and sliced ​​miso-garlic — some of the ingredients I’d had a hand in preparing.

Nisei is located on Polk Street, with Bar Nisei drawing in customers for cocktails next door.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

The eel embodied the principles of Washoku cooking, a philosophy translating to “harmony of food” that balances technique, tradition, taste and respect of food, but also expressed the nisei (second-generation Japanese) attitude of the restaurant. The melty eel is obviously grander than what you’d find at a typical Japanese restaurant, but preserves the satisfying, comforting barbecue spirit.

The unagi alone might have earned Nisei the Michelin star. I don’t really subscribe to the star dogma, but if my time at the restaurant was an indicator, it surely deserves happy face stickers, checkmarks and any other made-up signifiers of quality.

Is it possible the unagi tasted even better because I’d just seen the kind of work that goes into it?

I’ll never know for sure. Even though $1,000 is nothing to sneeze at, I concluded that the price was absolutely worth it.

Included are skills and techniques that are yours to keep; a few drinks from the bar; trying elements at every point before they make it on the plate; a family meal; and tracing ingredients from the vendor to the diner — a full-spectrum view of a fine dining restaurant.

Driving home, tired from a 12-hour shift, I came away with a new perspective and satisfaction that’s rare even in the most pampering restaurant environments. The process forces wealthy people to appreciate the process of creating luxury; a once-in-a-lifetime dissection of the high-caliber kitchen organism. If we think of fine dining restaurants as producers of edible art, this immersive experience lets diners not only eat it, but make it, too.

nisei 5-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday. 2316 Polk St., San Francisco. 415-827-6898 or restaurantnisei.com

Cesar Hernandez is The San Francisco Chronicle’s associate restaurant critic. Email: cesar.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @cesarishafa

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FILE ART- A man who works with the San Francisco Day Labor program hauls a cabinet.

SAN FRANCISCO – For the last week or more, Marcos Saul Aurora Gonzalez has been sleeping on a street corner in San Francisco.

He wasn’t always homeless. But since the Bay Area stay-at-home order shut down non-essential business, the 37-year-old from El Salvador has not been able to find steady work as a handyman or in construction. He had been staying with his girlfriend but was told to leave her place recently because she lives in a city-owned apartment, which allows only one person to live there.

“There are a lot of people like me,” Gonzalez said in Spanish through a translator.

On a recent night, he slept near six other men like himself, he said. These are men who have no jobs, no chance at a federal stimulus boost because of their immigration status, no right to collect unemployment, and now, nowhere to go.

Some of the men have found places for their wives and children to sleep, but they have taken to the streets as there isn’t enough room at their friends’ and relatives’ homes, Gonzalez said. Other families he knows are sleeping in cars. “It’s super, super cold in the morning,” he said.

The other morning, he was the only one with tortillas and one of the men asked quietly, “Can you share?” The six men sat, six feet apart, on the corner, all taking bites of his meaner breakfast. “We gathered there,” he said, “sharing our stories. Nobody has enough for rent. None of us had eaten. Everyone is worried about how they will provide for their families.”

Coronavirus quarantine is becoming catastrophic for undocumented immigrants

There are an estimated 3 million undocumented immigrants in California and last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed support for them, saying they account for 10% of California’s labor force and provide essential services in the state. He also announced a $125 million fund for undocumented immigrants, although none of the money has been distributed.

There are plenty of critics who say people like Gonzalez should not be helped because they came to the country illegally. Two conservative groups south of Newsom over giving taxpayer money to undocumented immigrants.

However, each person who has come to the United States has a personal story about immigrating and the challenge of settling here.

In Gonzalez’s case, he fled here about two years ago, escaping MS-13 gangs who had already shot him and vowed to kill him, he said. He has an attorney who is helping him stay in this country permanently. But still, his status is undocumented.

Gonzalez is one of about 250 members of the 30-year-old San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective, both of which fall under Dolores Street Community Services. Francisco Herrera helped found the program and is now co-director with Guillermina Castalenos. Their operating budget is roughly $800,000 a year.

One of the services the program provides is connecting undocumented workers with people who need help cleaning homes, gardening, landscaping and construction work.

Dispatchers hope that they soon get an influx of calls matching neighbors’ needs to laborers and domestic workers who are desperate to provide services and earn a paycheck as the relaxed stay-at-home order for the Bay Area now allows certain outdoor professions.

On Monday, some stay-at-home orders eased, allowing for all construction jobs and landscaping. Cleaning homes and yard work are also allowed.

Q&A: The status of California’s $125M undocumented immigrant fund

Gonzalez has not applied for any of the free hotel rooms in the city, nor has he applied for any grant money.

“I am just focused on getting a job,” he said, adding that he typically stands at 26th and Harrison streets in San Francisco, hoping to get hired for the day.

FILE ART – A member of the San Francisco Day Labor program paints a wall.

Gonzalez and his girlfriend, who is a domestic worker, would love to be hired. But they say that so far, they and their friends have been turned down because people are worried about bringing them into their homes, worried they might have coronavirus, especially since he has been sleeping on the streets.

While he is not experiencing any symptoms now, Gonzalez said he, too, is “very afraid of getting sick. I am very, very vulnerable.”

Herrera said that’s why his program has been pushing to get Gonzalez and San Francisco’s other 8,200 homeless people into hotel rooms in the city, and he’s frustrated with why it’s been taking so long. Herrera also said that per Cal-OSHA guidelines, employers must provide the proper personal protective equipment and sanitizers to workers to keep everyone safe. Laborers in the program are also trained in proper COVID-19 social distancing and procedure, Herrera said.

Newsom: California unemployment hours extended; $125M fund for undocumented immigrants

Gonzalez described his situation as pretty dire.

“I’m at the edge,” he said. “If I don’t get a job soon, I don’t even want to think about the situation I will be in.”

Still, despite his life now on the streets, Gonzalez said it’s still better here than in El Salvador.

“I’m hungry. I have no place to sleep. But it’s still better here,” he said. “At least I’m not afraid I’ll be killed or tortured. The level of violence there is not to be believed.”

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED: In hiring a worker from the San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective call 415-252-5375. More information about the programs can be found here. You can also donate to Fighting for our Workers (or any of the groups listed below.) You can also email Louis Legowsky at the program at sfdlp@3358@gmail.com.

FILE ART – Domestic workers clean homes as part of San Francisco’s Women’s Collective.

BAY AREA FUNDS TO HELP THE UNDOCUMENTED

Fighting for our Workers (This is the fund that would go directly to Marcos Saul Aurora Gonzalez. You can specify which worker you’d like to honor.)

East Oakland DREAMers

StimulusPledge.org

OURFund Oakland

Undocufund-sf.org

Mission Families Relief Fund

Dolores Street Community Services

Lisa Fernandez is a reporter for KTVU. Email Lisa at lisa.fernandez@foxtv.com or call her at 510-874-0139. Or follow her on Twitter @ljfernandez

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — It’s an idea that’s sweeping the country: unconditional cash handed out on a monthly basis to families most in need. Universal basic income pilot programs are popping up all across the US But rarely do we get to follow a family and see the impacts these small amounts of cash can have on the recipients. ABC7 News followed one family from one basic income pilot for an entire year, here’s what we saw.

From chocolate to sugar cookies, scones and more Deisy Chan loves making sweet treats at the bakery she works at in the Mission.

The early days and long hours of standing can be tiring, but it’s all in support of her family.

We first met Deisy in November of 2021 when she and her family of four called a three-bedroom apartment in the Tenderloin home.

Before the pandemic, another couple lived with Deisy and her family and paid half the rent. But that family moved out during the pandemic leaving Deisy’s family with the entire bill.

RELATED: San Francisco launches new guaranteed income program for transgender community

Then, it was only Deisy, her husband Miguel Senior, and her two boys: 3-year-old Mateo and 13-year-old Miguel Jr.

Deisy speaks Spanish and an indigenous language native to Mexico. She spoke to us in Spanish as she prepared dinner for her boys.

“To live here is expensive,” she said. She’s paying more than $3,000 a month in rent now that the family moved out.

“It’s tough buying things for the kids because I have to save so much for rent,” she said.

But saving got easier for Deisy and financial burdens less stressful.

A month before we met her and her family, in October of 2021, she received $350 of unconditional cash.

The payment was the first of six monthly checks as part of a Basic Income Pilot program.

“It’s a great help,” she said.

She’s able to buy food for her family without worrying if she can afford it. Deisy told us her youngest is growing fast. Now she’s able to make sure he has the basics, thanks to the additional cash.

Deisy and her family were selected to be one of the 13 families enrolled in the basic income program run through Compass Family Services.

The San Francisco nonprofit has been around for more than 100 years, focused on safety net programs for families that are unhoused or on the brink of living without shelter.

Compass offers wrap-around services like food assistance and free childcare.

Deisy’s youngest, Mateo, is enrolled there. That’s how she heard of the program.

The program provided each family $350 a month for six months for a total of just $2,100.

VIDEO: Universal basic income for Californians? Assemblyman breaks it down

“A little bit of money can make a really big difference for the families,” said Erica Kisch, executive director of Compass Family Services. “The families are using these funds for basic needs.”

Kisch said the basic income pilot was made possible by a $35,000 grant from Wells Fargo.

She said the nonprofit surveyed the families before, during, and after the program concluded.

ABC7 News followed Deisy and her family for the six months of the program.

“One of the words (the families) used when they were describing how the funds impacted them was that it increased their calm… So the idea that families are so stressed out by their finances, or lack of finances, and that affects everything ,” said Kisch.

There are currently more than 100 active Basic Income programs being tested in all 50 states – most of them following the huge success of a program started in Stockton by former Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Tubbs now leads the group Mayors for a guaranteed income. The group is a network of dozens of mayors across the country that have pledged to test the idea of ​​a guaranteed income in their cities.

The locations range in size from major cities from San Francisco, Oakland, and Atlanta to smaller cities like Salisbury, Maryland.

A newly released report by Mayors for a Guaranteed Income shows that families surveyed from 20 guaranteed income programs primarily used the funds on necessities.

The report shows 39% of the fund’s recipients received was spent at discount superstores for clothes, food, household goods and hygiene products.

Another 27% of funds were spent at grocery stores, 9% on transportation costs including gas and car repairs, and 7% on housing utilities.

Other notable expenses included loan payments, medical expenses, and tuition.

RELATED: Oakland to launch universal income program

“If you’re worried about food to feed your children, pay your rent, pay your utilities, buy milk – that’s going to impact your mental health, that’s going to impact your ability to parent… So just the idea that we could reduce that tension-that stress-and support the families’ calm just feels like it’s certainly a good use of $350 a month,” she added.

Along with the six monthly payments of unconditional cash, the 13 families enrolled in this pilot program received additional help including access to family counseling and money management classes, much-needed help when you’re just one unexpected bill away from homelessness.

“The situation that they are facing is they cannot pay their rent or they cannot buy groceries or they cannot pay other bills,” said Gerardo Gonzalez, Compass Family Services family and community engagement coordinator.

That’s the exact situation Deisy and her family found themselves in when we checked in halfway through the program, some three months in.

We caught up with Deisy over Zoom as the entire family recovered from COVID.

She told us her husband was out of work for two weeks because he was still testing positive for COVID.

Paid sick leave through Deisy and her husband’s job kept the family afloat, but still sick, her husband couldn’t work his part-time job so money was tight.

Deisy said she’s unsure how they would have purchased groceries without the extra cushion from the program. She’s grateful for the assistance – and is already saving what she can. She’s planning ahead for when her family will no longer have that added help and hopes the family can move into a less expensive apartment to save even more.

Months later, we caught up with Deisy on a busy summer day as she picked up her youngest son from after-school care offered by Compass Family Services.

She’s grateful for this support along with the $350 of unconditional cash she’s received for the last six months.

With a sense of gratitude and emotion akin to guilt, Deisy told us she wishes even more families could receive this basic income on top of services like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) her two boys already receive.

Her wish is becoming reality as an increasing number of organizations and city governments across the Bay Area, and beyond, test out basic income programs.

The City of Mountain View, which started sending out $500 payments to more than one hundred families just days ago, is the latest city to test out a basic income in the Bay.

“We can definitely call the movement,” said Sean Klein, associate director of the Stanford Basic Income Lab. “I don’t think we ever thought we would be at this place even a few years ago.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab was launched in 2017 to study the successes and roadblocks of basic income pilots across the country.

Early findings from the lab suggest families spent the money on necessities like rent and food – not drugs and alcohol.

Kline also noted the added assistance allowed adults to look for better-paying, full-time jobs and does not cause reliance on the program, a major argument by naysayers.

“The evidence suggests that unconditional cash is efficient. It’s swift. It’s much more powerful than in-kind assistance: food, even housing, because it gives people the agency and the means to make the choices they know are right for their family,” Kline added.

Kline points to recent examples of the government doling out unconditional cash at large scales as an example of the power these programs could have if applied more broadly.

Just think back to the several rounds of stimulus checks during the onset of the COVID pandemic from the federal government and the State of California.

Or look at the longest-standing basic income program in the country just to our north in Alaska with the “Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend”.

For nearly the last four decades residents of the state have received an annual lump sum payment of approximately $1,600. The money is generated through taxes on the state’s oil companies.

“Middle and upper-middle-class families receive a tremendous amount of in-kind, unconditional tax benefits from the government. We don’t call into question when someone’s able to write off the interest on their mortgage, we don’t ask them for a urine sample. And yet, when it comes to those who are really in dire straits and need support from the government, who they pay taxes to as well, we call into question their deservingness,” Kline said.

When we caught up with Deisy, just weeks after receiving the final check in the pilot program, it was in her new government-subsidized apartment.

She and her family moved in just weeks earlier and now they are able to save money on rent.

Deisy gave us a tour as little Mateo showed us what he’s most excited about in his new home: toys. Just like every other kid.

Deisy tells us the six months of unconditional cash has been significant. It allowed the family to be financially secure when her husband lost his job.

It even gave the family enough breathing room to save up to buy new beds and even pay for her 13-year-old to start playing soccer.

For most, these are the basics. For Deisy it’s the American Dream. Out of reach for so long, now possible with just a little extra help.

It’s a transformation of the organization behind the basic income pilot calls a “huge success.”

It’s been so successful, Compass plans to expand the program to many more families thanks to a newly awarded grant.

“Absolutely, we plan to do more of this,” said Kisch.

This is welcome news for Deisy who wants more families to get the help her family did.

“I’m thankful to God that he puts people in my path who want to help me,” Deisy said.

Now Compass plans to do the same for so many others.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Copyright © 2022 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

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One of the nation’s largest corporate landlords, the company rapidly bought and renovated thousands of properties, often without required permits

July 12, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Detail above Celeste Jackson’s front door. Some of the issues, like falling tiles and holes in the wall, have recently been addressed by Invitation Homes. (Stella Kalinina)Comment on this story

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Invitation Homes advertises that it is leading a real estate “revolution.”

Formed by Wall Street investors after the Great Recession and foreclosure crisis, the company accumulated tens of thousands of houses at depressed prices, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on renovations and now leases them out. Never before has a single landlord owned such large swaths of suburban America. As rents have risen in recent years, the value of the publicly traded company has soared to more than $23 billion.

“Top-quality homes,” it promises prospective renters, “maintained by top-level professionals.”

Yet some of the company’s homes have missed basic quality checks: Renovations at the company’s rapidly assembled collection of 80,000 homes often were made without building permits, according to a review of Invitation Homes properties in several states, a California lawsuit and a Washington Post analysis of building data in three cities.

Skipping building permits may have allowed the company to avoid costly delays and save millions in fees, according to estimates based on the number of company homes. But forgoing the permits, which are required by city codes to ensure quality and safety, has led to shoddy repairs and maintenance that puts tenants at risk, renters said.

“We’re paying $4,000 a month to live in hell,” said Celeste Jackson, a Los Angeles entrepreneur who lives with her husband in an Invitation Homes property. Before she moved in, a third bedroom was created in the home without the permits required to do so, according to floor plans of the property and interviews with tenants. Since then, the couple said they have suffered through cracked skylights, rotten wood and flooding so frequent that the company left sandbags at their door for months.

Outside Dallas, another couple said they discovered water pouring through their walls and soaking the carpet after a bathroom renovation for which no permits are on file with the city.

And near Tampa, contractors hired by Invitation Homes reframed rotted floors and walls and rewired a living room without pulling permits, according to county records. The contractors then left the living room gutted for seven months before the company fixed it properly, according to one of the tenants, Kristi McKenzie, and photos she provided.

“They hire people who will just do anything without doing it to code,” McKenzie said.

The company disputes allegations that it purposely hires contractors who disregard permitting rules, adding that most tenants are satisfied, staying nearly three years on average and giving positive online reviews.

Invitation Homes is one of several large corporations that have transformed the rental housing industry over the past decade, touting their ability to efficiently manage vast portfolios of single-family houses. Tenant advocates say corporate landlords are helping to drive up rent prices even as they skimp on maintenance and major repairs.

For this report, The Post analysis looked at three markets where Invitation has hundreds of homes: Charlotte; Orlando; and Riverside, Calif., a suburb east of Los Angeles. In all three, Invitation Homes properties were less likely than others in the area to have had permits pulled for renovations and other projects, according to the analysis of local building department data. In Charlotte and Riverside, Invitation Homes properties were half as likely to have had permits pulled.

Separately, The Post found that at more than a dozen Invitation Homes properties across several states, the company hired contractors for renovations for which there is no record of the required permits. The projects included roof replacements, air conditioning installations, swimming pool demolitions and other work that sometimes led to significant complications.

Given a summary of The Post’s findings, Invitation Homes did not comment on the statistical analysis or specific problems reported by renters. In a statement, the company said that it expects its contractors to abide by permitting rules.

“We always seek to comply with applicable laws and regulations, including permitting laws, and are continually evaluating and improving our compliance procedures,” the company said in an emailed statement from spokesperson Kristi DesJarlais. “We expect our third-party vendors to adhere to these same standards and enter into agreements that obligate them to do so.”

In most parts of the country, local officials require building permits for significant home renovations. Changing the plumbing, rewiring an electrical circuit or replacing a roof often call for payment of a fee and, sometimes, inspections. The responsibility for pulling a permit lies with both the owner and the licensed contractor doing to the work, building officials said. The process can cause delays and add thousands of dollars to renovation costs.

“Permits are there to ensure life safety,” said Ron Takiguchi, former president of California Building Officials, a professional organization. “Homeowners should have the right to enjoy their homes without worrying that the construction is safe.”

Invitation Homes officials have said the company has spent $25,000 on average renovating each home it acquired. Such costly projects often require permits, but company properties were much less likely to have had permits pulled than other houses in the same areas, according to The Post analysis.

This raises concerns that some renovations were not properly permitted, Takiguchi said.

“It would be a red flag just based on the disproportionality itself,” he said.

The Post analyzed how often building permits were issued to Invitation Homes properties compared to other residential properties, from 2012 to the present. For the analysis, The Post chose three cities where Invitation has hundreds of homes and building permit data is readily accessible. In all three, the Invitation Homes properties were less likely to have had permits pulled.

In Riverside, where the company owns more than 400 homes, building permits were issued for 13 percent of properties it acquired. By contrast, the proportion of other Riverside homes that have obtained permits is 28 percent — meaning Invitation Homes was half as likely as other homeowners to have obtained a building permit over the past decade.

In Charlotte, where the company owns about 1,900 homes, building permits have been issued for 24 percent of the company’s properties, compared with 48 percent of other Charlotte homes. And in Orlando, where the company owns 1,300 homes, building permits have been issued for 56 percent of its properties, compared with 63 percent of other homes.

Across the United States, The Post found multiple examples where unpermitted work left tenants with homes in poor condition.

In the middle of the pandemic, for example, Candy Scott and her family moved into an Invitation property in Denton, Tex., in December 2020. Recent photos of the property showed that the bathroom had been remodeled to replace a whirlpool tub with a shower stall.

“I thought: ‘They just remodeled. What could go wrong?’ ” Scott recalled.

The week she moved in, she found water from the shower filling the bathroom and running into the master bedroom, soaking the carpet. “When you walked on the carpet in the master bedroom, it was soaking wet. For a while, we tried to put towels on the carpet, but then we realized it was coming through the walls.”

A contractor came and tore out the tile, finding that no shower liner had been installed underneath, Scott said. He re-tiled the shower but then the drain clogged, she was told, because of mortar he’d let slip into the drain. Getting a new contractor to fix the shower took months, she said.

On another occasion, she said, the house needed a plumber , but the person who showed up was only prepared to repair drywall and told her he would “go to Home Depot and try to figure it out.”

She said she complained repeatedly to Invitation’s customer service staff about the quality of work.

“I would ask them: ‘Why do you keep sending people out here who are doing a horrible job?’ He’d say, ‘I have another company but they are going to do just as bad.’ ”

There are no permits on file with the city for any of the repairs, which are required by Denton. In April, Scott and her family moved out.

At a home in Clayton, N.C., near Raleigh, Invitation Homes hired a contractor to do $54,000 worth of work, including installing a new air conditioning system, according to documents obtained by The Post. Air conditioning installations and renovations of that value require building permits, but none are on file, a city spokesperson said.

“They never seem to live up to what they promise,” said tenant Erich Budde, who said that in addition to the unpermitted renovations, the painting and work on the floor seem in his view to have been shoddy and rushed. “Things are always discombobulated and disorganized,” he said.

The company declined to comment on specific cases.

“Since our founding 10 years ago, Invitation Homes has consistently invested in providing prompt, professional service to our residents, including the timely turnaround of all maintenance requests,” the company said.

Before the Great Recession, enormous real estate companies like Invitation Homes with huge portfolios of single-family houses were largely unheard of. Companies that rented houses tended to be much smaller and limited to one town or region.

“Back in 2012, home-leasing options were slim,” the Invitation Homes website explains. “There were only mom-and-pop landlords and a few regional leasing companies. No one could deliver the consistent, worry-free way of life that our founders envisioned.”

The foreclosure crisis created buying opportunities for these large ventures, but it was internet technology that enabled them to seize the moment. Using large-scale cloud-based data analysis, Wall Street investors were able to search for and buy hundreds of homes in a week.

The technology also benefited renters, Invitation Homes says, because it makes leasing a house simpler and more efficient. Potential renters can browse houses online or tour them in person with self-guided walk-throughs. Tenants often say that they might not even meet a property manager before moving in.

Like tech disrupters Uber, Robinhood and Amazon, Invitation Homes has touted its venture as a way to overhaul an industry populated by more traditional competitors.

Brad Griewe, one of Invitation’s founders, has described the idea this way: “We fundamentally believed we could use technology to enable a best-in-class team to identify, underwrite, purchase, renovate, and professionally lease/manage U.S. single-family rental homes across the country at scale.”

In fact, the company’s advertising suggests it can transform the American Dream and make renting better than buying a home. “That mortgage thing?” the company advertises. “Yeah, forget that.”

The rise of the investment groups, which in some markets are buying up to one-third of the homes that become available, are putting upward pressure on home prices, housing advocates said.

So far, Invitation Homes — spun off by the investment firm Blackstone in 2017 — has paid off for investors. Blackstone declined to comment. After briefly falling below $18 a share when the pandemic started in early 2020, Invitation Homes shares rose above $45 in January but are now going for about $35, reflecting the market sell-off. The company remains a favorite of Wall Street investors.

The company has benefited in recent years from the rapid rise in rents.

In the first quarter of 2020, Invitation charged an average of $1,851 per month. This year, that rose to $2,074, a 12 percent increase, per securities filings, with the largest increases in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida.

In buying and fixing up its portfolio of properties nationwide, Invitation Homes has sought to prepare homes quickly to start collecting rent, according to its executives speaking in quarterly calls with investors. That urgency, housing advocates and lawyers say, sometimes compromised quality.

To speed up purchases, large institutional investors like Invitation Homes can buy homes with only superficial inspections, which aren’t as thorough as the typical inspection an individual buyer usually needs to secure a bank loan. As a result, these big companies may be more likely to buy damaged properties, especially when buying homes in bulk or from bank auctions.

“We often do not have the opportunity to conduct interior inspections or conduct more than cursory exterior inspections on a portion of the properties, if at all,” according to Invitation financial filings. “Such inspection processes may fail to reveal major defects associated with such properties.”

The company typically hires third-party contractors to handle repairs and maintenance, spending about $2.5 billion to fix up the houses its buys, according to financial filings — an average of $25,000 to $35,000 per home.

To reduce the time a house sits empty, company executives say they track a metric they call “days to re-resident,” the time it takes to prepare a home and find a new tenant. During the pandemic, the company was able to shorten the period between tenants from 29 days to 23 days, according to executives on a call with analysts.

The speed may raise profits, but some attorneys say it also has harmed tenants.

In late 2020, a newly formed tech company sued Invitation Homes alleging that the company’s contractors regularly conducted repairs and renovations without permits. The lawsuit, which was based on an analysis of Invitation’s portfolio of 12,000 homes in California, claimed that the company had deprived multiple cities and counties of millions of dollars in permit fees. The allegations are based on a broad statistical analysis of building permits issued for Invitation Homes properties and on 15 specific examples where, the plaintiffs say, company properties were renovated without permits.

Invitation Homes “has spent thousands of dollars on renovations to its single-family homes in California but intentionally and systematically failed to obtain building permits,” according to the lawsuit from tech firm Blackbird Special Project, which is using the proprietary technology of a related company, Deckard Technologies, a firm that uses machine learning to review real estate data. The plaintiffs have been represented by Leonard B. Simon, a San Diego attorney, and the firm of Sanford Heisler Sharp.

The “company chose to ignore permitting requirements to avoid permit fees and to get the properties into the rental market as quickly as possible,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is intended to recover money from Invitation Homes for local governments under a whistleblower law that would give the tech firms a portion of any award.

Attorneys for Invitation Homes have called the allegations “unfounded” in court documents and said the case is “a manufactured story, unsupported by particularized allegations.” During a call with investors this year, Invitation chief executive Dallas Tanner said “we think we have some pretty compelling arguments” in response to the lawsuit and that the company looked forward to defending itself in court. Invitation’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in April.

“We believe this case has no merit and is riddled with factual errors and legal deficiencies,” the company said in its statement to The Post.

Regarding the lawsuit, Invitation said in its statement that the plaintiff’s statistical analysis of building permits “lacks any empirical reliability.” The real estate company also has called into question the 15 specific examples of unpermitted work cited by the lawsuit, and noted that they constitute only a small portion of its 12,000 homes in the state.

Using interviews, Google Earth and other public records, however, The Post found evidence that substantial work had been done without permits at eight of the 15 homes cited in the lawsuit. The timing of the unpermitted renovations was not always clear, but six of the eight were done about the time Invitation Homes bought them or shortly thereafter.

At one Riverside home, for example, a pool was filled in and a back portion of the house was demolished after Invitation Homes purchased the property in 2012, according to Google Earth imagery. These changes would have required a building permit, according to municipal codes, but none were obtained, according to city records.

One door down, a patio structure was dismantled without a city permit. The tenant said the roof was replaced, but no building permit was found in city records.

Other homes had an adjoining pantry or shed demolished and another got a new air conditioning system, as alleged in the lawsuit. None of the work had been done with permits, according to city records.

Most of the homes cited in the lawsuit are in Riverside, and in a statement, city officials said those eight homes are “under investigation based on the facts presented and the specific allegations of unpermitted construction contained in the lawsuit.”

Wall Street analysts are paying close attention.

Corporate landlords like Invitation Homes are a sector already “reviled by the populace,” said Ross Bowler, chief executive of 2nd Market Capital Advisory, which analyzes publicly traded real estate companies. Though Invitation Homes is fighting the allegations, he said, the suit probably will generate additional negative publicity.

“They say there is no merit” to the lawsuit, Bowler said. “But because it is potentially ugly and unknown, it puts a mark on the whole single-family rental sector.”

The Post identified properties owned by Invitation Homes by matching its subsidiaries with a national property ownership database maintained by Regrid. Riverside, Orlando and Charlotte were identified as places where Invitation Homes had hundreds of homes and with readily accessible online building permit data.

For each locality, The Post used city and county public online building permit portals and building permit databases to identify permits for homes owned by Invitation Homes and its subsidiaries. Permit data was collected starting in 2012, when Invitation Homes was founded, to the present for any property owned by the company.

Using the same sources, The Post calculated the percentage of all single-family properties not currently owned by Invitation Homes in each locality that had building permits since 2012 on file. Property lists came from publicly accessible county property assessor records. In Riverside, data on single-family properties was last updated in 2017, so homes built after that are excluded from the analysis.

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The majority of people who work for the city of San Francisco don’t actually live there, according to data provided by the city.

In fact, 58% of San Francisco’s public workers live outside of the city as of 2022, a slight increase from where it was a decade ago. SF workers commuting into the city most often live in San Mateo County (19%), but that number is also decreasing.

Meanwhile, East Bay counties Alameda and Contra Costa are seeing more San Francisco public workers move into their areas. As of 2022, 14% and 12% of San Francisco city employees live in Alameda and Contra Costa counties – 10% and 15% percent increases since 2013, respectively.

In particular, Stockton is attracting lots more San Francisco city workers these days than it used to, despite the significant commute. Nowadays, 311 city workers reside in San Joaquin county — still only about 1% of all workers, a 46% increase from 191 in 2013.

While the lack of affordable housing is likely one of the main factors driving city workers out of San Francisco, other factors could also be at play, according to Enrique Lopezlira, Director at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

For example, improvements to public transportation — like a BART extension to San Jose — could be making people more comfortable commuting longer distances.

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“It’s hard to definitely say it’s all housing [costs] that’s causing this. Those other areas, if they’re also getting more residents and they start building more amenities, better schools and so forth, that might also cause people to want to live outside the city,” Lopezlira said. Still, Lopezlira thinks that it’s “a bit high” for a city like San Francisco to have six of every 10 municipal employees living out-of-city.

San Francisco’s public safety departments have the highest shares of workers living outside SF In 2022, just 25% of San Francisco Police Department employees lived in the city proper, the lowest share of any department.

SF Police Department spokesperson Adam Lobsinger said some officers choose to live outside of the city to have separation of their work and home lives.

“I live outside of San Francisco … it’s really important for us to have some downtime and get away from work because of the toll that this job can take on you both physically and emotionally,” Lobsinger said.

Only 28% of SF Fire Department employees live in the city. According to Fire Department spokesperson Jonathan Baxter, many workers who do live in town can do so because they inherited homes from their parents, still live with their families or work second jobs.

“Rent is extremely high in San Francisco and most of the firefighters that I’ve spoken to who rent in San Francisco have [two to five] roommates so that they can have a decent living standard, [and be] able to continue to educate themselves to progress in their careers such as going to college and taking trade classes,” Baxter said.

Despite having the highest median income out of all the city’s departments at over $200,000, the San Francisco Fire Department has one of the lowest portions of employees that live in the city.

Many city departments prefer to have their staff live in San Francisco and recruit locally to make that happen. For example, the Fire Department offers youth outreach programs like CITY EMT, a four month program that offers Emergency Medical Technician training to at-risk young adults in San Francisco.

The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development offers affordable housing programs that give preference to people who work in the city, like the San Francisco Affordable Housing Lottery — the city’s system for allocating “Below Market Rate” properties. San Francisco workers have an advantage when applying to this program because every lottery has a “live or work in San Francisco” preference that improves an applicant’s chances at being awarded housing.

Some housing programs are more targeted to specific departments. The First Responders Downpayment Assistance Loan Program helps members of the San Francisco Police Department, Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department buy their first home in San Francisco. The loan covers a downpayment of up to $375,000.

But with already-high median home values ​​rising even higher in recent years, Baxter questions if this is enough support.

“I myself could not afford my driveway at the home that I live in right now if I were to buy my home again and that’s a factor in seeing the rise in the cost of housing that we have here in San Francisco,” he said.

Not all of the city’s departments are seeing the same patterns. Even though Public Library employees have a median income of $102,000 – over $100,000 less than Fire Department’s median income — six out of ten Public Library employees are city residents.

One explanation could be age-related: Public Library employees have a higher median age than most other city departments, according to City Librarian Michael Lambert.

“We have employees who are still in their late 60s and 70s working for us. In the past, we’ve even had 1 employee in their early 80s,” Lambert said. “If our employees are older and stay longer, they have a greater likelihood of having put down roots in their younger years here, and perhaps have had a relatively easier time staying in the city and navigating the housing market.”

Labor Center researcher Lopezlira said his organization is beginning research on why the public sector has seen slow recovery in employment staffing since the pandemic. He said the city’s lack of affordable housing could be one of the causes of the high number of vacancies in government positions.

“We realize that there’s a lot of talk about [public sector] labor shortage in general, but maybe part of the reason for those hiring vacancies is the fact that it’s really expensive to live in the city and county,” he said.

Adriana Rezal and Harsha Devulapalli are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: adriana.rezal@sfchronicle.com

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