Housing prices to blame for Mission deaths?

An Examiner writer takes her own opinion to a strange conclusion today, blaming the deaths of three people in a Mission District apartment fire on the housing market.

"The City's staggering housing prices may have meant the difference between life and death for three people trapped and killed in their own homes Thursday, after a blaze overtook an overcrowded Mission District apartment complex, forcing three other residents to jump from windows as flames licked the sides of the building."

What she discusses but fails to take to another more-logical conclusion is that substandard living conditions (or deferred maintenance) in San Francisco buildings has become more and more common since Supervisor Ammiano pushed to have capital improvement pass-throughs reduced or eliminated. A pass-through was used (after TONS of paperwork and documentation, as well as a review process and no less than 90 days of waiting) to cover a portion of the cost of building upgrades by passing those costs on, over time, to tenants in the building. Since landlords cannot raise rents to follow the market, at the very least, they should be allowed to recoup some of the money that they should rightfully put into the maintenance of a building (for larger projects and improvements).

Unfortunately, this is not the case. In buildings with low-paying, long-term tenants (who are in the need of the most help), there is almost zero incentive for landlords to maintain their buildings to any sort of habitability.

As I have said many times, it is not a landlord's duty to subsidize other people's housing. This is the job of the city and/or state. With rent control keeping rents low for these tenants who legitimately need and deserve it, how does a landlord afford to do repairs or basic maintenance? Do they dip into their own savings? Not likely.

I don't have a solution to this problem, but I do know one thing: it was patently wrong of Marisa Lagos (from the Examiner) to tell half of the story and blame this tragic event on a landlord or on the housing market before any conclusions have been reached by the authorities in charge of this case. Furthermore, "investigators would not release the cause of the blaze or deaths Thursday, citing an ongoing inquiry and indicating that there may have been a criminal act involved."

Ultimately, as the effects of Proposition G (1998) and Ammiano's Capital Improvement Pass-Through Restrictions create poorer and poorer living conditions for many of the City's neediest residents, it will be time for the City or the Supervisors to find a way to help landlords solve these problems. And the solution is not to force them to make repairs on their own dime... Not without some changes to their ability to recoup costs or increase rents (as nearly every other landlord in America is able to do).

Wouldn't it only be fair, then, to blame these deaths on Tom Ammiano who reduced/eliminated this landlord's ability to afford proper maintenance on their building? Or on the rest of the Supervisors who continue to block new housing construction throughout the Mission (such as in the Armory)? I won't make those assumptions, because they are just as far-fetched as Ms. Lagos' sensationalism.

As a side note, this building was sold in September of 2004 for $1,875,000. The listing stated that the previous owner wanted to sell to move their portfolio to Sacramento. It is much more likely that this building has been inspected by numerous entities quite recently, and that any major defects or deficiencies would have been pointed out only a year ago.

For information on allowable Capital Pass-Throughs and the associated forms as well as other landlord/tenant forms that the city provides, see SFGov.org. The document for Capital Improvements is number 046.