[TheSocialAndrew]

As a short-term housing operator in the Bay Area, specializing in hosting tech workers, we've witnessed first hand the decline in quality of life and exile of the tech traveler.

It started with homeless people camping out in front of our units in SoMa and Mission (often times blocking the entrance/exit because some units had a direct street-level entrance), petty package theft and occasional car break-ins in the building garages.

Police couldn't do anything but take a report.

Then the pandemic started and the vacancy rate skyrocketed. We started getting reports from neighbors or the on-site management that are our guests are dealing drugs out of our units. Except that these units were supposed to be vacant. Our lockboxes were getting broken into, keys taken and people have been living there for several days and in some cases weeks. We often had footage of this.

We would call the police as we arrived at these units for our protection, but they wouldn't be able to arrest anyone because the people in the unit would say "so and so gave me the keys, told me this is their apartment, I don't know anything about that broken lockbox."

This scheme quickly expanded to Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Milpitas and other South Bay cities. We would call the police on a daily basis in the first few months of the pandemic. Sometimes it would take them an hour or two to come, and if the squatters saw our team at the building and got wind of what was going on, they would start packing up their car with our appliances: Apple TV, Nespresso machine, we've even had furniture and major appliances like TVs, washer and dryer rolled out while we were waiting for the police to come.

At most they would temporarily restrain these squatters if they had previous warrants (many of them did, but many others didn't produce an ID.) But even with warrants for their arrest, they would get uncuffed and released within an hour. We thought that at least a warrant would have them appear in front of a judge and we'd not have to encounter them again in a few days at another building, but the pandemic gave them a free pass.

The officers were very candid in saying that if it was up to them, they would book them, but they have instructions not to bring anyone in for non-violent crime. Theft is not prosecuted.

This is how it goes, anyone that has any doubt that crime is not prevented, pursued or prosecuted should go on a ride-along to any of these calls.

[orasis]

I simply can’t fathom how tax payers allow this to happen. Is someone from the Midwest I cannot understand the mindset that says this type of thing is OK? I guess the Bay Area selects against people that think like me so it becomes a self reinforcing problem??

[WalterBright]

> I simply can’t fathom how tax payers allow this to happen.

There are a lot of voters who are not taxpayers.

[impute]

And a lot of taxpayers who are not voters (non-citizens).

[adamrezich]

while true, the bigger problem is the "two-party system." Democrats get voted in and do nothing or make things worse, but when election time comes around again, people'll keep voting Democrat again and again, because they're most certainly not going to vote Republican, and we've somehow been brainwashed into thinking that those are the only two options for any elected position. with no viable competition, corruption spreads and entrenches itself, and the whole region generally decays over time.

that it's the Democratic Party we're talking about here is irrelevant—this is just a natural consequence of the two-party system.

[jedberg]

That may be generally true, but not in SF. We have open primaries. Most elections are two Democrats against each other. Sometimes it's even a Democrat vs. a Green.

[olivermarks]

I'm a bay area registered Democrat and strongly agree - no electable opposition party = political atrophy and the corruption we are seeing more and more of

[lupire]

There is a specific District Attorney in SF who is extremely anti-law enforcement and campaigned on it explicitly, and fulfilled his promise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin

[forrestthewoods]

Building a single new unit of housing in SF costs like $400,000 and takes years of cutting through red tape.

There’s far fewer homeless in the Midwest because homes are actually affordable. The poverty, squalor, heroin addiction is just as bad. It’s just out of sight.

[jedberg]

> There’s far fewer homeless in the Midwest because homes are actually affordable.

I suspect it also has to do with that fact that if you are homeless in winter you will die.

[stjohnswarts]

It sounds like (maybe?) the SF mayor is tire of this and things might turn around but I doubt if one official can turn it around given the overly lax policies CA government has expressed lately. I think the pendulum has swung to far the other way now and people are tired of the petty crime, breakins, and harassment they get on the streets. It all feels dangerous, even if your personal chances of experience violence is low because most criminals know if they cross that line they might actually have to face some jail time.

[vmception]

There is a time delay to any voter related action.

In a transient place like the bay area, the voters also do not experience the consequence of their votes and follow along with whatever trendy compassion based arguments is around at the time, the one year they vote.

The people who run for office are not many. Most of these positions are uncontested.

[amitkgupta84]

That’s right, you nailed it.

[jedberg]

In other countries, like South Africa, private security is a big industry. Since everyone knows the police are easily bribed, buildings hire private security. I stayed at an AirBnB in an apartment building, and they had 24 hour, onsite, heavily armed security. Who also helped us with our bags!

I suspect SF may move towards this model soon. You can already see it around Union Square. They are hiring off duty cops to monitor the stores.

[stjohnswarts]

1 off duty isn't going to be able to stop these flash mob breakins. I imagine they could be very effectual in apartment building and such though.

[wonnage]

You've basically described running a fancy motel for tech workers. Do you guys not have any form of front desk/building management on site? It seems crazy to run a housing unit with so many people coming in and out otherwise, particularly in those neighborhoods.

[pvarangot]

I lived in a shared house in the Mission and the neighborhood is still safe enough so that you don't need that. We literally buzzed in anyone that dare ring and friends are still there and still do and never in the two years I lived there, one pandemic one not, we had issues with people wandering in unchecked and doing nasty stuff inside. The Bay Area insecurity thing is blown out of proportion. I'm in Noe Valley now and my drunk condo neighbor forgot the garage door open and it took like four or five hours for someone to actually take something from inside and it was a guy that was clearly not doing well, he wasn't even wearing shoes.

So in my experience so far bros in finance just out of college renting a 3 million condo are more at fault for stuff getting stolen from my property than the cops, the homeless and politicians.

[slices]

> my drunk condo neighbor forgot the garage door open and it took like four or five hours for someone to actually take something from inside

In most of the US, including many moderate size cities, a garage left open for 4-5 hours would not have anything stolen from it.

[pvarangot]

Yeah I'm not saying San Francisco doesn't have an issue with the mentally ill and antisocial chaps stealing from everyone, I'm just saying that my direct experience doesn't match what one would expect when reading headlines or outraged people on online forums. I lived in Argentina before and I was home invaded at gunpoint once, mugged on the street once, and fended off muggers on the street countless times, so maybe I'm just not a good reference because Mission St. between 16th and 24th was the safest place I lived in my life until I moved to Noe Valley.

[EricE]

So SF isn't as bad as the third world? Whew - what a relief /s

The amount of utter BS people in CA are willing to put up with never ceases to amaze me. Which is why I find it harder and harder to have any sympathy. At this time we might as well let it all burn down - maybe then people will finally get off their asses and vote for anyone other than the current crop of utter moron politicians that are literally destroying the state.

When CA goes from the most prosperous state to loosing enough pop to get demoted a representative in the House - you'd think that would be enough of a wake up call that shit democrat policies might not be such a good idea. But here we continue to remain talking about this stuff while nothing changes.

The faster it all just burns to the ground the faster it might get rebuilt into something that's not a literal needle infested pile of shit :/

[dragonwriter]

> When CA goes from the most prosperous state to loosing enough pop to get demoted a representative in the House

It didn't lose any population. Because of the fixed size of the House, you can lose a rep while gaining population (in California’s case, gaining more than 2.2 million between the 2010 and 2020 census.) Also, apportionment isn't tied at all to prosperitt; California didn't get any less relatively prosperous to lose a seat, so your “going from...” doesn't make any sense, even ignoring the factual error about losing population.

[pvarangot]

No, it's better than the third world. You are arguing with yourself, no one said it's as bad as the third world. I literally said it's the safest place I've ever lived in my life.

[stjohnswarts]

Yeah I leave mine open all the time when I go on store runs as I figure it increases the life of my garage door opener by a fair bit. I've never had anything stole (I have a camera system and alarm would go off if they had because of motion sensors)

[TheSocialAndrew]

In large cities on the east coast we didn't run into this problem because nearly every new development had a doorman.

In the Bay Area and LA many apartment buildings don't have a front desk, they have a leasing office that may or may not be open, and typically keeps odd hours.

With the exception of high-rises, new developments in SF and South Bay with under 200 units typically don't have a front desk.

They do have security patrol come in for a couple of hours nightly, but they're not supposed to get involved and just take notes of suspicious activity, then email it to the leasing office to review the next day. Security will call the police if it's blatant theft of break-in, but they rarely catch it because this is one person patrolling a garage and endless hallways for just a few hours each night. When the security patrol car is by the building entrance, they can return a couple of hours later to steal packages, break into the bike room, break into cars, open lockboxes, etc.

However, things got out of hand significantly during the pandemic. Package theft and mailbox theft started happening during daylight hours. At one building in Mountain View they stole the USPS master key as the mail carrier had the boxes open putting in the mail. One leasing agent was assaulted during a tour and the keys & fobs were stolen.

You can't fight this type of crime by having a security guard in every area of every building. The issue is rooted in that the thieves and squatters know that they will get away with it. The criminals became bolder and even if confronted by a security guard, they have no more power than your average citizen has. They can just observe and take notes.

[EricE]

Bah - SF DA's will not prosecute anything so it wouldn't matter if the buildings had doormen or not.

I'm not sure why it's so hard to for people to understand when you don't prosecute all crime, crime starts to bubble up and grow rampant but here you go. None of this is a surprise to anyone paying the least bit of attention to what has been going on in CA for a long time now. We are seeing in real time the effects of this grand experiment - how many people's lives and livelihoods have to be destroyed before CA residents start demanding real accountability?

I'm not holding my breath. Just stay in CA. Do not leave and then start to shit up other states with your batshit crazy politics too.

[simmanian]

Is there an article I can read to understand the reasoning behind not booking anyone for non-violent crime? I'm looking to understand the nuances of the issue instead of taking a political side.

[dfxm12]

The pandemic closed and limited a lot of civic services, including courts, to where there was no room/time to process everything. This meant things had to be prioritized and usually it is violent crime that takes precedence. Things that boil down to non-violent he said, she said situations aren't worth the time in that situation. Before looking deeper into this topic, I think that needs to be understood. It's not as much a political policy with sides as it is a response to a pandemic.

[jfrunyon]

Because they're not a threat to society, have not been determined to be guilty, and throwing people in jail (only to bond out anyway a couple days later, in most cases - funneling more money to bondsmen) is a great way to (a) spread a pandemic and (b) waste money giving them what they want (shelter, food, healthcare, etc.)?

[caddemon]

A dude swiping some snacks from Target I can understand, but people that break into private residences are definitely a threat to society. It is easy for that to escalate into a violent encounter and it makes people feel legitimately unsafe living in the city.

[kmlx]

> Because they're not a threat to society

how are they not a threat to society?

[stjohnswarts]

A lot of people have gotten soft on petty (and misdemeanor) non violent crimes and assume everyone is a criminal with a heart of gold "just trying to make it out there". I have been very poor before and living out of my car, I never stole one thing or broke into and squatted in any houses. If I had I would not have soiled the place up and taken stuff on my way out. I was raised with better morals than that. If I were a Californian I would be tired of the excuses the far left come up with to excuse petty crimes and lawlessness. I think it will come full circle in the next few years though as the crooks get bolder with the breakins and flash mob robberies.

[pbalau]

Maybe the pandemic?

[bsder]

Or, you could, like, lower the rent so someone is willing to live there?

But, see, your financing would require you to cough up cash if the basis changes. And everything related to housing has become a Ponzi scheme to extract money from the people trying to simply find somewhere to live.

In this case, you have chosen to prefer to leave the rent high and let squatters break into your units rather than drop the rent and have residents.

I believe we refer to this as "the hand of the free market".

[TheSocialAndrew]

Short-term housing is different, if you lower rates below a certain threshold you are competing with local motels but you are offering a residential space governed by a different set of laws.

In other words, low-cost short-term housing attracts people that can book a stay for one month that will continue to occupy the space and stop paying until the eviction is processed. Eviction is a 3 to 6 month process in most counties in California, and it typically costs $10k-$15k. That was before the pandemic, evictions were completely suspended since.

Short-term housing / corporate housing does not require proof of income, credit check, etc. That would create a barrier of entry that would deter the majority of the clients; they would flock to the first available Airbnb. These travelers are typically staying for a couple of months and don't want to go through the hassle of lease approvals, agreements, credit checks, etc. Many of them are foreign and unable to provide the documentation necessary for a typical lease agreement.

You do make a valid point, however. Rent should be driven down as the market dictates.

For long-term rentals (your typical 1 or 2 year lease agreement with the building) there is another reason why rent does not drop significantly: most of the large rental buildings are owned by banks. There are clauses where if the rent per unit drops under a certain amount, the interest rates increase. There are several other clauses that disincentivize rent decreases. In addition, not every investor in a real estate investment trust has the same terms. When things go south (rent drops, operating costs increase, rate of evictions increases), investors that hold a fraction of the REIT will be the ones taking that loss, while institutional investors that provided the majority of the loan are protected. Thus it's in the interest of the more powerful investors or lenders to keep the rent where it is, and let the smaller investors take the loss.

We as property managers, whether long term or short term, can only fluctuate the rent within a certain margin. It's easy to oversimplify as "why can't you just drop the price", but there are bigger players that hold the cards, and they decide what the rent is, and if units are to remain vacant, who will be taking that loss. And it's the new guy that just entered an REIT with a mere $100k.

[pvarangot]

Did you try lowering rent? Because I moved out a similar place mostly because they wouldn't lower rent and everything else got cheaper.

[vmception]

I try to tell people that California is not “a market based economy” right now

But honestly even that euphemism is an insult to state capital systems that incorporate marxist ideology, as those systems tax lower and have better private property assurances